Commercial Photographer: Your Guide to Marketing, Creativity and Growth

Pete is a New York headshot and portrait Photographer and musician. Peter started photography and music at the same time as a teenager. As a musician Pete is a Jazz musician. And he spent lots of time learning the music of the Jazz masters. He spent time working out bass lines of great jazz music. As you do this over time you start to absorb their work into your style and then develop your own style. And Pete then took this approach to photography. First he started working with New York headshot and portrait Photographer and musicians Peter started photography and music at the same time as a teenager. As a musician Pete is a Jazz musician. And he spent lots of time learning the music of the Jazz masters. He spent time working out bass lines of great jazz music. As you do this over time you start to absorb their work into your style and then develop your own style. And Pete then took this approach to photography. First he started working with Peter Hurley doing what Peter told him and absorbing his style. He then moved on to working with Ivan Weiss. Over time he has worked with others and used these to develop his own style. Sam asks how you can learn from a photographer at a distance if you can’t speak to them. Pete says he did this with Dan Winters and he did work on replicating one of his photographs, from the composition to the lighting to every other element. He says you will learn so much more from this than looking at it in a book. Marcus thinks that photographers don’t look at their history in the same way that musicians do. Pete says to be really good you need to go back and study the past masters before you can move forward with new style. He also says you can’t bypass this process. You can go back before photography and study art as well. Pete says he came into photography through mentorship, no training. This has become easier with digital technology so you can work with photographers in different parts of the world. Pete now coaches photographers himself and he has a Facebook group associated with this. They discuss the similarities between Spotify in music and stock libraries in photography. Pete thinks it’s best to avoid both as they are a very hard way to make money. Pete says professionalism is important both in music and photography. He has been at gigs where people turn up late, don’t dress appropriately and more. It’s important that you realise in both cases this is a business and you need to carefully think about that. He says some photographers don’t return peoples phone calls. That is bad practice, gives a bad impression and loses you work. Marcus suggests that like musicians concerts are an experience, a photoshoot should be an experience. Sam takes us back to the discussion about Spotify and Shutter Stock and says whenever you use a platform go in with your eyes wide open as that will always be making money for the platform rather than you. Sometimes the platform is useful enough to make it worthwhile but be aware of that the platform are getting from that. Marcus has a selection of Photographers who are musiciansMilt Hinton is one that Pete comes up with. He documented his life in images. Marcus's are: Ansel Adams was a concert pianist as well as a photographer Graham Nash from Crosby Stills and Nash is a photographer Brian Adams also became a photographer.doing what Peter told him and absorbing his style. He then moved on to working with

Marcus used film for fifteen years. He thinks using film will develop your technique. He says it is magical seeing your own photo being developed on a dark room. Film slows you down and makes you think. Also black and white film will make you appreciate black and white photography and help you with your digital black and white images.   If you want to buy a film camera they have got more expensive than they used to be as they are becoming popular with collectors. A film camera may be around £250. Marcus says films start at around £6 a roll. Marcus doesn’t see the point of using colour film for this. He thinks the key is using black and white and developing it yourself. Marcus says that Nikon F-Mounts mean that you can use modern lenses on an old body. That isn’t the same with all manufacturers. To develop film you also need some equipment and you can get this quite cheaply on ebay.   To develop an image the film needs to go into a light tight tank and have some chemicals added. After a few minutes the film will be developed. Marcus says this needs to be done in a light tight room or a bag. The rooms doesn’t have to be 100% dark. Marcus used to use his cupboard under the stairs at night.  After it’s developed the film is washed and then needs to be dried out. At this point the work can be done in light. Most of creativity is done when printing images, but there is some creative things you can do at this development stage. The rest of the work needs a dark room, but you can have a red light bulb so you can see what you are doing. You can use a room in your house or clubs and local colleges may have dark rooms you can use. You do need an enlarger which is a more expensive piece of kit. But you can rent them and get them second hand on ebay. Printing the image involves 3 trays, each with different chemicals in. Marcus used to do this on an ironing board. Once you start this process there is lots of things you can control, for example the contrast. There is then dodging and burning which is about making different parts of the image darker or lighter. You can actually add colour tints as well such as sepia. And then finally the paper choice itself makes a difference the end result. Marcus says the development process is an experience in itself which is worth doing. He says having to pay for every shot on the film makes you slow down and think carefully.

