A Wedding Photographer’s Search for a Wedding Photographer – Part Four

Today is the 4th instalment of Libby Clark’s bride to be diary series. In the first 3 parts of this series we’ve discussed budgets and how hard it is to find a photographer using Google (there is just so much to choose from and so many sites to wade through). Throughout this series though Libby is learning from her own search exactly what her own photography business needs and all of this she is sharing with you.

so, enjoy part 4 of A Wedding Photographers Search for a Wedding Photographer. Over to you Libby…

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Welcome back for another week. I hope you’re getting something from these posts because I’m learning so so much!

Last week looked at what I want and how I was looking for it. I focused a fair bit on homepages and how that is your place to shine. 50 milliseconds, remember?!

This week I thought I’d leave the world of Google behind and try some other methods. I feel like I’ve struck gold.

Part Four– Where Else Can I Look?

To be honest, Google was overwhelming me quite a bit. I was so fed up of just clicking result after result and using slightly different search terms for a different list to click through. Obviously I’m quite a visual person so I wanted to see work before I visited the website. It’s all about speed! I wanted lots of pictures in front of me I could choose from and go from there, otherwise I was at risk of losing my patience and losing interest.

At first I thought about Facebook. I’ve seen people use this many a time, mostly through posts in wedding groups:

“Can anyone recommend a good wedding photographer who’s cheap?”

Eurgh, I HATE those posts! You just get comment after comment of pretty much every photographer each person knows. Like I said last week, photography is subjective so you can’t expect to find exactly what you’re looking for with a post like this. Unless you’re lucky.

I thought about going through the various photographer’s pages I’ve “liked” over the years but with over 1,200 pages in my liked section it seems just as daunting as Google. Don’t discount Facebook completely though. More on that in a minute.

The most visual social tool I thought of was Pinterest. How many times as photographers have you visited Pinterest for inspiration? There is so much beauty out there that makes my jaw drop and Pinterest has the majority of it sitting there waiting to be pinned.

So off I went. Hello Pinterest, search “wedding photography Gloucestershire”.

OMG OMG OMG OMG… Yes really. Look at all the gorgeous photos!!

Whilst I still had a lot of results I was feeling much more confident. As long as the photographer’s name was mentioned and I liked what I saw, it was pinned. I decided that if I saw more than a few of one photographers work and pinned it, I would check them out a bit further. I only pinned 33 photos before I realised I was going to struggle to narrow them down so I had to stop myself.

An important part of this process for me if to give myself some thinking time. Time where I’m not looking for wedding photographers so that I can come back with a fresh mind. Indeed that’s what I did and whilst I still loved some of the work it was removed from the list because it wasn’t quite right for me.

The next night I began making my way through the list and looking at websites. I think I narrowed it down to 5 at the time. The next part of my search involved looking into these 5 a little more. I moved away from Pinterest for this and on to Facebook. I found myself looking for some interesting things I hadn’t expected. How often do they post? When did they last post? How many wedding photographs are on their page?

If I go to my Facebook page and ask the same questions the answers are as follows; Rarely, October last year, quite a few but they vary hugely in quality.

Ouch, so not only do I need to redo my website. I also need to seriously overhaul my Facebook page and get posting! I remember a friend setting up a Facebook schedule every day with different kinds of posts. Links, images and text. It worked brilliantly for her and the enagement on her page sky rocketed. As soon as she stopped so did the engagement.

Use social media, it works!

I think I’ve found my main search tool. I wondered if I’m the only person who will find their photographer via Pinterest or if this is quite a popular tool? I’ll expand on this more next week but this week’s lesson was this:

Most friends I asked did not use Google as their main search tool. For some reason this surprised me!

When I put the question out to friends I started to get quite a mixture of answers and I wanted to ask more questions, so I’ve decided to do a little market research and do a questionnaire. I’ll let you know the outcome soon.

Next week – The enquiry stage

 

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About the Author: Libby Clark

Libby is based in Swindon, UK and has been shooting weddings for five years. Find out more about Libby over at www.libbyclarkphotography.co.uk

Be sure to join the discussion over in the buzzing RSP community and subscribe to Ready Steady Pro right here to receive the next part of this series direct to your mailbox or to be notified when new parts are available for reading!

