Doing A Great Job

Recently it was suggested to me to change the direction of my blog. The thought was that I was writing more for other photographers rather than my potential clients. To be honest, the person who suggested that was probably right. Let’s face it, my clients (I hope you are one of them) don’t want to know how to create the James Effect or Make an Image Pop! That’s what they hire me for. (I hope!)


In addition they suggested that I do a blog post about the differences between “a job well done” and a “great job!” I am going to be honest, I gave up after 7 tries; well sort of. This is actually number 8. I think I figured out what I was doing wrong, I wasn’t writing like I usually do. I usually write like I am having a conversation. That isn’t what I was doing with attempts 1 thru 7.

 

I’ll admit it, I can write about what photographers want because I know what I want. When was I try to write to you my potential client, I was trying to be you. What do I want an article from a photographer to tell me about the photography he thinks I need. Answer? Nothing.

I can’t tell a client what they need, I can only listen to them tell me what they want an image to do. Perhaps they want an image to translate an idea or a concept. Maybe it should reflect a lifestyle or a way of living. Or maybe they want a series of good portraits of the leaders in their company. It is not my job to tell them what they want or need. It is my job to go out and get it. Not just to get the shot but to go out and get the feeling they want and need.

I was trying to write to potential clients to tell them why they needed me to take an image for them. The truth is that they don’t need me to take an image for them, anyone can do that. Anyone can pick up a camera and take a snapshot of horse in a field or a picture of a house. A decent photographer will capture an image that shows the colors of the horse in contrast to the green fields or a well lit image of a nice home. That is a job well done.

But that isn’t what I do. I make images that show a lifestyle. Images that show what it is like to live in the country. Images that make you and your clients want to have a stable, not just own a horse. I want to create an image campaign with you so that we, as a team, can have your clients feel what it’s like to come home to luxury or to be pampered and treated like a movie star when they are doing a promo piece for their next movie release.

 

 

That is what I do. I make images, not take pictures. And I do a great job, not just a job well done.

 

 

Until next time…

Creativity – It’s A Service Business

 

In the faster digital age of today, “What have you done for me lately?” has been sped up to, “What have you done for me today?” I run a service business so these are words I need to listen to. After all, my business relies on the success of my clients. Plain and simple I provide a service. Yes there is the tangible image or print. But when it comes down to brass tacks, it’s a matter of what I can do to make my client’s life easier, more profitable and simpler. To do that, I have to provide services – good services.

 

Something that I can offer my clients that hasn’t been traditionally offered is speed of service. In the days of film I was at the mercy of the lab to take my images, develop them and turn them into prints that my client then had to have processed in order to use them in whatever way they needed. Often this meant days more processing and prepping. Now that most photography has gone digital I am able to process them in record time. But not only can I do this processing fast, I can do it better. Now, along with better imagery, if it is at all possible, I am going to turn a job around just 24-48 hours. I can do this partly because of new technology. My clients should reap the benefits of the faster and more detail oriented advances. It’s my job to make that happen.

 

In the past I could dodge and burn images, reprocess, analyze and process again, if I had my own lab. If not, I was spending more time waiting for image to come back from the lab than I was actually editing. And quite often I was not consulting with my client until after the product was completed. Today I not only can process and make adjustments faster, often my client is on location with me looking at the images as they are taken. That means you as my client get more input into the final image. You get the opportunity to guide the creative process. In post production, clients can make suggestions, ask for color adjustments or just simply approve the images faster. This gets them more involved and more likely to receive exactly the results they want and need.

 

The most important thing that I can do is understand. Having been in the corporate world for many years I know how business works. I know what it’s like to have to go through approval processes, getting sign off and trying to meet everyone’s expectations while not sacrificing the end product. As a person with over 20 years in the business world along side of 20+ years of photographic experience, I can work with a client to guide everyone through the business of creativity. I help guide my clients through the creative process and make sure that they get the results they are striving for and do it with an approach to their business needs.

 

Understanding business and the needs of my clients is what helps me help my clients.

 

Until next time…

Happy Shooting!

Photography – When ‘Good Enough’ Isn’t

When is “good enough,” good enough?  Hell of a question to ask a perfectionist. But the real answer is actually easy. Good Enough is never good enough.

 

Seriously though, many businesses think that imagery, video or stills, can be done for less that it traditionally has been done. Because of this many marketing directors and art directors are forced to settle for smaller budgets. They try to make do with less. Less is not more in photography. Less is just, well, less.

Your product or service isn’t just good enough is it? Isn’t your advertising supposed to show your best side, show how you stand above your competition? Let’s look at a few examples. We will get to my images later but first go to Google.com and type in “sneakers” and click the first link that pops up. Top of the list, #1 ranking. Go ahead. I’ll wait. That was fast. Not a bad site, rotating images of, well, sneakers. Now go to Nike.com. I’ll wait. No problem I have time.

