blake_newman2

<p>I googled MySpace layout and found these:</p>

<p>

http://www.myspace.com/mikeindustries<br />

http://www.myspacelibrary.com<br />

</p>

<p>From a search engine optimization and viral marketing perspective, you can't ignore the power of MySpace. Indeed, some of the ugliest sites I have ever seen are at the top of Google's page rank. Getting found is half the battle.</p>

Hope that helps

<p>It's definitely old school, Web 1.0, as they say. I'd highly recommend you visit <a href="http://www.templatemonster.com" target="_blank">Template Monster</a> and see what they have there. You can get a professionally designed website and then customize it yourself for $60. It will look head and shoulders above what you've already got. </p>

<p>I used Template Monster several times and most of the comments I've received so far have been very positive.</p>

<p>Hope that helps, Blake

<p>Lori, it's time to create your own networking group. </p>

<p>If you want to do weddings you need to find out the names of the Director of Catering for all of the hotels that do weddings. Call them up, invite yourself over for coffee and show them your work. Bring coffee with you or flowers and definitely photos.</p>

<p>When I first got started, I also made contact with all of the busy photographers in town and endeared myself to them. Send them gift certificates to Starbuck's, buy them movie tickets, take them out to lunch and if possible, send them business. When they get booked, they will likely refer new clients to you.</p>

<p>Online, there might be a meetup.com group that you can join. Back in DC, there was an organization called International Special Events Society (ISES) as well as the Association of Wedding Professionals (AWP), and National Association of Catering Executives (NACE). These are all great sources of professional leads and networking opportunities in the wedding business.</p>

<p>Finally, talk to hair dressers. They know everything, everyone, and talk all day long. They know who is getting married or having a baby or trying to become a model. They will be one of your best sources of leads as well. Send them photos of their clients, they will be forever grateful.</p>

<p>Hope that helps, <a href="http://www.blakenewman.com" target="_blank" title="Blake Newman">Blake Newman</a>, <a href="http://www.fotobiz.com" target="_blank">FotoBiz</a>™

<p>Allan,</p>

<p>She is being extraordinarily generous by allowing you to use the images for your portfolio and website. Take that gift graceously.<p>

<p>When it comes to contracting or subcontracting, there is no SOP. Copyright law is one thing, but Contract law is completely different. If she is paying you to work on her behalf and states that the images belong to her and you accept these conditions then that is the new SOP.</p>

<p>When I operated my business, I had a dozen photographers working for me. I made it very clear to all of them that copyrights belonged exclusively to me. They were paid well, I equipped them well, and I provided them with opportunities that would have taken them years to achieve on their own. I marketed them agressively and they stayed as busy as they wanted to be. Everybody was happy</p>

<p>Hope that helps, <a href="http://blakenewman.com" target="_blank" title="Blake Newman">Blake Newman</a>, <a href="http://www.fotobiz.com" target="_blank" title="Free online calendar">FotoBiz</a>™</p>

<p>Myriam,</p>

<p>If I were starting out, I would go to the top 5 or 10 photographers in LA and ask them for work. I used to own a very high profile photography business in DC. We charged a lot of money and had great clients. But, only 2-3 photographers a year would call me up asking for work. It always amazed me.</p>

<p>But, I have to say, that as much money exists here in LA, photographers are a dime a dozen. There is a saying that LA will chew you up and spit you back out.</p>

<p>There is also another saying, "Don't quit your day job." I would definitely find a job anywhere, in a restaurant, with a graphic design company, a marketing company, just do something to get money coming in the door. Then, at night and on the weekends, practice your photography.</p>

<p>From a grass-roots marketing perspective, you need to find the private day schools that are all around LA. Meet with the director and offer to do some lifestyle photography of the children. Give away a gift certificate for a free sitting. For you weddings, you need to contact the Directors of Catering at all the hotels that do weddings.</p>

<p>Most of your business will come leads and referrals should be coming from hotels, other photographers, and other wedding venues. If all else fails, consider moving to an area of the country where it's not quite so expensive to live. I've heard that LA photographers do significantly better in Southern Florida. When I did some test marketing around the country, I got some great response from San Francisco.</p>

<p>Hope that helps <a href="http://www.blakenewman.com" target="_blank" title="blake newman">Blake Newman</a>, <a href="http://www.fotobiz.com" target="_blank" title="free online calendar">FotoBiz</a>™

<p>Hey Scott,</p>

<p>I have send out hundreds, maybe even thousands, of 8x10 photos to Photo Editors and have two 3 ring binders full of all the tear sheets where my images have been published along with photo credits. I couldn't have bought this type of advertising for $100,000. </p>

<p>I ended up on the cover of 3 magazines and one tabloid newspaper through this technique. Dozens of these photographs were published full-page and always had my photo credit and often my website address.</p>

<p>The thing you have to remember is that most photographers (and people) are lazy and cheap. They might send a few images out to a few magazines and then quit because the first couple batches didn't get them anywhere.</p>

<p>I would go one step further. I had a monthly PR campaign where I sent out a packet of photos along with a gift certificate to about 100 people who were in a position of influence. This cost me about $1,500 every month. Some gift certificates were for Starbuck's, others were movie tickets, some were for ice cream. It worked. When I finally met these people in person they couldn't stop thanking me for the gift certificates. I got years of business out of this monthly campaign.</p>

