Engagement Shoot- Janesse & Craig

What great people. I’m shooting their wedding in June in Livingston and I’m really looking forward to seeing them again, not to mention actually doing the photography.

The shoot was originally intended to take place a week before it did, but due to Billings and its fun habits of snowing whenever you make plans, we had to reschedule because, guess what, it snowed.

Now then, as a photographer, I love engagement shoots, I really do. Couples arrive as clients and leave as friends. I was speaking to another photographer I know (who lives in New England) and he told me the worst part of a meaningful shoot is when you get paid. It sounds backwards but  it’s true, because then you know it’s over until you meet again at the wedding, and it’s like when a great day comes to an end, or at the end of a road-trip (albeit it a short one) you arrive back home. Engagement shoots (e-shoots) are also a great way for couples to spend time with the photographer before the wedding and get to know one another, to see how the other side works in a professional setting and I think for that reason alone they’re a very valuable investment, it’s best that you feel confident in your choice of photographer before the big day rolls around. Another bonus, if you do opt for an album in your wedding package (which you probably should because they are far far far far better than the DIY ones offered by so many firms) e-shoots make a great introduction to it. The couple in this shoot opted to use some of the pictures on the invites which I think is a nice personalized touch.

So… this shoot lasted about 3 hours. I had 2 locations in mind for different looks and settings, because I find this really helps to keep the shoot fresh and interesting and keeps everyone involved. I also encourage clients to bring a change of outfit- nothing drastic like a total wardrobe change, but a different jacket or sweater goes a long way in adding variety to the shots. For this particular shoot, we started off in a very nice park heading outside of Billings. There was still snow but it was still, crisp and silent. The second location was the opposite- downtown. Lots of brick, concrete and metal. The contrast between these locations (and the subtle change in outfit) really does help mix it up and keep both me and the client interested and exploring new things. Also, being downtown gives the option of being above or below the client… I don’t understand why every shot needs to be taken at eye level. Get high, get low, just get somewhere.

There are plenty more… this is only a small selection of the finished ones. I hope you enjoyed them and I can’t wait to see J&C again in June.

Thanks for reading/looking! My next post will be on the many pics I have from this city which will surface in mid-week sometime.

Much love,

Tez

Football with the Outlaws

The Billings Outlaws that is.

I was lucky enough to have been given an all access pass for the opening game of the season for the Billings Outlaws versus the Kent Predators (from Washington state). For those of you in the know, or who have kept track of my previous work, I shot a lot (a LOT) of sports work for a pro wrestling firm in UK called GPW including promo shots, action shots, behind the scenes stuff and just anything and everything. It taught me so much about photography- not just the timing and mechanics of photography in terms of f-stops and ISOs and rigid fundamentals such as those, but the creative side of things, it’s easy to push a shutter but it’s harder to know why you pushed it in the first place. I know I mentioned something similar in my last post, but this is going somewhere.

I think this is about style, or how it develops, or doesn’t… I’ve been rather lucky in that I seem to have done work in a lot of different disciplines- product, corporate, music, editorial, wedding, engagement, landscape, abstract, fashion, glamor, sports, photojournalism, commercial etc and I find that the more things I shoot, the more I learn what I want to shoot, or I learn more the style in which I will shoot a given subject. This is why I encourage every budding photographer to just get out there and do it, try your hand at photographing anything and everything, fall flat on your face or soar spectacularly, the education is priceless, and the contributions these successess/failures give towards forging some kind of identity/style are not to be underestimated.

So, I learned I’m probably not going to be the world’s greatest NFL shooter to capture the quarterback throwing the ball or the wide receiver running 40 yards into the end zone, because frankly, it doesn’t interest me. What does interest me are the guys on the field as people, as individuals, and the things that happen on the field beyond the usual stuff that we all know happens. Now, when I realized that I wasn’t interested shooting football players like you see them in the sports pages but more interested in shooting them without the ball, it made me think that that was my style and that’s what I like to shoot. So I went with it. I spent half the game trying to capture the shots of the guys running, throwing, tackling, diving, etc but then I spent the last half looking for reactions, looking for the shot that may have been missed or not picked up on and got much better shots that made me personally feel like I’d done a good job.

Without further ado, the shots:

This is what I’m talking about: this shot to me says so much about the guys within the jerseys, the way nerves mutate into exhilaration and adrenaline once you get through the tunnel, out of the darkness and onto the field, and as you get closer to the light, the feelings shift from nervousness into confidence.

Man, I’m being very philosophical about some guys playing football but photography is interpretation of the world I suppose.

Defiant

I like this. I got the impression when I was watching him that this was the “oh shit” moment of just about to take the stage.

Ball & chain

I did get some of the usual shots. Rule #1- always come home with something.

