Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

Here We Go Again! - 2010

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

It’s February in Philadelphia. There is what’s left of the close-to-three feet of snow that got dumped on us in the space of a week still on the ground. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day… and Rob and I shot our first wedding of the season yesterday evening! It seems this year started early! After last year, I was looking forward to the downtime of the off-season to catch up on things, re-evaluate certain things, and just relax! I did get the chance to catch up, did a bunch of thinking and reworking… and even managed to get a bit of R&R in, though I could still probably use more sleep. But off-season is officially over and it’s time to get back into it!

So what does this year have in store for Something Blue? A bunch of new venues to work at, as well as returns to some of my favorites from years before. We’ll be at Normandy Farms in Blue Bell, PA three times this year, and we get back to The Atrium at the Curtis Center in Philadelphia in April. I’m looking forward to shooting in the city again! We also get to return to the Meredith Manor in May, which is a cool venue out in Pottstown, PA. We also get to do a bit of traveling! Assateague in September, and Pittsburgh for New Year’s Eve! They may not be tropical, but it’s the start of destination weddings for us!

I’ve started working much more extensively with GraphiStudio for albums late last year. Every book I’ve had come in from them has blown my mind! Their prints look incredible, and the books themselves are things of beauty! I just got a sample album printed by them in late last week and I absolutely love it! Miller’s will continue to be my go-to standard book, but GraphiStudio wedding books are now officially my premium albums of choice! More expensive, and they take longer to get in, but they are so worth it!

One of the other things in the works for this year is bridal shows. This is something that we haven’t done in the past, but I’m thinking it’s time to start. If you happen to be a bride (past or present) who has attended these kinds of events… I want to talk to YOU. Basically, what I want to know is… if you had to imagine the ideal booth/table setup for a photographer, what would it be like? Do you want to see lots of albums? Framed prints? A slide show going? I have some definite ideas of what I want to do, but additional input, especially from you who is on the other side of the table from us would be really helpful!

And last but not least… the packages have changed some. Again. That, though… merits its own post. Stay tuned!

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The Best DJ I’ve Worked With

Monday, August 10th, 2009

I’m not one to lavish praise on everyone I’ve worked with in the past. While I’m hard-pressed to give a negative review of a fellow vendor, especially to a client, rare is the day that I feel strongly enough to blog about someone who is not a photographer who’s work I admire. Today, though… is such a day. Or rather, Saturday was such a day, and two days later (it being Monday, now), I still feel just as strongly about this. And hence this post.

When you hire a DJ for your wedding, you are hiring one of the most important people that will take part in it, where your reception is concerned. A good DJ will know how to keep things moving when they need to move, and to keep things calm when they need to be calm. A good DJ will be respectful of your wishes, where the “do not play” list is concerned. A good DJ will be able to look at the crowd of guests, and be able to figure out what kind of music will get the party going and get people involved and out on the dance floor. It’s an art, just like photography is an art. As a photographer, the DJ is one of my biggest allies at the reception, because the reception runs according to their announcements. Aside from the wedding coordinator, if one is present, they are the ones that know what’s going to happen when, and a good one will let the other vendors know before things happen so that they are ready. I haven’t had a bad experience with a DJ, but I’ve had some lack-luster ones. Saturday, was possibly the best experience I’ve had.

Allison and Trever (who’s wedding will be the subject of a whole post of its own) had Joe Moser (DJ PER4RM) from DJ’s Available at their wedding this Saturday. This guy way top-notch! When we got into the reception site, just after finishing their Bride & Groom shots, we ran into him, and he quickly ran down the list of what was going to be happening, compared notes with us… and we quickly established a great chemistry. We were now part of the same team. This is huge! Because of this, I know the couple got better photos of their reception, because we weren’t guessing what was going to be happening and where we needed to be. WE KNEW! Most DJ’s will tell the photographer what’s coming next, but Joe went out of his way to make sure we were in the loop, and it was much appreciated. But that’s the logistical behind-the-scenes stuff that brides rarely think about. He’s there to play music… right? Read on.

Some of the complaints you hear floating around about DJ’s is that some of them are liberal with their own ideas about humor, and sometimes go over the top with it. Others might complain that they did not abide by the couple’s requests as far as what music to play and almost more importantly what NOT to play. I mean… if you don’t want the Chicken Dance… you expect not to hear the Chicken Dance. This was totally not a problem on Saturday! When he was talking, he was very professional, and totally not over-the-top. Allison and Trever asked for the usual 70’s disco-era stuff to be skipped entirely. I didn’t hear Brick House, Play That Funky Music, or any of the other stuff like it.

