6 Reasons To Work With A Second Shooter

When photographers start out shooting weddings, we tend to think it is all about our own creative vision. The client has hired us because they like our work, and hope we can produce lovely wedding images for them. Then, because its all about us, our images, and being ‘wedding photographers’, we choose to shoot our first wedding solo. Only after we have shot several weddings do we realize that it’s not about us – it is about meeting the needs of our client. We also realize that a second shooter can be so much more than just another camera capturing different angles. So if you are starting out – here are 6 reasons to work with a second shooter for your wedding photography.

A second shooter can be much more than just an extra camera

Reason 1 – It Makes Looking After Your Client Easier. On wedding day there are invariably times when it is very handy to have someone to work with as a team. Commonly ‘Auntie’ goes walk-about at the time of the family formals. Your second shooter can find her while you carry on with the bridal party. Or while you are shooting one image, you can see another shot which will need a different lens. Your second shooter can put the lens on your second camera body, enabling you to quickly move on to the next shot. Having someone on hand to assist lets you focus on meeting you clients needs while they act as support.

Reason 2 – Different Photographers, Different Perspectives. A second shooter provides different angles on events of the day. If the primary shooter positions themselves at the front of the ceremony, the second shooter can add to the final images by being positioned at the back of the ceremony. This is just one example of the additional range of images which can be produced by having a second shooter.

Reason 3 – You Can’t Be Everywhere. As the primary photographer, you can’t be everywhere. As the bride walks up the aisle you can’t simultaneously be in front and behind her. Both shots can look great. Partnering with a second shooter gives you more capability to capture key shots for your client than you can do alone.

Reason 4 – Wedding Photography is Hard Work. For any photographer, weddings are hard work. There is a lot happening and it is a long day. Sharing that workload with a second shooter helps to keep you fresh and ready to shoot another wedding tomorrow and another one next week. Going alone, leads to exhaustion. A second shooter is valuable to keep you fresh.

Reason 5 – Back Up is Important. It is hard to plan for days when we are sick or injured. In reality it doesn’t happen very often and it is easy to think that planning for this is so unlikely that it is not necessary. That sentence should be a warning sign for you. If your client is relying on you, it is important not to let them down. Your reputation depends on it. Not only will a second shooter give you a variety of different images – if you have chosen your second shooter well, they can step up and take the primary position if you are sick or injured.

Reason 6 – Some Shots Need Help. It is reality that some shots need assistance. My clients regularly ask for a shot of all of the guests to be taken after the ceremony. When there are natural points of elevation this is quite straightforward. I can gather the bridal party and guests and use a vantage point to shoot down on the whole group. But when there isn’t a natural point of elevation – like a set of stairs or a second floor window – I use a ladder. This is where a second shooter becomes ladder carrying assistant! My second shooter can walk to the car, grab the ladder, and have it in place for the group shot – all while I am still shooting bridal party formals. Then when we move to the group shot, it can be set up and shot with minimal disruption to the flow of the day.

Thanks for reading 6 reasons to work with a second shooter for your wedding photography. A second shooter can be a key business partner and so much more than just another camera. What is your experience? Did you start shooting solo? Do you work with a second shooter now? What lessons would you like to share?

What are Continuous Lights

In an earlier post on Beyond Here, we discussed How to Build a Home Photography Studio. In that post, I provided a brief overview of the requirements for space, backdrops, and lights. Once you have decided to set up a home photography studio, the decision on lighting is the most complicated and expensive decision. Your choice is between strobes and continuous lighting. Many photographers are familiar with the concept of strobe lighting – they work like large flash units, emitting a short burst of bright light. In this post we look at the question, what are continuous lights?

Very simply, continuous lights are always on. Rather than emitting a short burst of bright light, they emit a continuous stream of light.

An example of continuous lights in a home photography studio

So why use continuous lights? Continuous lights have several advantages over strobe lights.

What you see if what you get. With continuous lighting the effect on your subject can be seen before the shot is taken. If you want to alter the way the light appears, you can adjust your lights or subject and see the impact before taking the shot.
They are easy to use. If you are new to studio lighting, strobes can be daunting to learn to use. With continuous lights you literally turn them on and then position the lights and subject to achieve the desired look. They are very straightforward to use.
Continuous lights can be used for video. It is increasingly common to shoot video with a digital SLR camera. Continuous lights can be used to shoot video – meaning you can shoot both still images and video in your studio using one set of lights.
They are fairly affordable. The exact price of continuous lights will depend on your location, the number of lights you want, and the power of those lights. It is worth checking with your local photography store or online shops.

To assess whether continuous lights are the right choice for you, it is worth knowing that they have some disadvantages in comparison to strobe lighting too.