Countdown

Touchdown

The exact moment a touchdown is scored ^^^^^

escape

meh-tul

show me the horns

A good suggestion

20-20

my favorite shot:

half of these shots were with the 70-200 2.8 IS, and the other half with a 24-70 2.8 L on a 5d2 at around 3200 ISO to try and get a shutter speed of around 1/200-1/500 depending on the situation at hand. I did use a 40d for a while but gave up. I set the focus to centre point AI Servo which means the focus will stay with what’s under the selected point as long as the shutter is half-pressed. I know a lot has been said about the 5d2 auto-focus, but really, it’s pretty good and I haven’t been able to complain about it yet with any serious conviction.

Thanks for looking. My next post will be about engagement shoots. See you then

Tez

3 songs, no flash

That’s the rule!

I’m talking about concert photography by the way. You get permission to photograph the first 3 songs without the use of flash, and then you get the hell outta there. This gives you around 15-20 minutes to do your thing depending on the band (if it was Dream Theater, 3 songs would be as many hours) so you gotta be fast and since it’s digital, go nuts.

It’s times like these when I’m thankful and consider myself lucky that I cut my teeth shooting sports for a professional wrestling company called GPW- sports is similar to concert photography (and sports photography and many other disciplines) in that it’s all about capturing the moment. Not just knowing when to push the shutter, but knowing where from to make it look cool. I also learned the value of not looking at the pics you just took on the back of the camera on the little screen. I remember once when I was at a GPW shot, and shot a series of shots of a guy kicking another in the head. Awesome. I checked out the shots on the back of the camera to see if I got ‘the shot’, but whilst I was doing that and worrying about stupid stuff like camera tilt, noise and whatever else, something awesome happened. I know this because the crowd erupted and several kids went “Whoaaa!” and when I looked up, one guy was in a heap and the other guy was strutting around the ring. I missed it because I was too busy chimping (looking at the back screen) instead of doing what I should have been doing (focusing on the event).

The same rules apply with any photography that involves something fast moving. By all means, if you’re taking photos of a brick, or a melon, or something otherwise stationary then take all the time in the world chimping, but I think it helps much more to just keep the camera stuck to your face when shooting something with motion. You can fix tilt, white balance, blown highlights (to an extent) and blah blah blah, but you can’t reverse time to capture the awesome moment you missed and I’ll take a tilted, noisy picture of an awesome moment than a nice clean pic of something boring.

Just sayin’.

So, these shots were all taken with a 5d II, at around ISO 3200-4000 depending on the lighting at the given time, and with a 24-70 lens. I was in AV mode, shooting JPEG and adjusting exposure by instinct rather than science. I have a lot of shots, and they look much MUCH better on my website under the ‘music’ section where they’re a lot bigger and clearer and more immersive (which apparently isn’t a word).

Adelitas Way

On a sidenote, I think it’s always cool to include the headstock of the guitar/instrument being used. One reason is for commercial reasons- a company can then use the pic to advertise their product being used by a professional musician, and secondly it adds a ‘completeness’ to the exposure that wouldn’t be there. Of course, sometimes this isn’t always possible, but if you have the option, it’s a good one to opt for.

Halestorm

This seems like a prudent time to introduce my next point- I think in concert photography (or weddings, or sports, or anything else) there are 2 categories- ‘safe’ and ‘artistic’. In a concert, I made sure I got all the ‘safe’ shots of people singing into a mic with the clean cut faces and whatever else, and then gravitated towards the artistic/creative side of things where heads get cut off, angles get tilted, things get blurred because this is a rock concert after all, it’s energetic and frenetic and there’s a lot of stuff going on that I’m not convinced a shot of someone singing into a mic adequately captures, albeit the ‘safe’ shots are entirely necessary to capture if you want to do it again…

Theory of a Deadman - safe shot

Theory of a Deadman - artistic shot

Same scenario, different vibe.

bass

end on a big one:

Notice how they all play Gibsons (apart from the one dude who played an LTD)?

My next post (probably mid-week) will be about shooting sports as I have an all access pass this season to shoot the Billings Outlaws. Stay tuned!

Blue becomes black

because of the polarizer… kinda.

The white part at the bottom of the first pic is snow that fell on a frozen river. The ice is about 6 inches thick, with about 8 inches of solid snow on top of that so it’s like rock. My footprints weren’t the only set there and I guess guys had been ice fishing,  judging by the divots and snow piles.

There was something about that mountain/hill (when does a hill become a mountain? Hills to me always make me think of English hills that are all grassy and fluffy) and the way it looked in the fading sun… call me crazy but it looked Lovecraftian to me, something Cthulhu-esque; a giant wretched sleeping deity too weak to rise, and from where I stood it almost looked like it was watching the sun.

