Monthly Archives: August 2017

Taking Your Photography Business in a New Direction

It’s not uncommon for photographers to come into the industry with a burning passion for an area of the market, only to find that their early enthusiasm and drive gets worn away over time. This month I’ve been working with a photographer to help her move away from weddings and into pet photography. We’ve been talking about how to make that transition, and how to move from a moderately successful wedding photography business into a very successful pet photography business. Based on those discussions here are 5 tips for taking your photography business in a new direction.

When you are taking your photography business in a new direction, focus on the opportunity in front of you and not on any failures behind you

Tip #1 – Don’t Let Past Performance Define your Future Success

My observation is that most photographers who are changing direction in their photography business are not doing that because they’ve had too much success! While that’s possible, I’ve found that most are changing direction because they’ve lost the passion and drive for the area of the market they initially targeted, and that’s also reflected in the performance of their business.

In the case of the photographer I’ve been helping lately, she has grown tired of long days shooting weddings, managing wedding guests, driving to different locations, working with a wide variety of second shooters, and spending hours editing images. As a result her wedding business is not particularly strong. That is impacting her finances and her self-esteem.

So tip number one – don’t let that current circumstance affect your mental health or your confidence. Take it as feedback that you need to refine your business and refocus – not that success is beyond you.

I wrote this post about an important principle – it’s about progress not perfection. I believe that’s the case for every small business, regardless of the industry you are operating in. If you can adopt the outlook that it is about making progress in your business every day, then success will come your way.

Tip #2 – Be Very Clear on Your Target Market and Commit to It

When you are changing direction in your photography business it is very important to be clear on your target market and commit to it. In the case of the photographer I’ve been helping, she should try to avoid shooting any more weddings if she sees her future in shooting family’s pets.

As she moves into the world of pet photography she needs to clearly define who her potential clients will be. The more detailed she can be, the better. Consider these questions about your ideal client:

Where do they live?
What types of occupations do they have?
What family structure do they have?
What socio economic profile are they? What income levels?
What is important to them?
What type of photographic products do you expect to provide them with?
How much do you expect them to spend with you?
What do they do in their spare time?

Be specific about your target market. It will bring focus to your business and your actions

Tip #3 – Show appropriate work on your Website and Social Media profiles

Now that you are pushing forward and re-energised we need to make sure that the work we are showing to the world reflects the type of work we want to do, and the type of clients we want to attract.

The photographer I have been working with wants to do studio pet photography. So it’s important that she shows studio based pet photography on her marketing materials. The easiest and arguably the most important are your website and your social media profiles. Resist the temptation to share old wedding work if you see your future in pet photography. Share studio pet images if this is the type of image you are going to build your business on.

Tip #4 – Network in Your New Space

If you want to accelerate your move into a new market, network in that new space. The rewards will justify the effort. Get to know people who share your passion.

Start with making a list of possible networking contacts – for the pet photographer this could be pet stores, dog training schools, vets, animal hospitals, or animal care organisations. Then research which ones are local to you. Visit them. Get to know the people. Ask how your business could support their business or organisation. See if you can refer your clients to them, and ask if they will refer clients to you.

Effectively networking in the new area will accelerate the development of your business.

While you take your photography business in a new direction you will have a lot to juggle. Network in your new space to accelerate your business.

Tip #5 – Leverage Your Previous Clients

I’m known for preaching that the key to a successful photography business is a growing number of happy clients. Don’t complicate things. Ask yourself – today, do I have more happy clients than I had last month?

When you are looking to move your photography business into a different area, leverage those strong client relationships. Get in touch with the couple whose wedding you shot last September and explain that you are moving into pet photography and ask if they know people who’d appreciate your style of images. People like to make referrals to their friends. Use this to your advantage and ask them to help you establish a new direction for your business. Those strong client relationships you’ve built up are an asset to you and your business. Use them as you move your business in a new direction.

Other resources

I’m a regular reader of Cole’s Classroom. It is an online resource covering a wide variety of photography topics. They recently had an interesting post about when you are trying to grow your photography business in a new geographic location. Check out 5 Tips For Growing Your Photography Business in a New Area.

If you are considering repositioning your photography business I hope that Taking Your Photography Business in a New Direction has been useful for you. Happy shooting!

4 Lessons from this Month’s Stock Photo Sales

I have written extensively about stock photography for Beyond Here, and it continues to be a core part of my photography business. I shoot a lot and often have several stock photo series on the go at once. As a contributor to iStockphoto sales are reported once a month (around the 20th of each month) and payment is also made once per month (by the 25th). We are now near the end of August 2017 and so I’ve just received sales reports and payment for July 2017. July is often a fairly weak month (read this post on What is the Summer Slowdown in Stock Photography) but this year July has been my second best month of the year. Why would that be? I’ve done some analysis and here are 4 lessons from this month’s stock photo sales.