 

A Wedding Photographer’s Search for a Wedding Photographer – Part Three

We’re back this week the 3rd installment of Guest Blogger Libby Clark’s diary series, opening the pages on her own search for a wedding photographer. We’ve spoken about the budget, we’ve touched on how difficult it can be to find exactly what you’re looking for in a saturated market and even how with tools such as Google we’re still presented with far too much choice! Today however Libby dives further into her search and details exactly what she is looking for and what she is doing to find it. So, please do enjoy part 3 of A Wedding Photographer’s Search for a Wedding Photographer, by Libby Clark…

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Hi all,

Last week’s post certainly provoked some discussion and food for thought in the Ready Steady Pro Facebook group. I talked about the search terms I found myself using, mostly broad searches that weren’t getting me anywhere. So I had to do some more in depth searches.

Part Three – What Do I Want and How Do I Find It?

This week was all about using keywords and different search methods. I decided the best thing to do would be to write down what style we were looking for. As a photographer this is where I knew I was going to struggle. We all have our own specific style and we wouldn’t use it if we didn’t like it. So what I’m looking for is someone who photographs the way that I do and better, but I have that budget of £1,800 to keep in mind. I might be able to sneak that up to £2,000… maybe.

Our theme/style for the day itself is very rural, involves cider, lots of natural colours, flat caps and flowers. In my head I see lots of light, soft images of the blushing bride (that’s me!) looking whimsically into her new husbands eyes with the sunlight behind them. Soft and warm colours… *sigh*. Sorry I went into a daydream of prettiness there!

So how do you sum that up into keywords? I guess I can add vintage to the list so I search “Wedding Photographer Vintage Style Gloucestershire”.

Now that’s a bit better. The first thing I see is a website that lists local photographers and I notice a few more keywords in their first paragraph; reportage, documentary style, posed photographs. This also reminds me of fine art, classic, unique, street and a few more keywords I can add to the list. I just need to narrow down which.

When I shoot I like to do so in a documentary style but the couple photos are the perfect opportunity to be a bit more creative with lights and angles. Without going into another daydream we want someone to capture the true essence of the day so we’re definitely looking for documentary style with a fine art twist. That might be hard. Do people even do that? I do so I hope others do!

Ok, good. I have some more keywords:

“Wedding photographer vintage style gloucestershire documentary fine art”

Bit of a mouthful I must admit but hurrah! I have far fewer results and I go ahead and click on one. So far, so good. For the most part I like what I see on the home page slideshow even though I’m a little frustrated it’s not loading very quickly. I’m not very keen on the second photo I see though. The guy has a slightly awkward look on his face and doesn’t look comfortable. Stuart hates having his photo taken and will only let me do it so I’m really aware I need to find someone he can be comfortable with and relax.

I did some assistant and second shooting work last year in return for some mentoring and one of the things I was told was to only showcase the best of the best. Nothing mediocre.

I can see why now, maybe it’s my overly critical eye but I’ve noticed this one error and I’m about to discount the photographer because of it! I think about the fact I’ve done exactly the same thing and tell myself not to judge so quickly and carry on looking.

This is the next lesson:

People can make decisions in 50 milliseconds. You have 50 milliseconds to make people go WOW and encourage them to keep looking.

I think if I’d seen the second photo first I wouldn’t have gone much further but thankfully the first photo caught my eye so I’m going to look past the second photo. The next few won’t load properly. I’m getting a bit annoyed at this point but when they do eventually load I do rather like them. The photos fit our style with rural, gorgeous backlit couples. Unfortunately one photo is so crowded with confetti I can’t see the couple. But I’ll keep looking, I’ll just remember to give the guests small handfuls of petals rather than a full box! I then notice that this photographer has been featured on one of my favourite wedding blogs and was a regional finalist for a Wedding Industry Award. I’m not fussed they didn’t win it but I feel a bit more confident about them now.