 

When you’re done, I’ll be here.
Wow! Once you get past the language and country, now that is a photograph!  Time was spent conceptualizing and capturing that image. And you have to click to move to the next image. But you want to. You want to see what is the next shot, what do those sneakers look like. They got you. They have you looking and reading and you are curious. Isn’t that putting your best foot forward? (pun intended)

 

Seriously, the idea of marketing is to set yourself above and beyond your competition. So how is “good enough” setting you apart? If you are just doing something as good as the other guy, why do I want to use you instead of them? What makes you special? Nothing. So I am sticking with them and you just wasted your marketing dollar.

 

The fact is that by not doing the best you can, you actually waste more money that you think. First you are wasting it on an image that isn’t putting you in front of the pack. That dollar you did spend is possibly killing your entire marketing campaign! You saved a few hundred or a few thousand by hiring your brother-in-law’s kid who has a decent camera, but no training or skills, and you got a shot that is good enough.

 

Now you put your marketing campaign out there and it doesn’t bring you any new business. What if you get images that are really just average or even above average snapshots, you may even lose a few points of your market share. After all, your version of a Nike type competitor did spend a little more and hired the same pro that did the Nike website images. Now he has your customers. You lost even more.  These images are getting expensive.

 

You have spent money on your nephew, you spent money on the marketing materials and ads. Maybe you have a marketing department. Well those people don’t work for free. You spent thousands, maybe tens of thousands on a marketing campaign and put in good enough images and now it cost you more than if you did nothing!  You lost all those customers to save a few bucks!

 

OK let’s say you’re not a business man. You’re just the average Joe working for a living. Maybe good enough is good for you. Probably not. In fact, for you it’s even a bigger hit. Imagine if you hired Uncle Louie to shoot your wedding because you wanted to save a little bit more for the honeymoon. Your images came back flat, lifeless and half the people had their heads cut off in the middle of their foreheads. Your married now and she isn’t happy about those images. The wedding album is on her side of the bed. You’re not.

 

OK you sprung for the pro photographer at the wedding but you didn’t want to get the baby pictures done by the professional. Guess what. Kids grow up and they do it fast.  Before you know it you’re paying for college tuition rather than diapers. Those first few years aren’t coming back either. You missed the best shots of their lives.

 

So when is good enough, good enough? Never.

 

What about those images of mine I said would come later? Check out the portfolio here: https://michaelalbany.com/portfolio/ and tell me. Did these people settle for good enough?

 

Why are you?

 

Until next time…

Happy shooting!

Itailian Press – Thank You.

It seems that the “Free Business Portraits for the Unemployed” is a great topic of discussion in the Italian media. I found out this morning that yesterday I was featured in a blog about jobs and employment. The article is here: blog.cercalavoro.it.

I have been in some of Italy’s top newspapers and I will be featured in a Italian magazine within the next week or two and now this as well.

I went ahead and used Google Translator to translate yesterday’s blog post into English. It’s not a perfect translation but you can get the point. If any of my readers know Italian and want to have a crack at translating more accurately let me know. In the mean time, click the link to read the English(ish) version (Thank you Google!).

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Has your company lost its face?

In the recent economy budgets have been cut, extras trimmed and marketing almost evaporated. But it’s time to update your face – the face of your company.

In today’s whirlwind of social media it is more important than ever to have current, strong images of your key executives. The images your clients and customers see online show the influence and confidence of your people, your product and your company. If these images are old or dated your customers will notice. It’s not just the person they see; it’s the face of your business.

When was the last time the business portraits on your web site were updated? Are these the same portraits your executives are using on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Dreamstake or other social media sites?

If a picture is worth a thousand words yours should say what it is that makes you standout. Current portraits and images representing your product or services need to be concise yet capture the attention of the viewer. Your potential client is going to spend 8 seconds or less looking at your home page or profile. In those 8 seconds you can get a good message across with the right imagery. If your images say who you are, what you do or convey a sense of trust and professionalism your chances of increasing that 8 seconds improve dramatically. This gets your viewer to read the content of your profile or home page and that is what you want them to do.

If you have spent any time at all on social media sites you have probably seen a comment by someone that sparked a reaction in you. When you feel that spark what do you do? Look at their avatar or profile picture right there next to their post, then and only then, do you look at the name. That image tells you something about that person. Maybe you relate to them, maybe you see that they have a confidence about them. Maybe you see an image that was taken with a cell phone or by their child, or even worse you can tell it’s an image of them with their significant other cropped out. Not an awe inspiring image is it?

If you have updated your images in the last 6 – 12 months are you sure that your staff is using as professional of an image on their social media profiles?

A good photographer can come to your office using a conference room and about a day or less update most if not all of your staffs’ images. These images will be professional, quality images that are strong and well done. The upper management and executives can and should, stand out more.