This week the guest is Christine Saunders. Christine is an art buyer, producer and business coach for professional photographers. She helps photographers curate their websites to show their best works and ultimately get more work. Sam asks what is Christine helping these photographers with and why are they coming to her? Christine says she helps photographers help them see themselves more as CEO of a business. Think about all of the departments the CEO of coca cola might have. Generally photographers are great at the creativity and often get help with the accounting side, but there is much more to business than this. Especially marketing. How to create a business plan a marketing plan where you are consistently reaching out to promote yourself. Christine says a marketing plan is a hugely important part of being seen and getting work. But she also works in all sorts of others areas of the business helping to develop this. So she isn’t an agent she is more like a business partner. Sam asks about target audience and how to decide who your target audience is. Christine says she does a lot of brain storming this with clients starting from the sort of photography they do and the sort of clients they want to work with. Christine doesn’t work with any particular genre of photographer, she more works with photographers filling gaps in their business. Christine says by the nature of being a creative photographers have sensitivities. Christine is asking them to reach out and be more visible, but many don’t feel happy doing that and so she supports them. Marcus asks how the market has changed for photographer since the start of the century. Back then there was no digital photography, no smart phones and no global campaigns. before different areas would run different campaigns from different photographers now it's more global. Getty has come in which has been good and bad for photographers. Some have thrived from this while others felt it has done a lot of damage. Marcus thinks a third one is the amount of people who are commercial photographers. Christine agrees that the number who are coming into the industry is very large. Sam asks if she helps photographers with pricing. She says that is something she helps with and she has stopped photographers not going in too low and to value themselves. Sometimes this means charging for extra things on top of the standard shoot fee. She says a lot of photographers do go in too low with price, but there is a balance here. She says it is also worth asking the client what budget they have. They won’t always tell you this and it can be challenging, but usually someone has a budget, but they won’t always share it with you. Marcus brings up licensing, being paid for the use of your images. He says in the US licensing is standard while this isn’t the case except in the very top of the market in the UK. Christine seems less sure about this. She says that in much of the work she does then these recurring fees are collected. She also says if people want usage of the images included then that should be done under restrictions, such as a five year limit. Sam asks how photographers who do hide behind the camera a little could start to come out of their shell. Christine says go to any industry events you can. Photo London has just been on. These are great places to get inspired. You can also often get a portfolio review at these events. Another thing they could do is send some emails to people they already know. Marcus asks what photographers can do to aim for the top of their industry. She says she sees a lot of talent and it feels like she is the only one who sees it. She says step out there. Showing your work to the world even if it imperfect is a lot better than only you and your Mum seeing it. Also remember this is a business. It always needs to be looked at as a business, you need to step into those other roles.      

Sarah J Naylor is a lifestyle success coach and mentor. She helps people at crossroads in their life. Often a midlife point where you suddenly start asking questions about where you are and what you are doing. She works to help people understand what fires them up, how they want their life to looks and helps them work towards that. It is also about how you see your life and having the gratitude for what you have already. Marcus asks Sarah to define mid-life. Sarah says it’s around 40 to 60, but age is just a number.  Sam says that kids leaving home could prompt that mid life re-assessment of who you are and what you do. Sam refers back to a recent podcast with Allie Crewe and she at that mid life, stopped teaching and became a photographer. Sarah has had quite a journey coming through a divorce and becoming a single parent to setting up her own business during a recession. Sarah says when she was married she now feels her life was on hold. Sam says there are people that are amateur photographers who would like to go pro, but aren’t sure about it and are worried about it. He asks what Sarah would say to people like that. Sarah has a client in a similar situation with a photography degree, but has lost her confidence in taking photographs. Sarah says the key is just do it. Do what you enjoy. Find the thing that fires you up and do it. Don’t worry about trying to get business from it, just do the type of photography you enjoy ad it fires you up. Sarah says you will then start to get work based on that work. Marcus totally agrees with this approach. Sarah then talks about lifestyle, income and what you want. The key is work out what you want and aim towards that. It might be you want to travel the world, so in that case you could work on how can earn money while travelling, rather than working hard to be able to afford it. Don’t focus on the money, but equally do value yourself. Sam points out that this is linked to business planning, working out where you want to be and getting there. You can listen to this show here. Sarah says also that small shifts in your life can make the biggest differences in your life. Leading on from this Marcus asks how you get from A to B. Sarah says the first thing is working out in detail what B looks like. Until you have this in place you can’t go anywhere. You then need to be mindful of your words, thoughts and actions. Step into the shoes of the person you want to be. Be positive. Be aware of the opportunities coming your way and take the ones that help you get to B. She says there is a balance here. Don’t fake it until you make it, but you do have to step into the shoes of the person you want to be. So say “I am a photographer” make it positive. Marcus summarises Sarah’s approach into three steps 1.Be clear where you want to go 2. Step into those shoes and own it 3. Be the best version of yourself Sarah loves this summary and says that covers it well. Be yourself and step into your own future. Don’t let others pull you down. Surround yourself with great people who support you.    