The dinner portion of the evening was fairly quiet, as dinner portions usually are. I had a bit of time to talk to Joe because nobody likes having their picture taken with a fork in their hand and a mouth full of salad. It was at that time that he mentioned that they had requested that none of the 70’s standards be played. He looked around the room, assessed the crowd, and said “I’m feeling 80’s. The way the room is split… I’m feeling 80’s.” So what was so amazing? When it came time to playing music for people to dance to, some DJ’s would have queued up song after song. It’s a valid approach. People expect to hear songs… and many DJ’s play them faithfully. But what did he do? He started mixing things together; more like something you’d expect from a DJ at a club… He took those 80’s songs that he figured (correctly) that people would really get into, and mixed them with dance stuff. You’ve heard The Percolator? Now throw Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics on top of it… The crowd ate it up! Take a basic dancy kind of techno groove, and throw Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey on top of it… and people hit the dance floor, and sing along! The guy was a font of energy, constantly mixing things in on the fly rather than just playing the same old songs. Joe was an artist of a high caliber, to say the least.

So. Bottom line. If you need a DJ, you should check him out. I know I certainly would be happy to work with him again.

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It’s… ALIVE!!!

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

I am so exhausted that I can’t even begin to describe it… but I can’t stop. Not until I finish typing this post. This post… has been a very long time in the making. Well… not the post itself, but what it signifies. About two years ago, I undertook the task of redoing my website. It was going to be a quick tweek… just a graphical overhaul… and wound up being a complete rewrite. That took a long time. Really really long time.

I had put a lot of work into this site… made lots of changes, wrote more code than I care to admit to… and got a lot of help from my friend Joe. Joe is an outstanding artist. A designer like no other that I’ve ever worked with. I blame Joe for the new logo, the fact that the site actually looks good, and seems to be relatively consistent between browsers. So yeah… basically… if you like the new site, blame Joe. If you don’t like the new site, blame me. This new design was my idea, but I doubt I would have pulled it off half as well if it weren’t for his help, and general willingness to let me pick his brain on almost a daily basis for months at a time. But enough singing his praises. As soon as I find a link to his website, there will be a link on this blog.

Anyhow… there’s lots and lots and lots that I can type and talk about right now. But it’s really late. Most of the old blog posts have broken images because they did not transfer over cleanly, and I don’t have the energy to fix them manually. And now? SLEEP! Allison’s and Trever’s wedding is in a mere 10 hours… or at least that’s when I have to head out. And the sun is going to rise in about one and a half. Welcome to the new Something Blue. The old site is dead. Long live the site!

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Old Blog Posts Are Here (Again)!

Friday, March 27th, 2009

So I’ve made a huge leap forward in getting this new version of the site ready for prime time! One of the big setbacks was that it’s sitting on a whole new system and I needed to get the contents of the old blog porter over here. I really didn’t want to lose everything that I’ve written before, but bringing it over by hand was not a task I was looking forward to undertaking. Initially, the prognosis was pretty grim; the old and the new were completely incompatible… But in the end, I found a way to do it in an (almost) painless fashion. The short of it is that all of the old content made it over after I massaged a fewhings here and there and begged and pleaded with my computer to be nice to me!

The look of this new blog is a little bit more bare than the old one. Maybe even more than a little bit. But it feels cleaner, and there’s more room for bigger pictures. I think it’s a worth-while trade, and somehow it feels like it integrates with the rest of the site better. Hope you like it!

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Engagement Sessions

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

Imagine this scenario; the ceremony starts at 2:30PM in the afternoon and it’s now just a little after 1PM. The assembled team of makeup artist and hair dresser are involved in an intricate dance, touching up eye liner and spraying curls in an effort to make perfection last at least through the afternoon heat and sun, if not until the end of the night. Things are moving fast and furious, and then there’s a knock on the door. It’s the photographer. You’ve met him before as you discussed the timeline of your day over coffee, but as he makes his introductions to everyone in the room and quickly assembles his camera gear, you realize that this is going to be the first time that you’ve been photographed. All of a sudden, you find yourself on the business end of a large lens for the very first time. No matter how much conversation he makes, you’re under stress, and the simple instructions of “just act naturally, like I’m just here talking to you, and not like I’m pointing this camera at you” are really not working for you. Lets face it; you’ve been waiting for this day for a very long time, but with a makeup artist, a hair dresser, and a flurry of bridesmaids all moving around you, there is nothing natural about it.

