After reading your blog posts about business it’s clear that I need to sell bigger prints if I want to make more money. I think I’ve got the sales part down, including the pre-session appointment, but I’m still not getting the big order.  I think my images are nice, but they just don’t seem to grab the client and make them want to order big. Any ideas?

The most important part of selling big is your sales and marketing process.  But assuming you’ve got that nailed, to sell big you have to create images that show big.  ”Showing Big” means that you should always be striving to create signature images.

What are signature images?  In wedding photography, these are the images that you just know are going to be full bleed double page album spreads.  In portrait photography, it’s an image that you just know is going to become a 20×30 or bigger.

So how do you do it?  Here are some basic principles that I think about when creating images that will sell big.

(1)   Your subject should be no bigger than head & torso.  Head shots will not sell big.  Look at this image. It doesn’t matter how adorable your subject is – head shots just don’t sell well as very large prints.  It just is a bit weird/unnerving to have a giant head 2 feet across staring at you on the wall.  This image works great as a 5×7, but not as a 24×36.  The bigger the head, the smaller the print.

You don’t have to have full-body shots, but compared to the image above, this image is much more “comfortable” to view very large.

(2)  Images with >1 person sell bigger.  A huge print is a very big and important purchase.  It is a family heirloom.  Such big purchases are more likely to happen if more family members are included in the image.

(3)  Formal family images sell big.  Sure you may market yourself as a “lifestyle” photographer, whatever that means. But the old standby – the formal family portrait – still sells the biggest and the best. I’m going to talk more about this image below later on in this post.

(4)  Scenic backdrops sell big.  In fact, if you want to sell that 6 foot mural, these are the types of images that sell. In order to print really really large, your subjects need to be relatively small, otherwise they will overwhelm the room.

(5)  Family members should be touching.  There is nothing that warms the heart of a photo buyer than seeing their family members close to each other with a loving touch.

(6)  Shoot with a telephoto to sell big.  There is a reason an 85mm lens is called a “portrait” lens.  People just look better when shot with a telephoto.  It also gives the viewer some “space” to view the subject naturally.  An in-your-face shot with a wide angle lens creates distortion and a somewhat creepy feeling of being too close to the subject.

This image has 2 violations:  It is a headshot and it was shot with a 24mm lens.  It makes a cute 5×7 but there is no way it would ever sell as a 20×30. Compare this with image #5 above, which was shot at 148mm.

(7)  Smiles must be natural, not forced.  Nobody is going to buy a huge print with your subjects standing there forcing awful, fake smiles.  They have to be real if you want to sell big.  You’ll have to find a way to get the look you want. In this shot, I asked the older sister to tickle the younger one, which made them both laugh.

Putting it all together

Let’s come back to this shot:

This one sold as a 36″ print. It now hangs over the client’s mantle.  If nothing else, when doing a portrait shoot you must get this shot.  Let’s look at why it sold big:

• heads not too big?  check
• >1 person in the shot?  check
• family members all connected with a loving touch?  check
• telephoto lens? check
• pretty, but unobtrusive backdrop?  check
• natural looking smiles?  check

In short, this is the type of image that the client will immediately gravitate towards.  Selling big will be a piece of cake.

Now go do it!

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Hi Laurence. Your posts on film over the past couple years have inspired me to get a Contax 645. I love it!  I’m wondering though, if you think shooting film professionally is a good idea?

I’ve written a lot about film this past couple years.  In fact, I went through a period of 6 months shooting nothing but film.

There’s no question that there are a lot of things to like about film.  However, I find myself questioning the wisdom of using film for professional work.

Contax 645, Zeiss 80mm, Fuji Pro400h, Richard Photo Lab

My answer:  it depends.  No, I’m not trying to weasel out of giving an answer. I’ll try to make this very clear.

If film is part of your identity as a photographer, then by all means shoot film for your professional work. Make sure your entire portfolio is filled with images shot on film and film only. Make film part of your branding. Go “all-in” on film.

However, in my opinion there is no reason whatsoever to shoot film professionally unless you’re going all-in. Shooting a little bit of film here and there will do nothing for your business and only drain your bank account.

The biggest drawback from shooting film (aside from the inconvenience) is the cost. It’s easy to ring up a few hundred dollars worth of film, processing and shipping costs with every shoot. Now it really irritates me when I hear this response:  “Who cares? Just charge accordingly”.  Okay, I get it – charge an extra $250 for that portrait session to cover the cost of shooting film and keep your profits the same as if you shot digital. What’s wrong with that answer? Well, if you can get your clients to pay $250 more, then just raise your prices by $250, shoot digital, and put that extra $250 in your pocket! If we agree that the purpose of a paid shoot is to….well….get paid, then why wouldn’t you have charged the extra $$ in the first place if you can get it? It doesn’t make sense.

