TIPS60 - Should You Have a "Brick and Mortar" location for your business?

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of having a brick and mortar location. I'm John Harrington. One of the questions that so many photographers ask themselves is, ""Do I need a studio, do I need a physical location in a building. Either in a warehouse district or in a downtown commercial district to make my pictures to review and receive clients?"" In many instances the answer is no, you don't. For over twenty years we've been making pictures, portraits on location, portraits in commercial and corporate offices or we go to the client And portraits of our subjects in all manner of locale, but none of which required a studio. We've never rented studio that's not to say that we haven't shot in a studio environment. So think very carefully about whether or not you need to incur the five, ten, twenty thousand dollar a month rents that are associated with having a brick and mortar location and see if you can cover that in your overhead.

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TIPS60 - Product Commentary - prime lenses vs. zoom lenses

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on primes versus zooms. I'm John Harrington. There is a great deal of debate amongst photographers about whether you should shoot with a prime, whether you should shoot with a zoom. Zooms are great lenses because of course you can be at 24mm, wide open and then all of a sudden you need zoom in to 70mm, no problem, a 24-70mm is a really common zoom lens. If you have the opportunity though, I would strongly encourage you to consider primes. Camera manufacturers still make primes for good reason. They're great lenses, they're sharp a 24mm prime is going to be sharper at 24mm then a 24mm zoom will be at 24mm. It's a crisper lens, it really also is a lens that makes you give a little more thought to what you're doing picture wise, your framing, and so on and so forth. You can't just fix it in zoom. Everyone likes to say, ""Well, fix it in post"" or ""Don't fix it in post"". Fixing it by zooming is a little different than fixing it by changing lenses and changing position. So strongly encourage you to consider prime lenses. Prime lenses are a great tool when you're really trying to just be thoughtful about the image you're making.

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TIPS60 - How to be paid what you are worth(and get clients to do so willingly)

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on how to get paid what you're worth. I'm John Harrington. In order for you to be paid what you're worth, you actually have to demonstrate to clients what you are worth. Sometimes that's a challenge, but the key thing to do is to convince the client that you're worth ""x"" dollars. If you don't convince the client that you're worth that then ultimately what's going to happen is the client's going to decide what they think it's worth off the top of their head and generally speaking what they think it's worth and what it really is worth is always a very disparate figure. The key thing to do is to not only demonstrate that you'll be there for say twenty minutes or a half an hour doing a portrait, but that not only are you there for that period of time, but you are there for an hour before hand setting up and a half an hour, forty five minutes, afterwards breaking down. You'll be doing work on the computer for a couple of hours afterwards to make their portrait look just right and then in addition to that they'll be able to use that picture for years to come based upon the photography licensing and you provide to them. So it's not just fifteen minute shoot, it's actually much longer than that.

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TIPS60 - Using 2/10 Net 30 to Incentivize Faster Payment

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here's an explanation of 2/10 Net 30. I'm John Harrington. 2/10 Net 30 is an accounting term that tells you as the buyer of a product the you can take a two percent discount from the total bill, the total invoice, if you pay in ten days. Otherwise, the net amount is due in thirty days. So if you are sending a bill to a client and you place on the bill 2/10 Net 30 you're trying to provide that client with the incentive to pay that bill within ten days of receipt and therefore allowing them to take a two percent discount. Now a two percent discounts not a big deal when you're talking about a hundred dollars, it's two dollars, thousand dollars, is twenty dollars, so 2/10 Net 30 is really a good incentivisation to give clients to get them to pay you on time or early in this case. So 2/10 Net 30 is a really good accounting tool to get clients to pay you on time or early.

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In 2009, we shared with you a series of behind-the-scenes videos leading up to the historical inauguration of President Barack Obama. The video - Inaugural 'Pre-Game' Behind-The-Scenes Video - showed the different angles available to those covering the event. In 1992 we found ourselves on the North Riser, and every inauguration since we have been on the south riser. This year, we opted for the Ballustrade - a change up to be certain - something new.

Below is a video which illustrates from start to finish the set up we used to capture the swearing in ceremony - once which lasts for approximately 60 seconds. The set up and configurations, a bit longer. IF you're getting this in a feed, click here for the link.

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TIPS60 - Using music in your videos, shoot sessions, website - should you?

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here a few thoughts on using music in your photography business. I'm John Harrington. You need to be very careful about using music in your photography business because even if you're using the music to entertain a subject when you're doing a portrait session doing so in that commercial environment requires a license from ASCAP or BMI. Those are the two major ones. You want to make sure you have permission to do that if you have music playing in a studio that you have a brick and mortar facility. Having that music play actually requires permission. When it's on a website, when it's in a video you delivered to a client, you need to have a separate and specific license for that use as well. Generally speaking you shouldn't be using any music on a website because brides and grooms if they're looking for you or a couples are looking for a family portrait photographer, corporate commercial clients don't want to see music coming up when they are trying to sit in their cubical searching for a photographer for whatever reason when their at work. So just don't use music in general.

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WHAT WE USE - Wimberley Tripod Head

We took the Wimberley tripod head to the Presidential inauguration to see how it handled. Here's a video illustrating it's use. Quick Link - HERE To learn more about the heads, visit www.TripodHead.com .

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