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What does this have to do with engagement sessions? Surprisingly enough, quite a bit. The hair dresser and makeup artist will finish their tasks and send you on your way to your nuptials. The officiant will pronounce you husband and wife and send you on to post-marital bliss. The caterer will serve the food at the reception and the DJ will make it a night of dancing to remember. But the photographer will be with you the whole day, from start to finish, every step of the way. You hired a photographer because you want to remember your day through the images that he is going to create for you, and because of that, you and your photographer are going to be spending a lot of time together on your wedding day. The more comfortable you are working with the photographer, the more fun this time will be, and it shows in the pictures. That alone is the biggest reason why engagement sessions are important.

The reality is that most people do not spend a lot of time being photographed by strangers. Unless your day job is modeling, you may be able to count on one hand the number of times you’ve been photographed by someone who is not a friend or family member. In these situations, people’s natural instinct is to clam up and become very stiff, and until you get comfortable and loosen up, it will show in your pictures. People can and do look nervous or uncomfortable in front of a camera. An engagement session helps prevent this because you spend time, as a couple, with your photographer, and get comfortable working with them. By the time the scenario above is your reality, you will already be comfortable.

katy_michael_comp

The more time you’ve spent with someone, the more you know about them, and the more comfortable you are around them. The engagement session is designed with that goal in mind, all while getting some great images of the two of you having some fun in a much more casual setting. We spend somewhere between an hour and two hours shooting, though I often tell brides that I do not limit these sessions to these times. A two hour engagement session can take close to four hours if we move between several locations and take breaks to chat it up. And we do take breaks to chat it up, because that’s largely the point. It’s an excuse for the two of you to play, and an opportunity for me to capture the fun, learn more about you, and let you get comfortable around me and the camera.

katy_michael_dip

So how would that above story play out after an engagement session? The ceremony starts at 2:30 and it’s now a little past 1PM. The hair dresser and makeup artist are making you look your absolute best, and things are moving fast and furious when there’s a knock on the door. It’s the photographer. “Hey! It’s great to see you again! So… this is it, are you ready?” You’re already comfortable. You’ve done this before. Looking natural in this unnatural setting is much easier because you’ve seen that lens. You’ve already had fun in front of that lens, and both you, and your photographer have common ground to stand on. You’ll be seeing a lot of each other today, but this isn’t the first time.

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Decisions, Decisions… And then New Packages Are?

Friday, January 18th, 2008

So I’m going to break my own pattern here, and not post an image as part of this entry. I couldn’t find one that fit the theme, so instead of tossing up some random shot, I decided to leave this one without eye candy. I promise I won’t make it a habit! I figured this one can stand on its own.

After a day or so of thinking about things, and a handful of conversation later, I have a solution to my question of how to restructure my packages. In fact, you may have already seen the fruit of my pacing around and scratching my chin. The short of it? If people want albums… then they should be in the packages. Even if they are just a starting point.

So here’s what I did; instead of actually trying to retrofit the old packages with new stuff, I decided to start with a clean slate. I thought about the weddings that I’ve shot over the last year and a half… and the shortest one came out to be roughly six hours. I figure that’s a good starting point. Real basic… six hours of shooting, and a smaller album. The six hours is enough to cover a smaller wedding if the reception is on the short side, or if the ceremony and the reception is happening at the same place. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for “getting ready” photos, but not everyone wants them, and besides… if there’s one thing that’s the same with every wedding, is that they are all different. Six hours is a great start, and should meet the basic needs of most weddings, and anything above and if it turns out that it’s too short… then more time can be added on. Since I only ever shoot one wedding a day, it’s never a big deal if I need to stay later. The album us nice, very high quality, but doesn’t have a huge number of pages, or any bells and whistles. A simple high-quality flush mount, with 12 thick pages bound in black leather. Simple and classy.

One of the things that is missing from the basic package is an engagement session. Engagement sessions are… well, let me put it this way. They’re important. Not life-or-death important by any means… but very very good to have. In fact, I believe that I should probably write an entire post on them. So, the standard package is an improvement on the great value of the basic one. Still six hours on the wedding day, but this one has a one hour long engagement session that will not only net some great images, but almost more importantly, will get you used to being photographed. Like I said, more on engagement sessions later. The other difference is that the album is bigger; not in page count, but in the size of each page. The basic album has pages that are ten-by-ten, but the standard has twelve-by-twelve pages. Ultimately, it may hold a few more pictures, but the real difference is in that the pictures them selves are bigger and bolder on the pages.