Yeah, call me crazy… or imaginative.

If you don’t know who/what Cthulhu is you should definitely check it out, also check out the Metallica song ‘Call of Ktulu’, or ‘the thing that should not be’ (named after another Lovecraft-created deity, but with a much weirder name, which at the risk of proving me a complete nerd, will not be mentioned here).

This post is getting weird. Time for some pics:

born of lesser Gods

So yeah, the sky became black because of the polarizer I was using. If you do have an interest in outdoorsy photography stuff, get yourself a polarizer. They help a tremendous amount and are also justfun to have around. They do the same thing as polarized sunglasses and remove reflections, darken blues, but oddly enough, lighten any yellows, and the really weird thing is they don’t do anything to reflections coming off metal. I told my friend this and he said “whoa… that’s crazy”.

The truth is stranger than fiction.

Somebody can no doubt explain why they do that, but it’s far more entertaining to put it down to the workings of the universe and to hell with this crazy thing called ‘science’ or ‘empirical methods’. Pah.

Now for something completely different:

light leaks

Did you ever shoot with a crappy film camera? Or develop film and then wonder what the hell that big red bar thing was at one of the sides? I did. I really did. I had a Pentax that I bought new when digital cameras were knee high to a grasshopper. It cost me the princely sum of 50 GBP. It was a Pentax. It sucked. I used to shoot the film, get it developed then look at the out-of-focus pictures of my feet and wonder what the hell that red thing was on the side of the frame, next to where my thumb was over the lens. Funny that now I try and recreate those screwups with my very expensive digital camera and think “you know what? This needs a random red bar thingy on the side”.

I had a conversation with my dad about digital and how you can buy plugins for Photoshop that produce ‘film-like grain’… why not just shoot film in the first place?  It’s bizarre how technology has progressed to such a stage where the most resilient or dedicated shoot film, yet there is a huge market for things that make new stuff look like old stuff. I find that weird. It’s kinda like The Strokes coming out in the 2000s (not the noughties) but trying to sound/look like they were from the 70s, and it’s the same with ‘relic’ guitars where you can buy a guitar that looks like its been beaten up and gigged when in actual fact it just popped off an assembly line in Korea and had the crap beaten out of it by two dudes with hockey sticks. Ok, that’s a lie… its actually just one dude.

Its cheaper that way. And for what it’s worth, I love film. 120 Tmax400 is beautiful stuff.

These last two were shot with an 85mm lens, which is the background just goes bleh and wonderfully diffused. The longer the focal length, the more ‘compressed’ the background becomes. The background should determine the lens choice and if it’s a nice/important background use a wide lens. If it is distracting or otherwise not very useful to the shot, use a longer focal length. I got that from a video I watched by (sadly passed away) photographer Dean Collins, who was an absolute beast of the 80s and had what was quite possibly the coolest mustache ever.

Dean was on a shoot with a model in some quite shabby looking park, and the background was bus stops, trash cans and the usual urban detritus. If you shot that with a wide lens, you’d see all that nasty crap in the background and since this is the 80s you can’t magic it out with Photoshop, you can crop the negative and enlarge it but hey, you’re going to lose something. So, you shoot with a long lens, frame the same and the background becomes much more diffuse and much less of an issue. Let your background decide your lens choice (mostly).

This weekend I should have a post that is quite interesting: I’m doing a shoot for a movie poster, might have a commercial shoot, and I have an engagement shoot with a couple whose wedding I’m shooting in the summer.

Watch this space, as they said in the 90s.

At the crack of dawn

Yeah, I got up at 5:30am… then realized the sun doesn’t actually rise until about 7:10am at this time of year. Still, it’s remarkably peaceful at that time and almost serene.

So, the plan was to go to Zimmerman Park, watch the sunrise and see what I could see. Although I lived down the road from Zimmerman Park (ZP), I never actually checked it out- maybe it was because of the rattlesnake warning signs they have all over the place. I got there around 6:50am as the sky was just beginning to lighten, but as is customary when you plan for a sunrise shoot, the sun rises somewhere you can’t see it. But hey, since I was there at silly-o’clock in the morning with my tripod and some other stuff, you gotta make the best of it.

That be Billings

That’s actually Zimmerman Trail and the little blurred black blobs on the road are cars. If you see this full size you can see a whole load of stuff that’s happening, but you get the idea. I think I’ll print a giant one for the art show thing I have in May.

There’s a bunch of ‘trails’ in the snow where the snow is flatter than the surrounding snow but still, it’s precarious, and with this being Montana, they don’t need no stinkin’ safety rails. If this was Europe, there would be a railing about 10 ft from the edge so you couldn’t get close to it. Since there’s no railing you can go right to the edge of a damned big drop (if you look down, people look really really small) and do your thang, which in this case was set up a tripod and hope that a gust of wind doesn’t decide to make a timely appearance.