The bottom line is that if your portfolio is filled with both digital and film and if you’re shooting film for profession work here and there on a whim, you’re losing money.

However, if you’re a film-only shooter and film is part of your brand, then that’s another story. In that case, the cost of shooting film might be worth it, if it has truly turned into a profitable niche for you.  You might become known in your town as that quirky film shooter who uses old-time craftsmanship (whatever that means).

But if you just like to shoot film here-and-there for fun, then save it for your personal work.

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Nobody needs your photography.

Professional, high-end portrait photography is a luxury, discretionary purchase. As a luxury purchase, it is driven by emotion, not rational decision making. This is especially true in today’s economy. Stop your average person on the street and ask them if they’d be willing to spend $899 on a canvas print of their child and see what response you get. They can take a picture of their child with their iPhone and get a pretty good-looking canvas print at Costco for $20.

But there is hope:  Non-essential, luxury items get purchased every day. BMW’s sales have gone up for 4 years in a row in the weakest economy since the Great Depression. Nobody needs a BMW.  You can buy a Honda instead, a more reliable car at ⅓ the price. So why do people buy a BMW?  One word:  desire. They just want it! Who needs a $700 iPad? Nobody, but they’re flying out the door as fast as Apple can make them. Who needs a $4.85 Venti Latte from Starbucks when brewing a cup of joe at home costs 10 cents?  You get the idea.

The trick, then, to selling high-end portrait photography is in creating that emotional desire. But how do you do it? Unlike BMW, Apple and Starbucks you don’t have a multi-million dollar marketing budget.

Answer: The pre-portrait consultation. The pre-portrait consultation will not cost you a dime. It will take just 30 minutes of your time.  And it will triple, quadruple or even quintuple your current average sales revenue when combined with a properly-run selling session (the selling session is a story for another day).

Here’s how I do it. I’m not saying my way is the best way, or the only way. But my average revenue per session is probably 4x what it would be without it.

I require a pre-portrait consultation. If a potential client balks at doing this because they’re busy, I politely decline. I will not agree to a portrait session without the consultation. It’s that important. I tell them that the purpose of the consultation is to plan the shoot (location, date/time, clothing, etc.) and to review their choices. I almost never have a potential client that refuses.

For family portraits, 95% of the time I am dealing with the mother. If she asks, I tell her that her husband is not required. I’d rather not have the husband there. The mother will usually be your ally and the father your adversary. More on this later.

To maximize revenue, you have to sell big, so I spend time showing her the big prints on my walls and explaining the story behind each image. I might ask her to guess how big the images are and if they look too big for the space they are in. The answer is always “no, they look just right”. Then I hold up an 8×10 against that same wall space and show her how ridiculously small it is. All of this is not to sell any particular product, but just to get her used to the idea that a wall print is something that needs to be much bigger than an 8×10.

 This image from my website is also a huge canvas print on display in my office. I tell the story behind the print. How this single mom and her daughter were best friends. How I asked them not to smile for the camera. How I asked them to just think about how much they loved each other. The moms often get emotional right there. I’ve just turned them into my own personal sales force. Canon 20D, Canon 17-55mm f2.8 EFS, ISO 200, f2.8 

After the wall prints, I show her a few albums. Here’s exactly what I say: “Most of my clients end up buying an album because they love 20-30 or more images from their session, and the only way you can display that many prints is with an album. Otherwise, all the prints end up inside a shoebox.”

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Beware photo books.  If you’re not careful, they can destroy your profitability.

First, a quick definition:  a photo book is a bound, press-printed book.  That’s it.  It’s sort of like an album, but instead of real photographic prints it has press printed pages, like in a brochure.

Benefits of photo books:  They’re dirt cheap, available everywhere, and can be printed very quickly (unlike the 4-6 week turnaround you get from the typical album company)

Drawbacks of photo books:  They destroy profitability if used incorrectly, next to a real album they look crappy

Here’s the problem.  Let’s say you offer albums for $50 per page, or $1,500 for a 30 page, 10×10 album.  Your cost for this album is $400.  Therefore, your profit is $1,100.  Now let’s say you’re going to offer photo books in addition to your albums.  The photo book is much cheaper, say $50.  So in order to make that same $1,100 profit that you made from the album, you would have to charge $1,150.  Good luck with that!

Photo books – because consumers know they can get them anywhere dirt cheap – have a much lower perceived value than real albums.  And – I could be wrong – but as far as I know there aren’t any “real” professional album companies that sell directly to consumers, unlike photo books which can be purchased at Costco or Walgreens.  They won’t pay $1,500 or even $1,175 for the photo book.  They’re expecting to pay much, much less for this type of product.