The premium package is where things really start to flesh out nicely. The wedding day coverage gets bumped up to eight hours, and the engagement session to two hours. Given that, it works very well for weddings where the ceremony is at one location, but the reception is elsewhere. The thing with such weddings is that often there is a gap of a half hour or more between the end of the ceremony, and the reception; this is time spent organizing everyone in the bridal party and getting everyone to the reception site… and other things of that nature. The more generous eight hour schedule leaves room for these things, and also enough time to take some of the “getting ready” shots.

It seems like everyone uses some sort of online way of keeping in touch with people. Facebook… myspace… blogs… Many of these let you upload a slide show of pictures or movies to share with friends and family. That’s what the Web slide show is all about. Your wedding photos, set to music, with tasteful transitions. In recent history, these slide shows were created on DVD, which is still a great way to do things, but… people spend more and more time on their computer, surfing the web. So why not let them see your photos right online? Why am I talking about these? Because one is included in the premium package as one of the two physical items that make it “premium”. The other is a beefier album, with sixteen pages. Where the step from basic to standard boosted the presentation of the images, the next step to premium boosts the number of pictures that come in the album.

So I was pretty happy with what I came up with, and I took my piece of paper that I was using as a scratch pad and started talking to everyone that was available to me to run the ideas past. What I had was solid… but something was missing. Something needed to crown it all. This is how I (with some help) came up with the ultimate. All of the packages have Miller’s flush mount panoramic albums. These albums have seamless two-page spreads, so a single picture can be stretched over two pages. The largest page that goes into these albums is twelve-by-twelve, so each spread is twenty-four inches wide. The maximum number of pages that will fit into these books is twenty. And that’s exactly what the ultimate album is; the biggest they offer. I also decided to include both the web slide show, and a slide show on a DVD, so you can watch it on the web, or in your living room. But the biggest difference between the ultimate and the rest is time. All of the other packages have a set limit on how long the shooting goes on the wedding day before additional time has to be billed. With the ultimate package, there is no limit! For the sake of naming a price, I chose ten hours, but if it takes longer, there are not additional costs. As long as the party’s alive, there will be pictures to remember it by.

More than ten hours? It happens. Believe me. My wife and I were guests at the wedding of friends last summer. (She was the matron of honor.) While your’s truly took the opportunity to sleep in, the girls started getting ready at ten in the morning. The ceremony started in the afternoon, and then there was a good hour and a half gap between the end of the ceremony and the start of cocktail hour which then melded in a leisurely pace into a reception that lasted well into the night. We left to go back to our hotel room a hair after eleven if memory serves me right. And there you have it. Thirteen hours. Mind you, this wasn’t the kind of party that petered off at the end. The dancing continued right up until they turned up the lights, and after the reception was done and everyone was back at the hotel, an impromptu after-party struck up in the hotel lobby. I think the hotel management never regretted putting that piano in the lobby as much as they did that night… then again, as long as we were by the piano, the hotel bar was packed. Maybe they didn’t make out so poorly in the end after all.

Anyway. So there it is. The problem of new packages… is solved. Now I’m happy.

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Old of 2007 and New for 2008

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

The last year flew by, and the holidays were upon me long before I was ready for them. That’s not to say that I wasn’t ready for a break! (Believe me… I was ready for a bit of time off with family and friends.) It’s just that I wasn’t quite ready for 2007 to be over just yet, as I had planned to get a few more things done before I rang in the new year. I had been working on setting up some new relationships with vendors so that I can start offering their products, and also taking a bit of a step sideways into doing some non-wedding photography work, which was an incredible experience, and taught me a few things that I will definitely be applying in future wedding work. And once the holidays got here, I had to do what I promised myself I would do at the end of the year; archive 2007’s photos to make room for this year! Naturally… in the process of archiving, I had a chance to go through the 2007 pictures, and do some thinking and planning for the future.

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This image jumped out at me as I was going through the pictures from Amy & Steve’s wedding at the Crossed Keys Inn. I remember the day, and I remember taking that shot. I remember thinking how cool it was that the sun was creating highlights on the bouquet of roses, and also shining through the petals in the back of the bouquet causing them to glow . And there it is!