Continuous lights are not as bright as strobes. If you want to ‘freeze motion’ in the studio you will be more effective in using the short, bright burst of light from strobe lighting.
Continuous lights need a steady power source. If you are planning to leave your lights in your studio, then continuous lights work very well. But if you want your lights to be portable, strobes will be a better choice.
Strobe lights give you a lot more options in terms of power. With strobe lights you have greater control of the power output from each light, giving many more lighting options in your studio.

I hope this post has been useful in understanding what are continuous lights.

Set Copyright Information In-Camera

Modern digital cameras have the ability to set copyright information in-camera. This means that each image produced by your camera has the copyright information embedded in the EXIF data. This can be very handy if you plan to upload the images directly to social media without post processing, or you don’t want to do any post processing to the file, or if you lose the memory card and don’t want the images to be used by the person who finds it. (If they want to steal your images, technically they may still use them, but your name will be included in the EXIF data for each file which should act as a significant deterrent).

I am a Canon user, so the following images show how this is done on a Canon camera body. The model shown is a 7D, with the slightly fuzzy images (!) taken on my iphone.

Image 1 – Select “Copyright Information” from the menu list.

So, how do we do this?

Step 1. First, press the menu button and scroll through the menu options until you find the one where you can see the words “Copyright Information”.

In the image displayed “Copyright Information” shows as third up from the bottom on this menu. Move down and select “Copyright Information”.

Image 2 – Gives you options for displaying both author and copyright details

Step 2. Once you have selected the “Copyright Information” you will see a menu like the one in Image 2. This is now a straightforward process of following the prompts.

You can choose to set both an author and a copyright holders details. If you are shooting for hobby, or for yourself professionally, you will want both the author and copyright holder to be yourself. (If you want more information on when these might be different, add a comment to this post and I will explain). To add your name to these fields first select them and then follow the leads. For this example, lets say you want to add your name to the copyright. To do that select the “Enter copyright details” option.

Image 3 – add your name by selecting the appropriate letters.

Step 3. In the final step in this process you will see a screen like the one shown in Image 3.

To add your name here, use the wheel and the button in the center of it (just out of screen in image 3 to the right) to select each letter.

Once you have completed this process, your name will appear as the copyright holder for each image produced by this camera.

If you are using an older Canon digital camera you can add your copyright details by using a slightly longer process. You attach your camera to your computer and open the Canon supplied software. You then find the place in the software’s menu and add your copyright details. This is slightly more complicated but only needs to be done once.

I have been a long time Canon user but assume Nikon, Sony, Olympus and other digital camera makes can do the same. For users of these brands, is that correct? I would be interested to hear. And is it an easy process like it is on Canon? Please add a comment with details of the camera model and process. Thank you.

Thanks for reading this post on how to set copyright information in-camera.

Framing for Impact

In the first 7 months of Beyond Here I haven’t posted often about photography techniques. I’ve assumed people running or preparing to run photography businesses have most of their technique sorted. But I had two emails this week from readers who have asked for more content on technique. It seems a light refresher is welcome. So today I have been looking through images where framing plays a role. Within those images I was looking for images where there is a strong sense of framing for impact.

Here, trees are used to frame the island sunrise

This image was taken at Hahei Beach on the east coast of New Zealand. It was shot in the early morning just before the sun came up. It is a good example of framing for impact. While the pre dawn light was beautiful, the framing from the trees helps take away a lifeless sky, and focuses attention on the island and sunrise.

How do I see opportunities for framing? There are lots and lots of opportunities to use framing in your images. In this case, while I had walked along the waters edge and made some images, I knew the stronger images would be made from further back from the waters edge. Then it was just a matter of finding the right tree to really deliver ‘framing for impact’.

Even wildlife portraits can using framing for impact

Where else can I find opportunities for framing? Once you train yourself to look for them, you will see many opportunities for ‘framing for impact’. I shoot weddings, and classic scenes for ‘framing for impact’ are the bride and groom framed by the church door, or the bride framed by the window of the bridal car. These are good opportunities to add impact to your wedding images. I also shoot family portraits. When shooting an outdoor session with kids, I often use a playground to do portraits. Within most playgrounds you will find something to frame the child and add impact. Check out the venue in advance to plan this shot. It might be a swing, or the top of the slippery slide. The shot shown here is a giraffe in captivity. The nature of wildlife photography can make it harder to use framing for impact, but once your eye is trained you will start to see these opportunities even in fast changing situations.

Thanks for reading ‘framing for impact’. I hope it has been useful to you. If you would like to receive regular emails from Beyond Here, please add your details in the box in the margin of this page. Thanks again for reading, and if you need a place to get away from it all – Hahei on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand is a great place!