Are you a photographer looking to get more leads for your commercial photography business? In this episode, we're talking about Google Ads. We'll cover the pros and cons of using paid ads, the crucial research you need to do before you start, and a simple strategy that ensures your ads actually work for your business.Three Things You'll Learn in This Episode• The key difference between Google Ads and other marketing methods for commercial photography. Discover why ads give you instant results, what the downsides are, and how they can either be a fantastic investment or a total waste of money.• The crucial maths you need to do before you spend a penny. We'll break down the simple calculation that will tell you exactly how much you can afford to spend on ads to ensure you always turn a profit.• The one thing you must get right for your ads to work. Find out why simply sending people to your homepage is a disaster and how to create a simple, effective flow that turns clicks into paying customers.

Meg is from San Deago, our first guest from the US. Meg is a brand photographer, and has worked with over 300 entrepreneurs. She always wanted to work in an area she had passion in. Twenty seven jobs later she started to work it out. While teaching English in Taiwan she bought a camera and started a travel blog. On her return to the US she decided she really loved photography and so started a business. She started doing all types of photography. Then one day someone asked her to do some branding photographs and this converted her to brand photographer. That business changing brand shoot was seven years ago. At that time photography was still a part time job. So then she started going to networking groups and meeting more business owners. Meg describes brand photography as bring broken down into brand photography and personal brand photography. Brand photography is for a product or business. While the personal brand is for the solo entrepreneur, one man band or family business. The personal branding is what Meg really likes doing. In this age of social media these branding photographs are so important for businesses. Meg now works less, adds more value and charges higher prices which allows her to spend time with her toddlers.  She enjoys the flexibility that a brand photographer can bring.  She enjoys the creativity of brand photography. If you want to get into brand photography then first of all spend some time getting to know how it works. A client will often have a bigger budget than a personal client. But you need to ensure you let them know what value they will get from your work. Meg also says the planning side of a brand shoot is essential and a key part of the this type of work. This is about finding out about their personality, brand , business and the end use for the photos. Getting in front of as many ideal clients is really important. It’s a numbers game. The more people you can get in front of the more clients and the better clients you will gain. This is a part of the business photographers don’t necessarily enjoy but it is vital for a thriving business. Marcus asks what makes a branding photograph different from a portrait. Meg says it tells a story. You want to try and capture the essence of what a business is through the use of photography. Meg says that although we say the photography market is saturated, this is not unique. Many other industries are the same and businesses in those industries need photography to make them stand out from the crowd.   Marcus and Meg agree that in branding the coffee cup and computer and overused, although they have both used them. They say that you need to get more creative than this. How could a brand photographer go beyond this? Props, location and wardrobe can help and make the photos more unique and interesting.  