So, that was the ‘tripod’ stuff and I’m always curious about how things appear with a big big aperture and I find it a bit more liberating to be not dependent on a tripod to get shots. Sometimes though it is unavoidable, like when you shoot a landscape and need to shoot at low ISO and small apertures (like here), but it makes it a bit of a slower and less spontaneous shoot.

Make a nice advert

This pic brings me to another point: textures in digital photography. Used sparingly and appropriately they’re a great resource and method of adding feeling and ‘look’ to a photo, but there is a big tendency of people putting them over every single thing ever and it basically sucks and dilutes the original intention. One day I’ll do a little ‘tutorial’ thing on textures, how I use and apply them, and how I choose the texture I need/want for the picture in mind. I have about 3gb of stuff on my HD that comprises my textures selection and it’s bits of walls, ceilings, skies, broken things and whatever else, but they all serve a purpose and the key to their effectiveness is in their restraint, not by adopting the approach that a lame pic can be rescued with a texture from your bathroom because hey, textures are ‘in’ now, right? Wrong… this was like the craze a couple of years ago when everybody would try to copy the ‘Dave Hill look’.

Those were the days

Into the sun

So, in closing and to summarize: if you get up early for a shoot, do your homework, or you’ll wind up like me and have to make do with something that may not have been your first intention. If you use textures, do it right, please?

Until next time, much love.

Tez

Who you gonna call? Part 2

I know there isn’t a part 1, well there is, it just isn’t uploaded yet as it contains pics and info of a shoot I did for a magazine that isn’t out yet, so in the interest of fairness and not out-scooping the scoopers it will be uploaded once the magazine is released. Hence this being part 2.

So, it involves MTPRS (Montana Paranormal Research Society)- a thoroughly nice bunch of people who investigate paranormal phenomenon in and around Montana. My first shoot with the group will be covered in detail in about 2 weeks but suffice to say that being with these guys is a very interesting way to spend a Friday night.

This post is about a shoot I had with the guys last night for a promotional campaign and also because they don’t have any cool pictures and since they have plans at expansion, it makes sense for them to look the coolest they possibly can.

The shoot took place at some truck yard/haulage thing that I couldn’t give you directions for, it was somewhere near a Dairy Queen, I can tell you that much. It was also freezing cold (about 18 degrees F) which is a huge amount of fun when you have to move light stands around (they’re made of metal see). The idea I had was to have a couple of group shots (with space for copy) and then individual shots of the team members.

Total coverage.

that picture is pathetically small… I need to find a new WordPress theme since this one sucks. Oh well. Hopefully you get the idea and I’ll put BIG pics on my website soon enough.

The plan I had in mind was almost a movie-poster/concert poster look and feel. Kinda gritty, kinda dark, but not so much that it gets silly and detail/message is lost.  It’s important to maintain as much as you can in the mid-tones and not have a lot of sheer black or sheer white, as both of those contain no detail whatsoever so don’t really help much. Also, it’s great when people wear blue jeans to a shoot- they come up rather nicely in post.

Now then, the boring stuff (or interesting stuff depending on how you look at it). As you can probably tell if you think about it, there was a few different lighting sources on this picture to illuminate everything and everyone evenly and also to provide kickass separation between background/subject in order to provide visual depth and a 3rd dimension. Without a separation light it can make it look like people are either painted on to the wall or ill-defined against the background. Plus, I have a thing for the shadows on the floor that only a back-light can provide (something I first did with a band called Seizefire in New Zealand). This shot had 4 lights doing their thing- 3 of which i supplied and the 4th which was a security light on the side of the building, but hey, it helped (very very slightly).

So, the main light (key) was an octabox about 6 feet to the left of camera about 8 feet from the group and pointed towards the far corner to feather light evenly across the group. If I had pointed it at the nearest guy, then he would be incredibly well lit and everyone else would just be murky shadows . I think it was on about 3/4 power and f/8 or so? I don’t remember exactly. There was a second light behind the guys about 3 feet off the floor that was shot bare and on 1/8 power (since nothing is in the way of it you don’t need to beef up the power, especially not on something as reflective/specular as snow). I shopped out the light stand and the humongous snaking power cable that was going from the light, under the central guy’s feet and to my portable battery pack. And since the light is right in the middle, the shadows kinda fan out as the angle shifts. Cool eh?