You might have noticed at this point I’ve only looked at the home page. I’ve not even looked at the portfolio so the next lesson I’ve learnt is this.

Your home page is THE page. I’ve always used mine as a bit of an introduction to the rest of my website which is clearly the wrong thing to be doing. This is what your clients are going to base the majority of their decision on.

I’ve now spent a few minutes here and I’m still liking what I see enough. I suddenly remember the “bounce rate” I’ve seen on Google Analytics telling me how much time people are spending on each page before they leave. I’m lucky if I get a full 10 seconds on my home page! I’ve given this photographer at least 5 minutes of my time so far. I finally scroll down past the slideshow and see a short paragraph. I wasn’t going to read it but as it’s above the links for the other pages I’m going to. Ooh, they describe their style as “fine art mixed with documentary”! I’m a little excited now so I click through to the gallery.

After a few minutes of looking I decide this photographer, as good as they are, doesn’t quite fit my style. I think I want more of a fine art approach than I initially realised. But the point is I took my time, I didn’t go to the home page and move away 50 milliseconds later. The website was really easy to follow and I wasn’t wondering where I had to go to find things.

Next week… Where Else Can I Look?

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About the Author: Libby Clark

Libby is based in Swindon, UK and has been shooting weddings for five years. Find out more about Libby over at www.libbyclarkphotography.co.uk

Be sure to join the discussion over in the buzzing RSP community and subscribe to Ready Steady Pro right here to receive part two of this series direct to your mailbox or to be notified when part two is available for reading!

A Wedding Photographer’s Search for a Wedding Photographer – Part Two

This week we continue our series with Ready Steady Pro Community Member and guest blogger Libby Clark. Libby has kindly agreed to open her diary and provide us with an insight in to her own search for a wedding photographer. Being a wedding photographer herself this series will offer us, the readers, an idea of the thinking process that our clients go through when looking for that one, all-important vendor: their wedding photographer.

Part One of the series was very well received, where Libby discusses budgets and lessons that can be weaned from her search to benefit her own business, so without further delay here’s the second installment:

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Hi all,

Thanks for coming back to read part two! Apparently I’m not as bad with words as I thought so here is part two:

Last week I discussed “The Budget”. It opened my eyes as to how wrong my own pricing structure probably is! As much as we like to think all couples have an endless amount of money to spend on their wedding I’ve realised they often don’t – because I’m one of them. So as I mentioned last week my own wedding photographer budget has been set at £1,800. With that established it was time to start looking for a photographer, properly.

The next part of my journey has so far proved equally interesting (and challenging!)

Part Two – Where Do I Start?

Last week I mentioned that I’ve been guilty of using keywords that I just expect my website to be found when used. I don’t know why because having recently searched “wedding photographer Swindon” I’m ashamed to say Waitrose had a result before I did! In fact I gave looking for my own website after looking through 22 pages of the search results.  So this week I learnt why SEO and keywords are so important. My search for a photographer started as it did probably do for almost all couples:

1. Open Google…
2. Search “Wedding Photographer”

Why did I do that? I genuinely didn’t know what else to type and where to start my search! Using Google is how I’d hope my couples would find me, so why wouldn’t I find a photographer this way?

There were pages upon pages of photographers listed in the search results that all featured because of just two key words: ‘Wedding Photographer’. As it so happens the first few results are photographers I know. They get regular bookings and do this full time (Most likely because they’re at the top of Google!) But I don’t feel relieved I have a lovely list to choose from, I feel somewhat overwhelmed. There are so many?! Where do I start?!

Ok, let’s try again. Let’s narrow things down:

1. Open Google…
2. Search “Wedding Photographer South West”

 

The results aren’t much better really, I still have a massive list to go through but there are more in my area of the country now. Kind of.

I live in Wiltshire but we’re getting married in Gloucestershire. To those of us who live here we are South Westerners. To the rest of the UK however we somehow fall into ‘the bit between the South West and The Midlands’ and suddenly I’m thinking about the fact that if I find and love a photographer in the deepest depths of Cornwall we’re going to have to pay for their travel and accommodation. (Quite rightly though; I don’t expect them to travel all that way for nothing.)