By taking a more creative approach you can place high level executives in more appropriate environments. An example is a CEO of a construction company on the site of a large project, a CFO with stock market video screens running behind him, an athletic shoe president in a collegiate track and field stadium, or the owner of a winery near large wine barrel stacks. It may take a little more time than the staff portraits but it will still be less time than a short impromptu meeting. A good photographer will come to the office or site and be ready to grab a few shots in a few minutes.

In these challenging times photographers are just as eager to find cost effective solutions as you are. Our goals are to get the image that shows you and your staff in the right light. We want you to look your best, to stand out and to get those thousand words out in under the 8 seconds.

Now the question remains, isn’t it time to update your face?

Until next time… Happy Shooting!

Equal Marriage Rights and Photography

I am going to step over my normally neutral line here for a few moments and write about a topic very much in the headlines, especially today; Equal Marriage Rights and what it means for photographers (and other small businesses).

Yesterday Maine voters repealed a state law that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed. Whether you are for or against gay’s right to marry, I want to point out how this affects my photography business as well as other small businesses in our economy.

First we need to look at a few numbers.

US Population as of 2009 – 307,855,901
Total Married in the US (not including divorced) – 67,314,661 (22%)
Gay Men in the US – 31,678,372 (21%)
Gay Women in the US – 34,541,432 (22%)
(Data sources: via www.census.gov, www.gallup.com)

Based on the numbers above we can make a few assumptions safely. If the average marriage rate among straight people in the US is 22% then we can assume that roughly the same amount of the gay population will also marry. That means that were gay marriage legal in all 50 US states, 14,479,384 more people would get married. Assuming it takes two people to get married (I don’t know another way) then there would be an additional 7,239,692 weddings per year. This is a minimum as we are not including the divorced in the above statistics.

Click the link to learn more
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It’s a New Look! A New Name too! (well, sort of)

But it’s the same old Michael. Welcome to the new Michael Albany Photography website and blog!

I have spent a lot of time redesigning the site here at www.michaelalbany.com (formerly www.michaelalbany.com and that address still works) and I updated www.magickmichael.com too. I really want to hear what everyone thinks. Click the link below and let me know your opinion.

Moving forward I will be adding podcasts, video and tips for people looking to have a photo shoot done. Topics will include “What to Wear to a Portrait Shoot”, “Having Fun at a Shoot”, “What To Bring To A Photo Shoot” and many more! Now that the redesign is done, I have a lot of work to do on fresh content.

Keep an eye out for details on how you can get your free videos and podcasts!

In the mean time, take a look around, let me know what you think. Don’t be shy, if you love it tell me. If you hate it, tell me that too. In either case tell me why so I know what to do to make coming to www.michaelalbany.com is something you want to do!

Click the link to share your thoughts and opinions!
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Free Portraits – Again!

Just a short note for everyone that has been worried about me. I am recovering from my short procedure which turned into a second procedure which turned into a slight infection at the incision. I am doing well and well enough to go do a shoot today.

I will be shooting couples portraits all day at Outfest in Philly. We will be on 12th just north of Pine near Giovanni’s room, the oldest LGBT bookstore in the nation. Photo sessions are free and all revenue from your purchase of any print goes to the Wall Project to save Giovanni’s Room. Stop by & say Hi! We are going to try to put a calendar together too!

I hope that anyone that is in the area will come out and support your LGBT friends and relatives. Its going to be a beautiful day! I look forward to seeing you all there. Stop by and say hi! If you do, I have a free gift for you.

Until then, Happy Shooting!

To leave a comment click the link!

The “How To” on Free Magick Portraits

I have been contacted by many photographers asking how they can do their own event for Free Magick Portraits for the unemployed. At first it seemed like a compliment to get recognition from my fellow professional photographers. But after many phone calls to all over the country and E-mails around the world I decided to write a white paper for those wanting to create their own event.

To help everyone out there that wants to create their own Free Magick Portraits the white paper gives the basics on what I did and what you can do to have a successful and rewarding event. If you use the title of Free Magick Portraits for…”, let me know and I will make sure that you get a posting and a link for this site to the details about your event. Let’s make it an international success!

You can download the PDF version of the paper by CLICKING HERE.

Until next time
Happy Shooting!

What a Wonderful Day!

 

My oh my, what a wonderful… event! On August 26th I did the Free Business Portraits for the Unemployed and it was fantastic! A stellar turnout! Free Business Portraits for the Unemployed was a raging success!

Originally when I set this up I didn’t know how it would go. I just wanted to do something for the community at large and the unemployed community is pretty large now a days.

Everyone was great. All the people having their shots taken were smiling and everyone was grateful for the service we provided. The volunteers are the ones that should get all the attention. I couldn’t have done it without Eva, Heather, Perry or Kimberly. You guys rock!

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