The third light was about 10 ft high behind the group off to camera right which provides a bit of rim light to the tops of the guys. The back light was so low it doesn’t do anything above waist height, so I wanted something else to provide definition which is where a third light comes in handy. I don’t remember how powerful this was/wasn’t, it isn’t hugely important honestly. If it looks good, it’s probably right. You can see it helping me out with some superfluous flare on this pic:

Mmmm... shadows

And the 4th light was that little thing in the top left corner above the door.

The plan for the location was for somewhere gritty and urban looking. I really really didn’t want to go for a graveyard look since that involves about as much thought as blinking and is one of those “yeah, ghost people, they like graveyards!”… whatever.  One of the guys knew a guy who knows a guy who had a friend who knew someone who worked at a truck yard ya see. We just had to break in, sedate the guard dogs, distract the security and we were in!

Actually, we waited for a guy to open the padlock and let us in. Nice and civil.

So, we did the group shots in about 15 minutes, then it was fun time for solo shots.

Badass

I love this pic. I even love the green glare thing in his glasses. I tried to mak esure that the MTPRS logo would be clear on all the shots since that’s the big idea.

I have a picture of this guy blinking. I showed it to him because I figured he’d never seen himself blinking. It wasn’t as interesting as I first thought.

No glare on the glasses this time All that stuff behind him is truck parts- rusted suspension, axles, engine bits. It would have made a really cool backdrop if it wasn’t under a foot of snow.

DB

Lighting for this was the octobox from before, about 4 ft away (it’s softer that way), and the reflected light/backlight was the same thing. I positioned another light to light up the background, but angled it so some of it would reflect off the wall, and some of it would light the background. I figured that since the wall was made of metal and therefore highly reflective, it made sense to use it.

Sorry, but this picture is just cool. Flat caps FTW.

How to write an estimate proposal

I have to stress that this is how I write a proposal currently, or when I apply for a commercial job where the AD wants a proposal. I don’t confess for this to be the perfect method, but it is one I use and it is one  and I’m sure you can adapt this to your own needs/style/wording if need be. I remember when I was looking for help online about hwo to go about the scary world of proposal writing, I couldn’t find ANYTHING so hopefully this will help.

I know photographers keep a lot of cards close to their chests, but I don’t see what any of us have to lose if we tell other photographers how to write a form.

So, you need to open MS Word. There are dedicated programs that you can make a quote in, but I use a Word template I created that contains a header (my logo and contact details) and a footer (small print saying this estimate is not a guarantee of final pricing and changes are likely to occur). So, you should have what looks like a letterheaded sheet of paper that you can print and use for everything- contracts, thank yous, client letters, origami, whatever.

What I do beneath this is include a line of text thanking the client for their interest in me and my photography. Use their name or title & surname, I don’t personally like it when I get letters to “to whom it may concern” or “dear sir/madam”- it takes 30 seconds to go on Google and find out the staff at a company if you didn’t catch their name on the phone.

I then include a section called Event Specifics. This is where I tell them what they just told me- what, when, where, duration, dates, times, locations and times other people will be arriving (assistants, models, caterers, etc). I only do this because the person reading the proposal may not know the pre-story or the fact that I was told about it, so this helps the form get forwarded to the right person, or filed in the right place. It also shows you were listening.

Then you need a ‘creative brief’: this where I state what the shoot is in terms of what style of pics (corporate, fashion, boudoir), are they headshots, action shots etc. So it could read “to provide a mixture of shots of a college athlete with the school logo in the background. Shots are to include headshots, action shots, full body shots. Shoot will take place on school field and props will be used as required (balls, helmet)”. Again, just basically list what they told you but get it down. If it’s black & white it is a helpful play sheet (or set list) of what you’re going for, and will help you plan on the day. So if you know you’re meant to get a headshot, and an action shot, you can get to working on them and not take 500 shots when all they need is 2 (I’m not saying just take 2, but get what is required first of all).

Thirdly, I include a section called ‘Creative Usage’. This is a bit of a tricky one as most firms don’t have the exact specifics themselves and they will more than likely provide vague terms like ‘we need some pictures for a web site’ or ‘we need a picture for a brochure’. They don’t what size pic, how long it will feature, what the circulation is, or anything else. This information is vital to provide a final quote but an estimate works both ways- they are estimating on the usage, and you are estimating on their cost. Once the usage is finalized, you can finalize the cost accordingly.

Anyways, in this section I state what the pictures intended use is: website, a small run of newsletters, direct mail piece, billboard, inside cover of magazine, whatever. If you can get final information out of them, then by all means list it. Again, this shows you’re both on the same page and also provides a method of ascertaining that that is the job they want, so if you state they want a 600 pixel web pic, and they really wanted a 2500 size pic, now is a good time to hear about it. And I like information because I like dealing with specifics and not assumptions, but that’s just me.

