Yet another of my meandering blog posts, I'm afraid. Here's what's been happening with me over the last week or so ...
1) I've got a new hobby, and it's called photography! You see, with the digital age comes disposability (is that a word?) Don't like a photo? Just press delete and it's gone, no cost to you. This often leads to people taking a million pictures and liking just one or two. So, my new hobby is this: grab my wife's old Nikon Film camera, loaded with a roll of black and white film; grab a random lens that happens to fit the camera; grab a light meter; go for a walk, again, somewhere pretty random, and take photos. Of what? Anything! The only rule to this game is that you get one shot at one thing - no repeats. What this does is force you to get everything absolutely spot-on in the camera, so first comes a meter reading, which tells you your aperture and shutter speed, then you compose the shot as best you can, focus and shoot. And the best part is you'll never know what you've shot like till you get the film developed. Well, I like it anyway.
2) Product research - My philosophy on the products my business offers is very simple: they've got to be good enough to make you think "wow!" This is what I said the day my print samples arrived anyway. Not all printers are created equal, it turns out. So, I'm currently having fun seeking out the coolest and best quality products out there. I actually take a pretty big risk (so would say many other photographers) by giving my clients DVDs of high-resolution images .. after all, why would a client come back to me for prints when they can just take the entire DVD to Asda or Snapfish and get something that looks good for 1p? Quality. My products (not talking about the images here) are amazing. They rock. They look and feel so so good, that after having them you may not ever want to go back.
3) Photo Training - So, I'm thinking very seriously about putting on an action-packed, hands-on crash course in beginners' photography. In an afternoon you can learn all about crazy things like Exposure (no in the flasher sense), different lenses, aperture, ISO, and all the other scary things that lurk in the basement of your Digital SLR camera. No more Auto!
Bye
Hey, good post!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean with the older film SLR cameras - outside of taking great pictures, those cameras demand that you take the time and set up that shot correctly. The challenge of "no repeats" is part of the fun of it!
And it's good to hear that you are giving clients your high-quality files, rather than just prints. I do the same. I know many photographers avoid doing this, but I really think that in the digital world of today, clients value the digital file (for e-mail, or digital picture frames, or slideshows, etc.) just as much as the printed version. And yes, if they want quality prints, they can get them from you.
Good luck with offering the crash course in beginner photography, too. With DSLR's becoming more affordable, there are a lot more people stuck on that auto function. Get them off of there!