Let’s look at the analysis first.

51% of my iStock sales generated a royalty of less than USD $1 each

For the month of July you can see that I had a lot of downloads where the royalty I received was very small. For just over half of my downloads (51% to be precise) the royalty I received for the client licencing my image was less than USD $1. It’s scary how little the photographer makes from these downloads. For 30% of my downloads I received between USD $1 and $5. For 10% of the downloads I received a royalty of USD $5 – $20, for 4 downloads I received a royalty between USD $20 and $100, and for 2 downloads I received a royalty of more than USD $100.

Royalty income of between $5 and $20 per download generated one third of total royalties

When we turn that into total revenue you can see that the 51% of downloads which generate a royalty of less than $1 combine to add up to just 6% of my total royalty income for the month. And at the other end of the spectrum, 2 large sales account for more than 10%.

When we combine these, you get the picture below.

Royalties of over $5 represented 13% of total downloads, but 70% of total royalties

So what does this all mean? And what are the 4 lessons from this month’s stock photo sales?

Lesson 1 – Expect volatility in your monthly stock photo income.

A few large sales had a significant impact on my royalty income for the month. Without those larger sales July would have been very mediocre. Unfortunately those larger sales don’t happen every month, and so there is going to be a lot of volatility in monthly royalty income. The larger and more diverse your portfolio is, the less volatility you will have. And a smaller portfolio with a narrower range of content is likely to have much higher volatility.

I have more than 10,000 images in my portfolio and still experience a lot of volatility.

Lesson 2 – Higher value sales do still happen

My highest royalty from an individual sale this month was USD $114. That is a good royalty from the sale of just one file. I’d prefer if these types of royalties occurred more often but it is nice to know they still happen.

Lesson 3 – Larger sales happen in unique collections

My larger sales this month all happened through the Getty Images website rather than the iStockphoto site or partner program sites. To get images onto the Getty website I upload through iStockphoto and nominate them into the Signature+ collection. If they are approved in the Signature+ collection they are automatically mirrored onto the Getty website. So getting more images into Signature+ is important for generating higher value sales.

Lesson 4 – There’s no money to be made at the low price, high volume end of the market

51% of my total sales this month generated very little income. Most of those sales were of very generic imagery where there is high demand but also high supply. While it’s nice to have your work downloaded, my experience is that there is no money to be made in low price, high volume generic images. I’m going to continue to focus on unique imagery and leave this end of the market to others.

It was nice to have a strong royalty income month in July. I hope the 4 lessons from this month’s stock photo sales are helpful in your own stock photography journey. Keep shooting!

Pretty Cool Personalized Camera Strap

This week I celebrated passing a milestone in my stock photography work. I started contributing to iStock in 2008. At that time there was a limit of 15 uploads per week. A lot has changed in stock photography and for iStock itself since then, and this week I had my 10,000th photo added to the collection. So what has that got to do with a pretty cool personalized camera strap? I’ll get to that!

For the last 10 years I’ve been able to average 1000 uploads per year to my stock portfolio in addition to other work. This year I’ve really knuckled down, and have gone from 9,000 to 10,000 photos on iStock in just 5 months.

How have I done that? These 2 posts from Beyond Here helped me make a step change in my stock photography output. Check out How to Drive Change in Your Photography Business and Two Great Sayings Photography Business Owners Should Know.

The personalized camera strap arrived in a funky branded box

So where does a pretty cool personalized camera strap come in?

To celebrate the milestone of reaching 10,000 stock images I splashed out on a personalized camera strap from Luckystraps.

I’ve always disliked the branded camera strap which comes with Canon camera bodies. I particularly dislike that the strap has the name of the model on the strap. For potential thieves it makes it very easy to know which camera to try to steal. As a user of full frame camera bodies I’d prefer those potential thieves don’t know the model and value of my camera.

Luckystraps are based in Australia but ship worldwide

So this week, I checked out the leather camera straps from Luckystraps. They have an interesting range, and I particularly like the classic look of their leather camera strap. They offer a service to emboss the strap and so I had my name added. It’s a pretty cool personalized camera strap.

Even more impressive was that I ordered the strap on the Tuesday, and it was delivered on Thursday. Nice work.

If you are interested in a personalized camera strap – check out Luckystraps.

Note: It turns out that Luckystraps is run by a guy called Justin in Bendigo, Australia. Bendigo is one of my favorite places in regional Victoria, so I have an instant liking for Justin and his business! As I read more on his website, Justin runs a wedding photography business. Not only is he living in a pretty cool place, he’s involved in a pretty cool business. Good job Justin. Check out the Luckystraps website and get yourself a pretty cool personalized camera strap. (I have no affiliation with Justin or Luckystraps – although I’d like to! It would give me another reason to visit Bendigo!)