So the photo book is cannibalizing your album sales and robbing you of hundreds of dollars in profits.  Not only that, this type of cheap product diminishes your carefully crafted, high-end-boutique-photography image.

The solution

Do not offer photo books as a stand-alone product.  Only offer them as an add-on (if at all).  For example, purchase a regular photo album for $1,500 and you can order photo book copies for $250 each.  You’ll still make your regular profit and you’ll make some additional photo book profit as well.  Think about creative ways you can merchandise them.  How about this? –  Spend $1,500 or more on wall prints and get a free 6×6 photo book.  Or how about using photo books only for parent albums?  You get the idea.

But isn’t it a good idea to have products available at all price points so you have something for everyone?  No.

You don’t need to have something for everyone.  You need to manage your profitability.

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As I usually do this time each year, here is the post on my annual holiday card production:

The Shoot

I do a studio-style shoot of the kids every year – mainly because these types of shots give the best representation / recording of what the kids look like.  It is much easier to do these shots in my new house, as it’s much bigger with room to spread out.  I did the shoot in the kitchen/family room.  As you can see, I set up the backdrop right against the kitchen island.

Lots of my gear, including my umbrellas and extra light stands, are packed away somewhere.  I went with a single light setup with a large umbrella out of necessity.  The gear for this shoot:

• Westcott Collapsible 4×6 backdrop
• Alien Bee B800 flash
• 36″ silver umbrella
• Pocketwizards
• Canon 5D Classic
• Canon 85mm f1.8 lens

Settings

• manual mode
• ISO 100
• f6.3
• 1/160 sec.

For this year’s card, I decided to go with ProDPI’s 4×8 flat cards.  They come in packs of 25 cards (including envelopes) for about $18.  Here is the template:

From here I simply sized some images and drag and dropped them into place. Don’t worry about the black edges, they will be trimmed.

Here’s the front side:

and the back:

My holiday card design philosophy is to keep it simple, use every square inch of real estate and focus on the images.  No extraneous design elements allowed.

That’s it!  The studio shoot took about 1 hour from set up to tear down, and the layout/design took another hour.  2 hours total.  Let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

Happy Holidays!

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Except for the bride & groom fashion shoot and the family portraits, shooting a wedding largely is an exercise in photojournalism.  I don’t consider myself a great photojournalist by any means, but I have significantly improved over the years by following this important principle:  it is okay to watch and wait.

Working with dozens of 2nd shooters over the years, I’ve noticed that many of them rush from shot to shot, anxious that they are going to “miss something” happening somewhere else.  However, sometimes the best images result through patience – the ability to just sit there and be ready, and not shoot until you see something developing.

Here’s an example from my most recent wedding.  This isn’t award-winning photography or anything like that, but simply a very nice moment captured because of my willingness to wait.

In the groom’s “getting ready” room, I noticed one of the groomsmen having a conversation with the groom’s sister.

Nothing is really going on, just a normal conversation. However, the sister was clearly telling a story. I waited, then waited some more.  Eventually, she got to the punch line as I knew she would, which resulted in this image:

As a sequence, the two images together portray a light moment which helps tell the story of the day.

I probably sat there for 3-4 minutes, not doing anything – no shooting – but just sitting on the floor and listening.  My subjects forgot I was there. I knew the payoff would come when the story ended.  Now doing nothing but listening for 3-4 minutes might seem like an eternity, but it’s okay.  You don’t always have to be shooting every minute of the day.

I wouldn’t have gotten these images when I first started out, because I would have been unwilling to wait for it.  I would have been looking through the viewfinder at all times, searching for something to shoot. Then I would have heard the laughter, turned around and tried to get the shot, but it would already have been too late.

So that’s my quick tip of the day:  relax, observe, and wait.  It will pay off with better and more meaningful images. As a side benefit, you’ll have far fewer images to review and delete when editing.

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(1) For ring shots I always use a point-n-shoot, my Canon G11.  As I wrote in this post, point-n-shoots are far superior to using macro lenses on your dslr, and will result in a much higher hit rate with greater depth of field, which is a big plus when shooting macros. G11, ISO 400, f2.8, 1/40 sec.

(2)  Embrace the smile!  I like to take more contemplative portraits of my brides, often without having them smile.  However, this would have been problematic for Sandy, as she is a chronic smiler.  Rather than trying to force it, just let your subjects be who they really are.  I didn’t tell her to smile – I didn’t tell her not to smile, I just let her be her natural, beautiful and happy self. 5DmkIII, 70-200mm f2.8, ISO 400, f3.2, 1/1250 sec.