That’s where I’ve probably got one up on those couples planning who don’t have a clue about the industry as my expectations are probably a little more in line with the accepted norm. This was my next lesson as a photographer:

It’s really appreciated if you make it clear what areas you cover at no extra charge and, if you do charge for travel where that starts. If you are based in Cornwall I doubt you’d be happy to travel up to Cumbria at no extra cost!

By now I’ve been mindlessly clicking on random photographer’s websites for a couple of hours but no one is really doing it for me. I’m going to need a rethink. I know I’ve fallen into the trap that I expect all couples do: search terms that cover far too much for their brains to consume. Time to sit down and think about what we want and use keywords.

Next week… What Do I Want and How Do I Find It?

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About the Author: Libby Clark

Libby is based in Swindon, UK and has been shooting weddings for five years. Find out more about Libby over at www.libbyclarkphotography.co.uk

Be sure to join the discussion over in the buzzing RSP community and subscribe to Ready Steady Pro right here to receive part two of this series direct to your mailbox or to be notified when part two is available for reading!

A Wedding Photographer’s Search for a Wedding Photographer – Part One

Over in the Facebook Community for Ready Steady Pro community member Libby Clark mentioned just how hard it is, as a wedding photographer, to find a wedding photographer! Fellow member and contributor to this blog, James Hepworth struck upon a great idea – Let’s invite Libby to share something of a diary with the rest of us: ‘A Wedding Photographer’s Search for a Wedding Photographer’. So, here today I’m peased to share with you Part One of Libby’s diary-type series on her search for a wedding photographer and wedding planning.

All wedding photographers, especially those who aren’t yet married themselves, should really have a read of this. It’s a great insight in to the mind of a bride (who just so happens to be a wedding photographer too!)

Over to you Libby…

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Thanks Michael for the introduction. As you now know I’m Libby and I’m very much a part time Wedding Photographer. I work full time in a job I love so I know I don’t put as much effort into my business as I should. Especially when it comes to marketing and my website. But that’s another story for another time!

You might have guessed from the title; I’m getting married! I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a blog about planning my own wedding for a few weeks, so when James suggested it, and Michael asked me to write one about my own search for a wedding photographer I jumped at the opportunity.

The aim of this diary style blog is for the professional photographers out there to get the other halves’ side of what’s important in marketing. Over the years I’ve been guilty of designing websites with keywords and creating designs that I assume will be ok. I know what I want people to search for in Google to find me so why wouldn’t they? I like my design so why wouldn’t anyone else?

So let me take you on my journey… of search terms and things that have struck me whilst I’m looking for my own perfect Wedding Photographer. It’s not quite going as I expected.

Part One – The Budget

As I work in the wedding industry, I think I always knew I would find planning my own wedding hard. I’ve been to so many weddings and seen so many beautiful things my head is somewhat bursting (and so are my Pinterest boards). Friends have always said “I bet you can’t wait to plan your wedding, especially the photography”. Actually the photography is the bit I’m dreading the most! There was no way I was going to rush into a decision but I also knew I couldn’t leave it too long.

After several weeks of looking, we have found the perfect venue so we’re booking it! We have a date, a church and thankfully Stuart (my fiancé) and I both have the same idea when it comes to themes and styles. I’m one of those super organized people who likes to have everything written down. And lists, oh how I love a good list!

So now that the venue is chosen, I need to find a photographer. You’d think that being one myself, setting the budget for this part would be easy.

Oh my days it isn’t! Not even a little bit!

Our budget for the whole day is just over £20,000 which is about average for a wedding these days. Of course I appreciate that a good photographer will charge what they’re worth and if I could have my way I’d probably budget about £3,000 towards it. Sadly both Stuart and our bank account don’t agree with this. So, after a couple of arguments, a genuine suggestion that we just give all the guests disposable cameras (yes, really), and eventually the acceptance that there was no way I was going to back down we agreed on a budget of £1,800.

