Welcome! In this article we will examine album image selection as a value added service. I’ll preface our conversation by noting that there are many ways to approach image selection, such as letting clients select their album images, and there is no right or wrong way. It is about what works best for you, your business and your clients. The views expressed here are generated from my many conversations with photographers over the years.
Furthering the thinking from my last article, which can be found by clicking here, leads me to an organic conclusion that image selection is a value added service you provide for your clients. It will add more value and prestige to your business that ends with a high level of customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to an increased bottom line. To achieve that end result, keep the album as a treasured item for your client and a mobile marketing piece for you, the selected images must be a limited amount of THE BEST OF THE BEST.
Your clients picked you for their photography needs! They truly paid for your art, products and services. Consider these questions; does the typical bride know how to pick out a limited number of your best pictures to produce the most amazing album possible? Is the groom going to be able to help her? Are they going to consider how the images will look on the page? Will they be overwhelmed trying to decide between the pictures you show them? Will they want so many images that you will have to make a collage page? Will a collage page highlight your photographic art? Will a page like that actually be dramatic enough to capture their moment? Is she going to want to slide in pictures from a friend’s point and shoot? How much time will you spend retouching all these images for them?
With a limited amount of your best pictures you are making your album designing experience better. This is because you will not have to retouch “x” number of images, and you will also be able to deliver a higher quality album for them in a quick turnaround time. For instance, when a couple returns from their honeymoon are they ready to take care of their post-wedding photographic needs immediately? Or do they need to write a whole lot of thank you cards? How long will it take them to pick their images? How much time will you allow them to decide on their images? By letting them pick their images you are actually allowing the perceived value of your work to diminish day-by-day. The importance of the album goes down along with opportunities for print sales. Therefore, by providing image selection as a service, you will have the album designed by the time they return from their honeymoon and delivered before they finish their thank you cards.
As a professional photographer you provide the best possible customer experience backed with great services and products in order to ensure repeat business. If they pick their images, how stressful will all this be for you as the photographer and for your client? Is your client going to abide by your rules and regulations to must have and additional images? Forget about all this nonsense affecting your business’s growth. Make the overall album experience easier on you and your client by selecting the images as a value added service. The key to true profitability is efficiency, higher quality products and services, decreased waste, well managed operations, increased perceived value and increased client satisfaction levels.
By providing album image selection as a service, you heighten your service value and prestige, lead to true profitability, take the stress out of image selection, gain back your marketing piece, wow clients and their friends and you will have a great time while doing so, especially since you did not have to retouch 200 images for the album! Next time we will be talking about the relationship between image selection and album design.
Jay Michael Stevens
Forbeyon's Customer Care Manager
Forbeyon is the photographer's sole album destination
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If you’ve been a professional photographer for any amount of time, you’ve had friends and family ask you to shoot their wedding, birthday, or portrait. For amateur photographers, this can be a great opportunity to build a portfolio in a more relaxed environment. But for the working professional, this situation could end in a nightmare unless you treat it very carefully. For this reason, many photographers refuse to work for friends, afraid of repeating a bad experience that they or a colleague had. But if you keep a few things in mind, working for friends and family can be a rewarding experience that is beneficial for both you the photographer as well as your friend or relative.
Making sure the whole process runs smoothly starts when your friend or family member asks you to photograph them. Nothing is more critical at this first step than ensuring that you understand their true expectations. Look out for dangerous phrases like “snap some photos” and “take a few shots”. Very rarely does anyone actually want just a few snapshots. Otherwise they wouldn’t have asked you. A fellow photographer I am friends with recently spoke on the phone with another friend of ours about doing a few “quick” portraits of his daughter. What he described as “passport-style shots” turned out were going to be used as senior portraits. Had the photographer taken some boring passport photos, the girl would have surely been disappointed, and worse, would have expressed her disappointment to her friends. There’s a clear lesson in that story: ask questions, and don’t stop until you’re absolutely sure about your friend’s expectations. Whether they are direct about it or not, your friend is asking you to photograph them because they trust you. They trust you because they’ve seen your top quality work and level of professionalism. Don’t let them convince you that they are interested in anything but your best work.
More than trust, price almost always plays a factor in family and friends requesting your services as a photographer. Most people’s budgets are tighter these days, and you as their friend the professional photographer are a perfect way to fit in under budget for their wedding. There are several ways to approach pricing yourself in these situations, all of which are valid and depend on both your business and your relationship with your friend.
The first way is to charge your regular rate. If you are a busy wedding photographer and your friend’s wedding will fill a date you will likely get other inquiries for, this is a good option. Your second choice is to give your friends a discount. Lower your normal rate, and treat the discounted amount as your wedding gift to them. The third and final option is to only charge them for expenses, but not your time. To properly photograph an event, you’ll need assistant(s), possibly rental gear, and other items. Don’t ignore these or you may very well end up losing money by photographing them. This is only appropriate for photographers with low rates such that only charging for expenses would not be a huge discount. Notice that doing the event for free is not mentioned here. If your friend is not even willing to cover your costs, that likely indicates that photographing them will be far more trouble than it’s worth. When you don’t charge any money, you are no longer a professional, but a volunteer. If you cannot respect your business enough by charging friends and family members, they surely won’t respect the fact that you a professional.
Once you’ve agreed on a price, the worst mistake you can make is deciding that because you are such good friends, a contract is unnecessary. A contract ensures that both parties understand each other’s expectations and binds them to a set of terms. The same way a contract protects you in the event a regular client is unhappy, it ensures that you are not liable for anything outside of your friend of family’s expectations. What happens when your friend who just wanted you to take a few “family snapshots” at his wedding is upset that you haven’t delivered a stunning portrait of his bride? Photographers worry that insisting on a contract could upset their friend and damage their friendship. In reality, not signing a contract could do just that. Signing a contract and then having to use it to defend yourself to a friend is an unfortunate and uncomfortable experience, one that we all hope to never be part of. But having a friend sue you and demand that you pay for a restaged wedding and a new photographer will surely sever your relationship with that friend. Don’t opt to skip a contract. You’ll only be sorry later.
Photographing family and friends can be a fun experience. Because your subjects know you well, the session can be more relaxed and produce beautiful portfolio quality images. But if there is confusion about the expectations of the photographer and the client, it could also be your worst nightmare. A solid understanding of expectations and payment formalized in a contract will prevent future hassles. Be friendly, but be professional, but remember: make everyone’s expectations clear. With that in mind, have fun photographing your friends and family and providing them with beautiful images they will cherish forever.
Please leave a comment below, or join the PPBF to discuss this topic further.
Ben Drucker
PPBF Contributing Writer
Maplewood Event and Portrait Photographer: Ben Drucker Photography
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