Patience and Timing

Melbourne Sunset. Looking out over Bolte Bridge. 8.41pm.

I had the good luck to be in the city in Melbourne, Australia on Tuesday this week as this sunset unfolded. I was meeting a person at 9pm and had traveled into the city early. I was there at 8.15pm and had 45 minutes to occupy myself before the meeting. I had taken my camera with the expectation of being able to do a short shoot and adding to my stock portfolio. The sunset which unfolded took most of my attention and my breath away. It reminded me of the importance of patience and timing.

When I first arrived the sun was going down. There were plenty of light clouds around, but very little color in the sky. I was having a relaxing walk around the Docklands area, unaware of the spectacular sunset which was about to unfold.

For most of the next 20 minutes there was little to get excited about, although there was slightly more color in the sky. Then over a brief 9 minute window I took the 5 images you see in this post.

Bolte Bridge 8.32pm

Bolte Bridge 8.34pm

Bolte Bridge 8.36pm

Bolte Bridge 8.40pm

At 8.32pm there was still very little color to be seen. I had positioned myself at the city end of Docklands looking out towards the Bolte Bridge and the setting sun. I considered leaving as I had a 20 minute walk to my appointment. I am glad I stayed, as over the next few minutes you can see the change in color in the sky, culminating in a vivid orange and purple skyline in the vertical image here shot at 8.40pm and the horizontal one at the top of this post shot at 8.41pm.

It was a good lesson in patience and timing. Landscape photographers who shoot at sunrise and sunset know this lesson well. It is worth being in position early and then being patient. Sometimes you get a spectacular scene like this and sometimes you don’t – but nothing is more frustrating than packing your gear into the car and realizing you missed a great opportunity. The lesson on patience and timing also applies to other types of photography. I shoot weddings and family portraits and there is often a split second between a great image and a bride with her eyes shut looking terrible.

It seems ironic – talking about patience and timing – that I had to run to make it to my 9pm appointment. I arrived hot and sweaty, but on time and with a series of sunset images!

Great Reads – Visionmongers

I have been writing a series of posts for photographers who want to operate their own business called Great Reads. You can find the previous posts here

This post is called Great Reads – Visionmongers and looks at a book by David du Chemin. You may have heard of the author. He is quite well known for his photography and for his previous book called ‘Within the Frame’.

What is it about? The sub heading of this book reads “Visionmongers – Making a Life and a Living in Photography”. The author doesn’t shy away from his view that it is not easy to make a living in photography. He outlines that there is no simple path, and no formula to follow. For any practicing photography this will resonate immediately as the truth, and adds to the books credibility. Du Chemin then shares stories of his own journey and that of several successful photographers. I found this a very powerful way to show how the obstacles can be overcome, and the different paths possible to business success in photography.

What can you expect? This book will challenge your thinking about making a living in photography. I particularly like his focus on knowing what you want to shoot. He makes the point that if you focus only on what the market wants you will end up ‘stuck’ shooting subjects you don’t have a passion for. Du Chemin’s logic is compelling – that vision is what drives you, and passion is what keeps you going. That’s a strong argument for shooting subjects you are passionate about.

Outcomes? This is an excellent book if you are considering setting up your business and need to define exactly what you will offer and what role you will fill in the market. It is also an excellent read if you are already in business and need to refocus or rebuild your business. I particularly liked the examples of successful photographers and the diverse and individual paths they have taken.

Rating and Recommendation? Visionmongers is a book I would recommend to all photographers who are planning to start a business or are in business already. It presents all the challenges of making a living in photography and then provides examples of people who are succeeding. I have re-read this book 4 times this year and each time I get something worthwhile from it.10 out of 10.

Thank you for reading Great Reads – Visionmongers.

Help Clients for Christmas

Looking for a final flourish to the year for your photography business? Right now is a great time to help clients for Christmas. They might need a print to gift to their family, a canvas for their special someone, or a family photo session as the extended family gathers for Christmas.

There is less than 3 weeks to Christmas now, which means you will need to act fast to help clients for Christmas. Contact past clients by email to see if you can help them with their Christmas shopping. The type of email I recommend is short and to the point …

December family portraits make great Christmas gifts. There is time, but you will need to move fast.