Jamie runs Circle networks and he used to be a reluctant networker. Back in 2013 he had to go networking to find customers for his social media business. At the time most businesses were not on social media, so he had to go and find them. But he fell in love with networking and it took him on a long journey. Jamie says the business was providing social media for businesses that weren’t using it at all. It was mainly Twitter. When Jamie started business he wanted to be able to do the school run. On that basis he never did breakfast networking. One of Jamie’s clients pestered him for weeks and then he eventually went and enjoyed it and got some business. When he started networking he was offered training, which he thought he didn’t need. Then Jamie eventually did some networking training. Using the training he moved from getting £18k of work in a year from networking to £88k a year. Jamie says we have all experienced just going networking and pottering along, but few of us think of training. His business also involved getting video testimonials which he enjoyed doing. That got busy and took him all over the country, which wasn’t what he wanted to do. And people started to approach him for networking training, He eventually moved his business to doing that. He says it is around understanding what it is you really want. Jamie says before networking, he thought carefully about who he wanted to work with. He decided he wanted to work with a franchisee. His plan was to do excellent work with one franchisee, get referred to others. This worked well and in the end he also ended up working for the head office. All from doing a little planning before going networking.   Marcus thinks most people are just “winging it” in networking rather than planning. Jamie also says what you would wear to networking should be the same as what you would wear to meet a dream client. He says for Zoom meetings many people don’t make any effort at all.  He also talks about what people see on the background of your Zoom calls. Marcus has some lighting which shows exactly what he does. Marcus also says he has made Zoom backgrounds that were slide shows of his work and people loved it at the networking events. Jamie’s top networking tips 1. Prepare. Don’t just jump from one call to another with no breaks and no planning. 2. Arrive early. You would never arrive late for an in person event so don’t online 3. Go networking with one thing in mind. It might be you are looking for support, a recommendation, an accountant or anything else,  but go with one aim in mind. If you are going for referrals. Have one in mind and be crystal clear. Treat it like a marketing campaign. You could do it as simple as explain who your latest client is or your ideal client is. You want people in the room to be able to filter all the people they know down to one, who they will introduce them to. 4. Be proactive with referrals. Go out and find people to refer, don’t just refer people you happen to come across. Jamie says for example while speaking to people he asked them if they had business insurance and then when it needed renewing. If the renewals were coming up he would pass them on to a connection who sold insurance.   Jamie has a photographer he works with on quarterly shoots. He says his face is his personal logo. Using photographs of ourselves is not showing off, it’s personal branding. He also says that as he’s used more professional photos he has found his social media reach expand. Most people though don’t know the value they would get from professional photos. It is therefore important that photographers explain what value they deliver with a photoshoot.  So while networking talk about your clients and then the follow up is really important. Jamie said he made a decision to pass more referrals than ever before. And as a result of that he has been passed more referrals than ever before.

Marcus says the show was triggered by a client he had recently who wanted images cropped in a very specific way. Back in the days of film Marcus says it was a lot simpler and to some photographers it was a badge of honour not to crop their images. There were of course a great deal of different film sized and ratios back then including: 35mm – which were a 2x3 ratio 6cmx6cm so a 1x1 ratio 6x7 ratio was also possible for magazine covers. Large format 5x4 was also available There also camera specifically for panoramic images that were a range of formats and sizes. Back then once you had chosen your film that was about it. Now with websites and social media these is so more to think about and so many different sizes. And when shooting you need to think about what crop you will use at the end. For example a website header might be a 2:1 ratio, quite cinematic, while an Instagram reel will be 16x9 in portrait mode, which is very challenging to shoot. Sam says when shooting for a website you need to remember that the images will be auto-croppped so it needs to cope with a range of crops. Marcus says when shooting a website banner think first about if there will be text over the image. If there will be ask for an overlay so you can work out where the text would go on the image. View finders allow you to have crop marks (like rule of thirds) and these can help you think about the final crop you will have. There are lots of sizes needed for social. For example for a profile banner a really wide thin shot is needed. Because there is such a range of image sized needed it’s important to ask the client what the client is going to use the images for. It’s a great value add for the customers providing them with pre-cropped images for different platforms and uses. Doing this also ensure that your images are shown in their best light when used. Marcus loved the square Instagram photograph format, but with the move to reels being more popular, then this is a move away from squares to 16x9 portrait. As he has said before this is a challenging format to shoot in. When thinking about cropping you also need to think about file size. If you are going to heavily crop an image you need to ensure it is a large file size that can cope with the crop. Marcus suggests another thing that can make you stand out from other photographers is making videos from still images and giving them to your client. Marcus suggests using Canva for this and Sam suggests using CapCut. Marcus says making gifs for clients is another thing you can do them.  