<p>Hope that helps, <a href="http://www.blakenewman.com" target="_blank" title="blake newman">Blake Newman</a>, <a href="http://www.fotobiz.com" target="_blank" title="free online calendar">FotoBiz</a>™</p>

<p>Debbie,</p>

<p>I think you really need to factor in the value of your time. Assuming you have to find the photos, perhaps color-correct or crop them, get them to the lab, get them back, mail them, etc. That could be several hours of your time. So, depending on whether you want to be a $25,000/year photographer or $100,000/year photographer, you should add this into your equation.</p>

<p>I think that the value is in your shooting and your images, not in their reproduction. So, I recommend that you find a way to earn maximum dollar value on the creation fee. Perhaps sell her the entire DVD of all the images for $1,000 or $1,500. </p>

<p>If you do get into the business of selling event images, I would definitely use an event photography service like Pictage.com. There are dozens of them out there that post your images online, collect the money from the customers, deduct the cost of prints and shipping and send you a check for the profit.</p>

<p>Hope that helps, <a href="http://www.blakenewman.com" target="_blank" title="blake newman">Blake Newman</a>, <a href="http://www.fotobiz.com" target="_blank" title="free online calendar">FotoBiz</a>™</p>

I ran an extraordinarily successful wedding photography business in Washington DC for over 10 years and the bulk of the weddings were shot by my associates.

I think the key is finding the right people, training them well, ensuring there are rules and standards of conduct, and tagging along with them from time to time to make sure that they are performing well.

The way I worked my practice was that I had a female photographer start with the bride for the getting ready photos. She also photographed all of the details of the wedding like the shoes, dress, flowers, cake, church, etc. I came in and shot the portraits before the wedding. We had a third person meet us at the church for the ceremony and shot the ceremony from 3 angles. After the wedding was over, I went home and that third photographer, the party guy, finished up the event.

I ended up working about 3-4 hours and was able to keep an eye on my photographers. Sometimes, with multiple teams, we could knock out a wedding on Friday, 2-3 on Saturday, and 1-2 on Sunday. There were some weekends where we grossed over $25,000. I met my wife at one of those weddings. It's not a bad way of life.

Hope that helps, Blake

I think you need to treat this like a business. Assuming you have digital equipment, which becomes obsolete over time, you need to take into consideration that deprecation and how many jobs you can shoot with this equipment.

You also need to consider the expense of running your practice. Everything from taxes to miles on your car to the rent, computers, and utilities that you use in order to conduct business needs to be part of your daily or hourly rate.

Finally, you should be aware of what your competition charges, however, this should only influence your rate, not determine you rate. I don't think that $150/hour is unreasonable for those 5 hours of shooting.

If you worked for me and I was booking you on my behalf, I'd charge at least that much.

Hope that helps, Blake

Wait a second! Warner Brothers produced a movie that you may have heard of, it's called 300. They spent who knows how many millions of dollars producing this movie. They spent probably $50,000 creating an incredible Flash website. And, they have a MySpace site.

I've also seen other blockbuster movies and huge rock bands create MySpace accounts. Admittedly, MySpace allows amateurs to put up the most horrible sites you've even seen. But, if you know anything about CSS and design, you can actually make a MySpace site look pretty decent and professional.

I think the main question is who is your target audience? MySpace has a pretty wide range but I'm sure the bulk of the website visitors are in their late teens and early to mid twenties. If this is your target audience then you'd be foolish not to have a MySpace account.

Certainly, I would not rely very long on MySpace for your exclusive website. But, it could certainly get you started and is a great viral marketing tool. There are plenty of economical ways to get started, like a FREE WordPress website, which is completely customizable. There are some fantastic skins (themes) for WordPress on their own website as well as TemplateMonster. There are also photo gallery plugins for Word Press as well.

Hope that helps, Blake

I'd take a look at Template Monster for a couple reasons. First, they have some great designs and second, you can get them for about $50. You definitely need to modify the HTML, which is a lot easier than creating HTML from scratch.

So, I'd pick up a book at Borders on HTML and learn the basics. This way, you can maintain the site in the future and are not dependent on somebody else for minor changes.

Even if you go with a web designer, sometimes its easier to point to a website you like and have him customize it specifically for you than to start from scratch. So, either way, I'd take a look at that site.

I happen to work for a custom web design firm in Los Angeles. If you google "Professional Website Design" you'll probably find us in the top of the search rankings. Today we are ranking first place, but tomorrow it could be 3rd or 4th.

One final suggestion is to use Flash ONLY for things like banners and headers. Don't rely on Flash throughout your entire site. I say this for a few reasons:

First, Flash kills your natural, organic, search engine optimization. Google cannot read the letters or words in your Flash application.

Second, it slows down page loading and if your client can't see your page within about 3 seconds she will back out. Google pay attention to how many people immediately back out and will push your rankings even lower if website visitors frequently back out of your site.

Finally, Flash is extraordinarily difficult and expensive to maintain. And, if you don't have the original source files, it is completey unmaintainable. So, cross your fingers that your Flash designer doesn't die, flake out on your, or disappear.

Good luck, Blake