“Dear (Client), Hasn’t this year just flown past! I hope you and your family are doing well. I am finalizing my print orders for this year, and am reaching out to see if you would like a print ordered for Christmas? Attached is a price list. The most popular this year seems to be the 12×18 inch print for $XX. Please let me know by Tuesday if you’d like to order some – they make great Christmas presents. Wishing you a Merry Christmas, Craig.” If you don’t hear back from your clients within 24 hours, follow up with a gentle reminder. Taking the hassle out of buying Christmas gifts can be invaluable for your clients, and often they will say ‘yes’ to an offer to frame the prints and deliver the ‘finished product’. This is a great way to look after your clients and to have your business flourish.

Tomorrow I am shooting family portraits for this little man’s family. I had the pleasure of shooting his parents wedding 2 years ago, and doing a studio portrait session for them earlier this year. We have planned an outdoor session for tomorrow morning. Now, I just need a little cooperation from the Melbourne weather and we will have prints ready for Christmas.

Good luck as you try to help clients for Christmas.

Jump Start Your 2015

This year has raced past and its already December. At this time of year many photographers pipeline of work slows as domestic clients start to think about Christmas and holiday time, and commercial clients have a ‘crazy busy’ few weeks before the end of the calendar year. December is a great time of year to take a few simple steps to jump start your 2015.

Making time to contact past clients in December can jump start your business into the new calendar year

I take a few simple steps at this time of year to jump start my business for the new calendar year. Many of my clients are domestic clients who I have shot weddings or family portraits for. Over the next 2 weeks I will send each of them a 6×4 print, a business card, and a Christmas card. In the Christmas card will be a hand written message. This contact helps maintain a connection with each client, and makes it easier to strike up a conversation the next time I see them, or they refer a friend to me. I want them to think of me as their family photographer and holidays are a great time to reinforce that connection. For my commercial clients, I call them in early December. No one needs another email at a busy time of year, so I choose to call to either speak with the client or to leave a voice message. My message is a simple one, are there any projects they need assistance in getting completed in the next few weeks? How can I help? If there aren’t any, what date will my client be back in the new year? Can I touch base with them about new year projects? All simple stuff to maintain a relationship with each client and to see if I can assist them.

What do you do to maintain contact with your clients? What approach will you be taking to jump start your 2015?

Understanding the Changes at iStock

Since Beyond Here began in June 2014, many readers have become aware of the opportunity presented by selling their images through microstock sites. Several readers have turned intent into action. They have opened accounts and are building their portfolios.

Many iStock contributors have seen a decline in income since September. I have seen a small overall increase.

I have been a contributor to microstock sites since 2008, and an exclusive contributor with iStock since 2010. iStock has made significant changes in September 2014. I covered those developments here:

We are now 2 months since those changes. This post covers my experience and expectations, and I hope it helps your in understanding the changes at iStock and how you can make the most of them.

The Changes – iStock made a series of changes in September 2014. The key ones are outlined below.

Offering just one payment method – credits. Previously there were multiple ways to pay, now credits is the only way for customers to buy files on iStock. In addition, and this is the key point, there is now a strong pricing incentive for regular buyers to take up a subscription plan. I have seen this pricing strategy in other online photography businesses too. A good example is Adobe making it very cheap now to use Photoshop and Lightroom by paying a monthly fee rather than buying the product outright. The advantage for Adobe, is very steady and predictable cash flows, instead of large ‘lumpy’ one time sales of their products. In addition, monthly subscribers typically are very ‘sticky’ customers who don’t go elsewhere.
Dividing the collection into 2 tiers. This has effectively simplified the collections and the pricing structures on iStock. This is not universal popular with contributors – but I view it as a step in the right direction by making it easier for image buyers to understand the different collections and price points.
Implementing one price per file. This is the most controversial change. It effectively means a price decrease for buyers who typically bought the largest sized files, and a price increase for buyers who bought the smallest files.

The Impact for Contributors

I am an exclusive contributor at iStock. For exclusives, the total revenue for each month is made up from 4 sources – ‘normal’ istock sales, extended licence sales, subscription and partner program sales, and sales via the Getty Images.

Normal istock sales and extended licence sales are recorded and credited in real time. Subscription and partner program sales are reported once per month – typically near the beginning of the following month. Getty Images sales are reported once per month – typically near the end of the following month. So effectively, an exclusive contributor will need to wait until nearly the end of November to fully understand October sales.

What has my experience been? September was a fair month. Overall download numbers were good. There was not a noticeable shift between normal downloads and subscriptions. I was fortunate to have several extended licence sales and a strong month for Getty Images downloads.

In October I started to see the impact of the changes. My iStock normal downloads fell by 10% from September and my subscription sales increased by 110% (from a small base). The effect was a significant increase in total downloads, and a small increase in income. (Note, October Getty Images sales have not been reported yet. When these are credited to contributors a full month on month analysis will be possible).