Jo wants to help people who don’t want an average vision. She asks them if the level of effort they are putting in reflects in their bank balance, but for most people that is not the case. Jo finds that most people don’t know how to sell or land business. Once she helps them with that they can afford her and move everything else forward. One of the things Jo shows people is that it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s how you present yourself that is important. And once they do that the work follows. Jo says she helps people present themselves in the best possible way. But there is a problem. People can see her, and in many ways photography, as a luxury. So a photographer needs to show a potential customer what they are going to gain from the photography, and what losses will be avoided. Marcus explains what she is saying follows a Japanese philosophy he follows Ikigai. It has four tenants. Jo has mentioned two of them. Getting paid for what you do and adding value. Jo says if you don’t believe in yourself you are never going to get work. She also says the prices needed to reflect your value. And if you are very good at what you do, charge accordingly.  The conversation then moved onto mindset and Jo says the key is that it is simple. But that doesn’t mean it is easy. The first step is self awareness. Be able to see the  doubts and negativity in your mind. That awareness then flows onto to the changes being possible. They discuss the Jeff Olson book The Slight Edge that talks about this gradual change. In Marcus Galdwells Outliers he says you have to put 10,000 hours into something to become an expert. Jo says it is a journey and you need to enjoy that journey. Ask what a confident person would do and how would they behave.  Jo says awareness and little and often changes are really key. That self awareness and confidence is vital to the process of photography. Jo says it’s important that this inner confidence is important. And that the work on improving ourselves is vital every day.  Not many people like their photograph being taken and so that confidence and calmness is essential. Jo likens your self confidence to being on a perch. If you have self belief and self confidence then day to day issues won’t knock you off your perch. But if your confidence is not in place, you can easily be knocked off your perch. Marcus brings up the idea of melancholia and getting creativity from the darker times. Jo says that everyone will go though these times but what’s vital is that when you go through this you are aware what is happening and being aware that “this too shall pass”. Working through it is more possible with strength and resilience.   Other book recommendations Beyond positive thinking, Dr Robert Anthony The courage to be disliked    As a final thought Marcus brings up sods law, which he thinks he is effected by. Jo says here partly this is about letting go and saying what am I doing this day to make this day count. 

 This episode is sponsored by Website for photographers. Website 4 photographers help photographers get more leads from their websites. You can get in touch here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠info@website4photographers.co.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠01482 765871⁠ This week Sam is talking about using Google Business and Google maps for your business. Google maps is great for photographers, as most photographers want local clients. Google maps is the app we all know where you can find your nearest hairdresser, or photographer. Google maps gets it's information from Google business, or Google my business as it used to be known. Google business is a system that is free to use and easy to setup. It gives your business a pin on Google maps, information on Google maps and information about your business appears on the right hand side during a desktop Google search. For photographers that work all over the country Google maps isn’t that useful. But, for those wanting local clients it is very valuable and can get you a lot of local leads. If you get your Google maps account setup correctly it can delivery a lot of leads. Location For most photographers the location for your business is their house. For a few it is a studio, but most are home based. If your home is in a large urban area, like Marcus here in Bristol, then your location really helps as you have lots of potential leads nearby. If you live out in the sticks it is more challenging for Google maps to deliver good results for you. If your location is in the middle of no where one option is to pay for a local virtual address in a local urban area. You can often pay co-working spaces or accountants for a virtual address service. NameIf your business name has photographer in the name that really helps. Fancy names are a nice idea in theory, but if your business has photographer, or something like brand photographer in the name that will really help you getting found on maps.   Category Google business gives you a choice primary and secondary categories and you need to think carefully before choosing these. If you are a general photographer then your main category is photographer. You can then add other sub-categories for the types of photography you offer.  But if you are a wedding photographer you may want wedding photographer as your main category. The key is plan this carefully. Also some types of photography, such as brand photography are not categories that exist. Review These are really important. Get customers to leave reviews for you on Google. This is very important for Google maps and SEO in general. Lots of reviews and recent reviews are really important.  Keep pestering your customers to give them reviews. Do not simply ask once and forget about it. Keep asking until they leave you one. If you search for ‘photographers’ in your area in Google maps, most of the photographers there will have lots of reviews.   Services This is important. Get all of your services onto Google business. List as many as you can. And for every service use all the space that is available in the description. You can break your services down into sub services to add more. Photographs Adding photographs in Google maps as a photographer is essential. Add as many as you like. Description You get to add a large description of your business. Use all the space you have available. Think carefully about what you say. Posts You can post on Google maps. It seems odd and gets almost no interaction. But, it means when people find you on Google maps they can see recent content from you. It also helps you getting found. Look at your competition Look at the other photographers locally, see what their Google business account is like. Then work on your to make it better than theirs Google search Remember your entry in Google maps will show up in a standard Google search as well as Google maps search.