One of the things that I have been thinking about, starting over the holidays, and the couple of weeks since then, is that the packages I offer need to be re-evaluated and redone. The current packages are pretty heavy in loose prints. There was a reason for this when I came up with them, but the more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense in practice. Most couples don’t want a whole big set of loose prints. Parents and guests may want a loose print or two, and the couple may want a few enlargements… but the main output that people want is albums, and in some cases slide shows. So I am at a crossroads here; I can offer packages with albums already included… or I can offer packages that just include shooting time, and leave the final output to be added on after the fact. And there are pros and cons to both approaches. Bear with me hear as I think aloud for a bit. (I’ve found that this blog is a great way for me to organize my ideas and see things a little bit clearer, as much as it lets you look behind the scenes of what goes into that bottom line price.)

On the one hand, since albums are items that most couples want, it would make a whole lot of sense to include albums in the packages that I offer, and let people add prints to the order if they want them. It looks great on paper… but there is a flaw here that is not readily apparent to most folks that have not ordered an album before. There are many album manufacturers, and each manufacturer sells several styles of albums, and each style has several options that can be used to customize the final product that the couple receives. Sounds great, right? Which album would you want to see in the package? In 2007, I had a great relationship set up with Miller’s Lab. When someone orders prints from me, this is where they come from. Miller’s is an outstanding professional lab, with incredible quality, and an insanely fast turnaround time. I couldn’t be happier with them! They also offer albums in several styles and price ranges. Some of these albums are made specifically for Miller’s, by Miller’s… and some are albums that they re-sell with the prints that they make. (In other words, I send them print-ready images, they print them, mount them into the album at their facility, and send me the finished album.) To give my clients more to choose from for their albums, I’ve also set up relationships with two other companies; Renaissance Albums and Zookbinders. Renaissance creates beautiful albums, and there is no one that I know that can tell you otherwise. Everyone I have spoken to that has dealt with them, or owns one of their albums, has raved about the quality and craftsmanship of these books. Same with Zookbinders. I have more personal experience with their books, since my own wedding album is a Zookbinders album. Each of these companies has different cover materials, different styles of albums… from the traditional album that contains essentially matted prints, to flushmount albums that offer two-page panoramas and an infinite number of design possibilities, and everything in between. Each album can have different numbers of pages… I think you see where I’m going with this. Which one do I include in the packages?

On the other hand, since albums have so many variables that can change their price drastically, I could offer up packages that contain only the time spent shooting. This sounds great! If albums are such a huge pricing variable, eliminate them, and just stick to what is constant! Ah… that would make it so easy. But then, I put myself in the shoes of my client. A couple is about to be married, they are planning their wedding, and trying to get all of the pieces to fall into place. As a photographer, I know what is involved on my end, how much time I will need to spend doing that work, and how much all of that is worth. But as a human being that also got married, I happen to ALSO know that budgets are a very real thing when you are planning a wedding. We were lucky. We had a lot of help. In fact, it was more than just a lot of help. But my best friend is in the final stages of planning his wedding, and he is footing the bill himself, so I don’t need to look far for examples. What does this have to do with anything? It’s simple. A couple looks at my packages, and says “Hey! This is well within our budget! Great!” but what they don’t see in the list of things is any sort of output. There are no prints… there are no albums… So they get in touch with me, and we sit down to talk. Then I pull out the list of album options and prices. Suddenly, the cost of the wedding package has gone up. WAY up. Albums are expensive. To put things in perspective; the lowest cost for an album is some $300. This makes things look like it is a hidden fee. They didn’t know how much it was going to be until they got in touch with me. That situation is not something that I relish. When I am a customer, I do not like hidden fees. I do not like walking in thinking that something was going to be one price, and then finding out that on top of what I thought I would be paying, there are a bunch of add-on costs that I pretty much HAVE to pay to get something of value to me. It’s not the way I would prefer to do business. In some cases, the addition of these costs of the output to the package price is not an issue, but in some cases… it is. I would have rather them seen the price from the outset, know that when all was said and done, it was not going to be in their budget, and moved on, than for them to get their hopes up and set themselves up for disappointment. Maybe I’m a rotten businessman. I don’t know.

So. Bottom line. The packages are going to get redone very soon. I’m just still debating what I am going to redo them TO. I think I am leaning more towards the first option… but then, I have some ideas about making the second option work as well by making notes of the starting prices of output and clearly pointing out that the packages do NOT include output. Decisions decisions.

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