This is where my first point of realisation came in… I charge £700 for a full day of wedding photography including a disc of edited images, an online password protected gallery, a photo book and an engagement shoot. I know I’m undercharging and a lot of my pricing decisions came down to confidence. However, I was discounting photographers who charge under £1,000 for a full day as probably being inexperienced and not confident in their work.

Now maybe that’s not a fair analysis, but I really don’t want to be one of those people who regrets not spending enough on their photographer. Equally I recognise a good photographer when I see one, and a bad one, so of course I won’t be going on pricing alone. It does make you think though, if everyone in my target market has a budget of £1,800 for a photographer, are they even going to look at the cheaper ones? If I’m anything to go by, possibly not.

It’s only been a few days and I’ve already realised my pricing is quite possibly wrong for my target market! I think I’ll be sitting down and starting my pricing structure over.

Next week – Where Do I Start?

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About the Author: Libby Clark

Libby is based in Swindon, UK and has been shooting weddings for five years. Find out more about Libby over at www.libbyclarkphotography.co.uk

Be sure to join the discussion over in the buzzing RSP community and subscribe to Ready Steady Pro right here to receive part two of this series direct to your mailbox or to be notified when part two is available for reading!

Living the Dream

Daniel Brock has very kindly agreed to share an extremely thought provoking post with us here at Ready Steady Pro. RSP Community member and super-talented photographer Danny wrote this post (which originally features over on his own website) and it moved quite a few of us over in the Ready Steady Pro community. So we asked Danny if he would be so kind as to re-blog the post right here on the RSP blog.

You can also check out this post in it’s original format over on Danny’s website: http://www.photosbydannyb.com/blog/2014/4/22/living-the-dream

I am sitting in my living room reading a blog post by someone who one day I would like to have a beer with (David DuChemin) waiting for our toddler to finish “pooping” in his diaper, listening to the all too familiar grunts and groans, anticipating with held breath the stench that will signal my time to deal with the latest “oh the humanity!” diaper change.

I mention these two things as a juxtaposition, reading something by David DuChemin and my role as a stay at home dad. Mr DuChemin travels the world photographing incredible places, living extraordinary adventures while I change a dirty bum…

Now before you feel sorry for me or lecture me with the cliche  (which I have preached to crowds of youth many a time) “follow your dreams”, I am! This is my dream, I have a great life. An incredible, beautiful, smart, talented wife, two beautiful boys who are indeed the “apple of my eye”, a house I would be happy to live in for the rest of my life, a dog and a cat. My life is a dream.

I have started over with little more than the clothes on my back four times in my 45 years (not counting the day I was born). Three of those times was to begin a new adventure, moving to a different continent, to a new phase of my life. One time was when the person I loved the most left me a note to say goodbye and “papers” from a lawyer.

Back to what I am reading by David DuChemin, in a blog post he titled ‘Choose your risk‘ David writes:

“The culture we live in would rather watch great stories on movie screens than live them. Why? I think it’s fear of risk. The bigger the risk the greater the potential reward but also the greater the potential for “Oh God, Oh God, we’re all going to die!” or something similar. Fear is the loudest voice in many of our lives. Fear of rejection leads us to buy some crazy stuff, as well as keep our voice down when it should be loudly telling others “I love you.” Fear of the unknown keeps us close to home. Fear of fear keeps us in therapy. So we’d rather watch Braveheart and imagine ourselves with that kind of courage than risk finding out for ourselves if we have it.”

Back to the life of a stay at home dad living the dream, beside the dad gig I also take pictures and get paid to take them. I have dreams for where the future of this picture taking will go and to be honest I hope it’s not at weddings.  😉

Now to the point of why I am writing; while I am living the dream now but I still have dreams for tomorrow.

Starting over so many times has taught me quite a bit about life and what’s important and maybe even what’s not. Let me list a few of these lessons learnt.

i. LIFE IS A RISK.

In my early twenties I moved abroad, thousands of miles away from my family and my comfort zone (fist starting over). No it wasn’t some third world country, it was the US, I moved to a resort town in Southern California. It was during this time I started experience a strange numbness throughout my body that was put down to stress.