While it is early days, my experience is that the iStock strategy is working. They appear to be focusing on the large volume buyer as outlined in my earlier post and generating increased volume of downloads at a lower average price per download.

The increase in sub sales is seeing reductions in average income per download. This is being offset by increases in download numbers.

Implications

The changes have several implications for contributors. The way I see it, to develop your own strategy you will need to consider these issues:

Increase in subscription sales. iStock seem to be succeeding in attracting high volume buyers through the subscription plans. This will see a strong increase in subscription sales. These are currently reported once per month.
Decline in normal downloads. For buyers of reasonable volume, the subscription plans are very attractive. This will see an increase in sub sales and a decrease in normal downloads. As normal downloads are reported in real time, contributors will see fewer downloads and revenue being added to their accounts on a daily basis.
More variable income. iStock income used to be very steady week to week. Because of the shift to sub sales it is likely that contributors incomes will be higher in that week, and lower in other weeks. I’d like to think iStock is considering a way to report sub sales in real time, but that has not been the message from iStock so far. For now, contributors will need to plan for more variable weekly income.
More challenge in meeting Redeemed Credit (RC) targets. A contributors royalty level currently depends on achieving RC targets. Sub sales do not attract RCs making the step up royalty levels harder. This adds weight to the argument that iStock are going to have to revise the RC system entirely in the next 12 months. iStock have deferred this decision for another year by maintaining current royalty levels for 2015. This is of great value to existing contributors, but not much help to new ones.
It is going to be tougher to meet exclusivity requirements. To become an exclusive contributor currently requires you to meet a minimum number of ‘normal’ downloads. Once you become exclusive you receive higher royalties. Exclusivity is getting harder to achieve due to the shift to sub sales. My view is that iStock will have to change this criteria if they want to attract contributors to be exclusive.
Income may decline in the short term. The shift to sub sales is negatively affecting many contributors income at the moment. This is because sub sales generate less income per sale than ‘normal’ iStock downloads. It will take time to attract more larger buyers, and for the volume increase to offset the reduction in earnings per download.

I continue to be optimistic about the long term impact of the changes iStock have made. There is some “change pain” being experienced by contributors at present, and it will take time to adjust to fewer ‘normal’ downloads being reported per day. As for the future – I’d like to see iStock move to real time reporting of sub sales, changes to the RC system, and continued growth in total download numbers.

Thanks for reading ‘understanding the changes at iStock’. I hope this has been useful for you. If you are an iStock contributor, what has been your experience? or concerns?

Understanding Public Liability Insurance for Photographers

Most people have a good understanding of motor insurance. It is easy to understand that a car is essential in running a mobile business, and that you need to insure it. If you are involved in an accident, it can be repaired quickly and you can be back on the road promptly. Usually it will only cost you the amount of your excess. Understanding public liability insurance is not as intuitive. I have written this post to help you in understanding public liability insurance for photographers.

What is public liability insurance? Yes, it even sounds scary! But don’t worry, it is not as complex as it sounds. I got the following definition from an Australian government publication. Public liability insurance protects you and your business from the financial risks of being found liable to a third party for death or injury, loss or damage of property or economic loss resulting from your negligence.

Public liability insurance is not as intuitive as motor insurance.

When will a photographer need public liability insurance? If you are photographing a wedding and put your bag down, a guest could trip over it and sustain an injury. If you were found to be liable for this because of your negligence, your public liability insurance would protect you from the financial risk of having to cover the injured party’s costs.

You might conclude that this is not very likely to happen. Wedding photographers could have photographed hundreds of weddings over many years without an incident like this happening. While it is not very likely to occur, the potential financial cost of this is very significant – and that’s a good reason to have public liability insurance.

Where do I buy public liability insurance? You can buy public liability insurance from most major insurance companies or through an insurance broker. In many cases the functionality to buy the insurance is available online. I recently changed provider of my insurance, and bought a new policy online in about 10 minutes. Ironically, it took longer to cancel my previous insurance than it did to take out the new policy.

What will it cost? The public liability insurance I purchased cost me a few hundred dollars for 12 months cover. I consider this good value for the peace of mind it provides.

The cost of public liability insurance will vary by country and location. In addition these factors will effect the premium:

the turnover of the photography business – higher turnover businesses will have higher premiums
the number of employees – the more employees, the higher the premium
the type of photography work you are doing – for example, aerial photography will have higher premiums than wedding photography
the amount of cover you want – the broker I use had options for $5m, $10m and $20m cover. The more cover the higher the premium.

I hope this post has helped your understanding of public liability insurance for photographers. If you need expert advice, please talk to an insurance broker or representative of an insurance company. Thanks for reading ‘understanding public liability insurance for photographers’.