Then we have the fun part. The section called ‘Estimate of cost’ is the main piece of text here and is probably the first thing that gets looked at when the envelope is opened and the letter unfolded.

My first advice: list everything on separate lines. These are called ‘line items’ and mine typically include:

• Photographer fees- that’s me and what I get paid
• Post production charges- I do it by an estimate of pics, so I’ll say something like: post production= $500 based on an estimate 50-100 pics to be edited
• Output method of digital files I send mine on a DVDR via courier, or hand delivere. This could also be transmission via email, via FTP, sent on a flash drive or whatever else. But you have to pay for the DVD itself, for the case and for the shipping (or the fuel to deliver it yourself) so make it a line item. Of course, if a client wants to pick up the disc from your studio and give you one of their DVDRs then that’s cool. Adjust accordingly.
• Equipment rental – if you don’t charge for this, you’re a fool. Call up a rental place and ask what it would rent for your camera(s) and lenses and all your lighting gear, you’ll be surprised how much this will amount to in the end. I have 2 bodies, 5 lenses, 3 lights, 4 stands, softboxes, octabox, umbrellas, wireless triggers, a portable powerpack (a Vagabond II) and a bunch of other stuff. Yes, I may not need everything I possibly have, but I also might need it so I take it to every shoot. On a shoot I find myself changing from a 70-200 2.8 L IS (rent about $50 a day), to a 24-70 L, to an 85 1.8, to a 50 1.4, and back again, whilst all the time using my flash trigger to trigger a strobe on a 13ft stand inside a 5ft softbox. Equipment is expensive. By charging for its usage, you also ensure that repairs and damage be paid for out of that cost and not out of the photographers fees. If a client takes a negative position to this inclusion as a line item, then ask them if they have seen how much a rental of necessary equipment would be and then see if they have compared the prices. Not to mention someone who knows how to use it all…
• Parking, Travel & Miscellaneous – this covers parking meters, the cost of fuel per mile and misc. items such as food, drink, and things you may need on the shoot such as gaffer tape, batteries, or whatever else. Keep receipts of anything you do need, but factoring in around $10-25 for this should be good for a local job, but if you’re doing a 2 day shoot outside of town, then you’ll need to factor in more fuel charges, more food and drink charges and more randoms. Adjust accordingly.
• Usage rights- this goes back to the earlier point. You can guesstimate here based on the info you have, or state that this is TBA when more relevant information is required. I would personally go with the former so you can submit something complete and it might be helpful to provide a range here, say $600-$1500 based on the information you have and how accurate it is. I include a clause here that says “for 12 months” as I don’t want to see the same pic in 20 years still being used when I only got paid once. The client will love it because they got an awesome deal, but you lose repeat business.

This should leave you with a total, put this at the bottom, indent it and put it in bold.

The reason for line items is so a client can see the costs and negotiation can occur- if you say you need 3 assistants for $100 each, the client will see that this might be negotiable and say could you get by with 1 assistant? They save $200. Without the line item though, they wouldn’t have been able to see that and transparency is the key. Also, they can see that you’re charging $50 for a DVD to be sent by FedEx to them, could they give you a DVD and arrange a pickup to trim the costs down? Sure, with a line item. Without itemization, you’ll have  a shit-storm of a time trying to negotiate anything and it’ll always seem like you’re taking a personal hit with every negotiation. I don’t really negotiate my fees unless the creative brief changes or the event specifics change as my time is still my time and is charged as such, but when it comes down to losing 2 assistants, you don’t lose out.

Beneath this is a Notes section: this is just what it sounds like- notes. If you cannot include a definite figure for usage fees due to insufficient information, say it here. I usually state that unless specified, any licenses granted are for 12 months from receipt of payment. You can also include other stuff here as you see fit, or explain other line items such as catering for assistants, models etc.

So, this should give you an estimate proposal and at least something to get you started with your own template/document that you can use in the future.

If you know better than me, please leave a comment on here so everyone can benefit.

Thanks,

Tez

Zenfolio Vs Digilabs

I’m sure  many of you have heard of Zenfolio and what they do, but maybe you aren’t aware of Digilabs (digilabs.biz). Both companies do a similar thing, for a similar price but both have different methods in terms of service, product choice, transparency in dealings and overall quality of service, which is basically what it comes down to. If you go for a coffee and get treated like crap, chances are you won’t go to that coffee shop again, but if you go somewhere and are treated like a human being and made to feel welcome and respected, they stand a much better chance of having you visit them again- this is the same for every type of business, not just coffee shops.

As a prime example, I won’t go anywhere near the Nissan dealership in Billings, MT unless I’m in the mood to be insulted.

Anyways, moving on.