It wasn’t until approximately four years later after I had returned back to Australia (start over #2), numerous weird numbness episodes, a serious rock climbing accident where I almost lost my foot and the insistence of friends and family I went to see a Neurologist. After I was prodded, probed and scanned I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

When the Doc told me I had MS an unpredictable Neurological  disease he repeated it twice because I think he thought I hadn’t heard. He was surprised I hadn’t reacted so he went into further detail and asked me if I understood. I had understood but I wasn’t worried because of my faith in God and because I knew life is a risk.

When I was in the States a good friend, one of the strongest guys I knew went skiing one day and broke his neck. The prognosis the Doc was giving me as a possibility in the future happened to him with a misjudged ski jump.

ii. STUFF DOESN’T MATTER, PEOPLE DO!

I had early on chosen. to give my life to others, being not smart enough to be a Doctor I chose the ministry. Regardless of people’s opinions, those who work in the church are not in it for the money. I went from the construction industry (good money) into Youth Ministry (not good money).

I met a someone, fell in love, got married and began our lives together. After almost seven years married, serving people together it ended for me with a note and those papers from a lawyer. Shattered, destroyed and lost but I had those people I was ministering to, those people I was in a church with… yeah? no!

People disappeared, we’re too busy, too elsewhere. To be fair people didn’t know what to  say I guess but still my friends were gone.

What I found through this dark time was that while some people may abandon you, others will stand with you. Those who I considered as good friends were absent but some who were a little more than acquaintances stood with me.

I was starting over again with no career, no family nearby but some of those acquaintances became real friends, became “closer than a brother”. They stood beside me when I married the woman of my dreams, the one who would become the mother of my beautiful boys, they stood with me and gave me the strength to stay in a foreign land where I met her. In a bit over a week, on the 26th of April I have been married to the woman of my dreams for seven years.

iii. LIFE IS NOT EASY BUT IT’S WORTH IT.

I love challenge, well I at least I like the idea of challenge.

But really challenge is when we grow, it’s when we come through on the other side of the challenging times in our life that we will see how much we have grown. I have always liked how the Bible puts it in Romans 5, “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

Nothing of value comes without a price, without costing us. From a healthy marriage to becoming a skilled photographer requires hard work, requires an investment of time. The book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell argues that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in any field.

The problem for many of us is that we give up long before we reach 10,000 hours of anything. Or we use the excuse that we don’t have the time to invest, if it’s important to you, you will pay the price!

Just don’t give up! I have seen people who lose everything, brush themselves off and then move on and live the dream. While others I see “living” in heartbreak, in disappointment, in fear of moving on so as a result they live the nightmare, again and again.

iv. HAVE A DREAM!

When you lose everything you can still have a dream.

This is where I could go into the stories of those people who were told they couldn’t do something because of various reasons and shortfalls only to pursue their dreams regardless and then achieve the impossible.

Well I’m not going to but I will say nothing can be achieved without a dream/vision/hope, whatever you want to call it.

I have this really weird, obtuse favourite verse from the Bible and it can be found in Ecclesiastes 9:4, “even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!” If you’re not dead then you can still dream, you can still work towards accomplishing that dream.

When our first son was born I made him a magnet board (doesn’t matter what it was, not the point) and I wrote on the back a simple message for him, “Always dream, Always imagine!”

So as I sit here reading the words of a photographer who I have never met, who I want to be like, I can always dream and always imagine…

 PS. During the writing of this post I have changed two diapers, fed the toddler lunch, put him down for his first nap and am about to put him down for his second nap. Living the dream man, living the dream!!

About Danny

Danny is “Papa” of Dylan and Cody, husband of Hsueh Yee (Michelle) and takes pictures on the side.

He is a family lifestyle photographer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada (one of the coldest cities on earth). Originally from Newcastle, Australia he now has dual citizenship and is living the dream in Canada, for now…

 

Be sure to check out Danny online in all the usual places:

Website: http://photosbydannyb.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/photosbydannyb
Flickr: http://flickr.com/photosbydannyb
Email: info@photosbydannyb.com