So, what both these firms offer is the ability to accept and fulfill print orders from your website. What this means is that customers can see your work, buy it, pay for it online, and then receive the prints in the mail. These firms host the images, collect payments, handle the printing and the shipping and then send you the profits! Sounds cool doesn’t it? They do charge you an annual fee and take a commission from the profits, but hey, they gotta pay the bills.

The rate for Digilabs is $150 a year and they take 17% commission. If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is! Zenfolio charge $100 a year for their best package and take 13% commission.

It is prudent to explain here that I was with Digilabs for a month on their free trial option just to check them out and see what was what- how they operate, how are the staff, how is the interface and whatever else. It needs to be a business relationship between the photographer and the printer and you need to know they have your back and won’t let you down when a client is on the line.

DIGILABS

They have atrocious service… That is my lasting memory of Digilabs. Atrocious service in the way that questions are not answered, they don’t answer the phone, they miss the point in responses and generally don’t make it very easy on you as a client of theirs… not to mention the interface, which is like a Cold War relic of computer design.

I signed up for their free trail around the start of December. By December 17th I sent them an email explaining that I will not be taking it any further and please cancel my account once the trail period is over. They still had orders to fulfill so could they please ship them, do their thing, but after 1st Jan, that’s it. I got an email on the 3rd of Jan informing me that the auto-renewal fee was set to kick in and they are introducing a range of updates to make the experience even better! Hmmm… so, I sent them an email saying that this was basically wrong and if they read the email from Dec 17th, it quite clearly explains what should have happened. I didn’t get a response. So, I sent them another email (and attached the Dec 17th message) and told them to not charge my card, cancel the account and what the hell is going on with this ‘auto renewal’ thing? I asked for the manager’s email and phone number so I could contact them personally. That got a response. They told me that my card had not been charged, and they had extended my trial period for another 2 weeks to see how I liked the new updates. Of course, they didn’t tell me they had extended it and for all I knew, they were charging me $150 for something I wasn’t going to use. It sounds small here, but it was a long period of wondering what the hell was going on, and why aren’t they answering the phone/emails, and why are they charging me for a service I don’t need?

So, eventually we parted ways and they were pretty bitter about it. I told them I would be moving to Zenfolio and I’m much happier (more on that later) and they didn’t take too kindly to it. I can’t understand why these people take 17% for the crappy service they provide and for the most money per annum of any company in a comparable industry.

One thing that really struck me as odd is that they do not allow prints to be on glossy paper… I just find that weird. I’m not a lover of standard glossy paper, but I know a lot of clients are, and I know that some clients have no notion of what lustre paper is, and what metallic paper is all about, and don’t even mention pearlescent. Not every client you understand, but some nevertheless. They print everything in house, not through another lab. I never actually saw any prints, but nor did I get death threats saying I ripped people off, so I guess they turned out alright!

Digilabs also make their own photobooks. They provide a software package that I have to say is excellent, well excellent after you get beyond the stupidly clunky method of making a new file and jumping through about 19 hoops, but what it does, it does well. I can’t vouch for quality but they did say they are “comparable to Asukabooks”. Now then, Asuka are regarded as one of the best in the industry- hand stitched leather, heavy paper, different surfaces etc and all that good stuff. I asked them for more information and was given none (see earlier mention of them missing the point and not answering questions). I put it to them that a tractor is comparable to a Lamborghini in that they both have a steering wheel but they are totally different, likewise, a whale is like a speedboat as they both go in the sea. Comparable? Loosely. Similar? What do you think? I vote no. So could they please tell me what they mean by comparable with some specifics if you please? That didn’t even dignify a response.

When I call Asukabook and asked about their quality and why everyone says they’re great, they sent me a pack of swatches with different cover material, different paper finishes, a personalized letter and made it seem like I was important to them. On some forums, people blow smoke constantly up Digilabs’ yazoo, I know this because they told me about 500 times, I’ve never heard of them on the forums I visit (Fred Miranda, DPChallenge, POTN, Photo.net, Flickr) but maybe they roll in underground circles where the cool kids go. Maybe they were just lying. All I know is I’ve never heard of them before or after. I only found out about them from a guy in TN who I bought some equipment off. He said they were “meh” but his wife knew someone there.

Oh, when I told them I was leaving, they told me they would half their price to $75 for the year no questions asked! They had nothing to say about me saying I thought their product was crap, saying the admin system looked like it was made on an Amiga, or asking why they took the most commission. I just got told that it was 50% off and did I hear about the great new updates?! Missing the point? I think so.

Good points: Photobook Software is great. Could be handy having prints, books, calendars etc from the same supplier.

Bad points: crappy back end admin system, crappy service, most expensive, take most commission, no glossy prints, slow to reply, no clear communication, client experience isn’t very good as the website portal thing to buy prints from is so so old fashioned it denigrates all the work you’ve just done on your nice flash site.

Summary: Don’t bother

ZENFOLIO

I don’t know why I waited or why I wasted my time with Digilabs when better providers are out there right now, waiting to take my call.

Zen look like they know what they’re doing from the get go. And they do. Very much so. I think their system is great- you get to pick the lab which does your printing based on your location, paper choice (Fuji or Kodak basically), and what services they offer (some do canvas, some don’t etc). All the labs are well known, respected companies and they have partners all over the globe- or at least in the major regions. And guess what? They allow glossy paper! Furthermore, they allow prints on real black and white paper, not just regular paper with no color ink on it. This is a big thing to a purist like me and I like it because it’s a small thing, but one they deemed important enough to include, so thank you Zenfolio.

The back end system with Zen is a thousand times better than with Digilabs. It is self-explanatory, with clear headings, a lot of scope for customization and tweaking and set out like a webpage and easy to navigate, to upload files into an album and then assign pricelists (as many as you like) to said files.  One thing I found very cool and up to date was the option to make your files downloadable (for a price of course) so a publishing company could purchase a download and an accompanying license (Zenfolio has standard ones, which you can edit, or create your own entirely) to either print in a given circulation or display on a website (size dimensions are decided by you). One thing I did was set it so pictures of an event I covered could be downloaded as a 600 pixel Facebook picture for use on social networking sites. I can then create a license to cover the terms I deem fit such as the photograph may only be used on social networking sites, cannot be re-distributed blah blah blah. Basically, this is great- It adds revenue streams to your work. When I saw that it put Zenfolio in a very good light.

Another cool thing: when you make a gallery on Zenfolio, you upload the full size files (which can take a long long time!), but once it’s done you don’t have to send them a DVD of the files, email them to them or anything, just do it once and it’s done. And if you didn’t extrapolate from that another very cool thing, here it is: this also means that the files you transfer are backed up. Read that back again, it’s very important and effectively means infinite storage. Downloads can be password protected so if you do lose all your work through whatever means, you can download it all back again through Zenfolio. I find that frankly awesome.

From a client’s perspective, as in, what they see when they go to the portal for ordering prints, is a lot cleaner looking that with Digilabs. The layout is better, it is clearer and the pictures can be viewed bigger when clicked on (mine are set at 800 pixels) than Digilabs- with Digilabs I think it’s 400 enlarged size, with a thumbnail being 120 or 130. This is pathetically small, especially given the detail and resolution that exists in modern equipment. 400 pixels is fine for a facebook mug shot, but not when you’re asking people to pay for a print of something that looks pretty rubbish. Also, the algorithms used by Zenfolio make a much sharper and clearer image on screen after they have resized it, compared to Digilabs, where it would look like crap, or put through their sharpening mechanism which would then look like sharpened crap (pixellated edges, color banding).

I said it before: Zenfolio is $100 a year for their biggest and best option (other options are $25 and $40 per annum), and they take 13% commission on prints. This is $50 cheaper than Digilabs, and with 4% less commission, meaning you save $50 at the start, and then save/earn more money as time progresses and more items are (hopefully) sold. Included in that $100 are a great system, a good looking site/portal, infinite storage, print fulfillment, a good resource of support in the user forums and overall a much better experience for the photographer and client which you can feel comfortable with as a photographer that the people that do your prints aren’t going to screw up.

With regards to the prints, there is also the option for selling frames. So if a client orders an 8×10 of their kid, and a frame, the print arrives already in the frame ready to be hung up. I like that.

So, on we go:

Good points: Ease of use, $50 lower than Digilabs (and cheaper still with referral codes), good looking system, huge variety of products to choose from, digital product sales (downloads w/ licensing), framed prints, support through extensive FAQs or support forums, 24hr email support, basically a much nicer experience than with Digilabs.

Bad points: no album/photobook support’ (no design/ordering system), no phone number for customer service

Summary: gets my vote!

Now then, their are other providers out there- Smugmug, Fototime, Exposure Manager and others I’m sure I’m overlooking, but for me, Zenfolio provide a great service and I can’t see a reason not to use them.

feel free to leave a comment.

Love,

Tez

Welcome to the new blog!

I will change the theme as soon as I figure out the weird protocols I need to do to change it so it looks like the last one… damned CSS scripts.

Anyways! Hello and welcome to the new blog! The one that died/got itself killed is still up at www.tezmphoto.com/blog and that covers a lot of stuff actually. The plan is to one day amalgamate the two blogs, but I’ve no idea how to do that and the person I need to speak with who hosts my blog isn’t very good at answering emails.

But, enough of my rambling! I hope you find this blog informative, not too technically boring and a very good soporific aid.