(3)  The 5DmkIII was a revelation – I shot at ISO 6400 all night long. The images, like the one above, were crystal clear. This shot was at ISO 6400, f2.8, 1/50 sec at 200mm.  There is simply no way I could have gotten this shot with the 5D Classic.  99% of the time it is the Indian, not the arrow – but there are exceptions……  5DmkIII, 70-200mm f2.8, ISO 6400, f2.8, 1/50 sec.

(4)  Get down low to add drama.  This shot, taken by my 2nd shooter Johnny Arguedas, is a good example.  Imagine this shot taken at eye level, it would not have had nearly the same impact.  Nikon D700, Nikon 70-200mm f2.8, ISO 200, f2.8, 1/500 sec.

(5)  Think like a movie director.  Don’t just grab a shot and move on. Take a series of shots that tell a story.  Canon 5DmkIII, Canon 70-200mm f2.8, ISO 400, f4.0, 1/200 sec.

(6)  Pull back.  Not all your shots need to be up close.  Its okay to sometimes stand back – way back – and make your subjects small amidst a large, dramatic backdrop.  In this case, Grand Central Station.  Canon 5DmkIII, Canon 70-200 f2.8, ISO 400, f4.5, 1/250 sec.

(7)  A 35mm lens is your best friend.  Not too much distortion, yet wide enough to get shots like this when you don’t have room to back up.  One more step back and I would have been run over by traffic.  F6.3 is all you need to ensure enough depth of field to get 4-5 rows tack sharp.  Canon 5D Classic, Canon 35mm f1.4L, ISO 400, f6.3, 1/60 sec.

(8)  Set up your “action” shots.  This shot took a bit of work, but I knew it would look great.  First, I had to sprint ahead as fast as I could to get in place (wedding photography is physical work – stay in shape!).  Next, I picked a spot where I knew the background would have been most dramatic.  Then I squat down  – remember to stay low for drama.  Finally I set the camera on a slow-ish shutter speed of 1/40 sec.  Fast enough so I could get my subject sharp but slow enough that there would be a slight movement-effect.  5D Classic, 24mm f1.4L lens, ISO 1600, f2.0, 1/40 sec.

(9)  Embrace the videographer!  Many of you probably get annoyed with the videographer when you’re trying to shoot a wedding.  But think about all the advantages!  In particular, having a videographer is like having a separate off-camera light source.  In this case I made sure to position myself with my couple between me and the videographer, whose light provided perfect rim lighting.  Even better than bringing my own off-camera flashes!  Canon 5D Classic, Canon 50mm f1.4, ISO 1600, f1.6, 1/200 sec.

(10)  This image is blurry, far from tack-sharp.  Yet it’s one of my favorite from the day. I don’t go out of my way to create blurry images, but don’t be so quick to toss them out, they might turn out to be hidden gems. Canon 5D Classic, Canon 50mm f1.4, ISO 1600, f1.6, 1/320 sec.

(11) EZ black and white.  All of my b&w conversions were done with pretty much one click just by clicking the “Black & White” button just above the white balance sliders in Lightroom’s Develop module.  Not only is this the quickest method of converting to b&w, in my opinion it’s also one of the best.  I wrote about it in this post. Canon 5D Classic, Canon 24mm f1.4L, ISO 1600, f2.2, 1/125 sec.

(12)  Direct flash does NOT suck!  I use direct flash all the time.  I point that sucker right at my subject.  I rarely bounce as I prefer direct flash.  Now this shot is obviously is taken outdoors so direct flash is the only option, but I used direct flash the entire wedding even indoors.  People think direct flash sucks only when they don’t know how to set their camera.  They shoot in the dark at ISO 200, f4.5.  That will definitely suck. To make direct flash look great, it’s important to gather plenty of ambient light.  Don’t be afraid to shoot at high ISOs.  When you blend the direct flash with the ambient background, it looks great.  Canon 5D Classic, Canon 24mm f1.4L, ISO 1600, f2.0, 1/40 sec.

(13)  Funky color is okay!  When you’re at a dark reception that has high-end lighting, quite often the colors will be funky – red, blue, green, etc.  Don’t try to color-correct – just go with it.  That’s what the light looked like – and I think it looks great.  5DmkIII, Canon 35mm f1.4L, ISO 3200, f2.5, 1/50 sec.

(14)  I can’t emphasize enough how great the “silent shutter” is on the 5DmkIII.  I didn’t have to cringe hearing the shutter sound like a cannon in a quiet church.  5DmkIII, 70-200mm f2.8L IS, ISO 6400, f2.8, 1/200 sec.

(15)  The Canon 5DmkIII worked like a champ.  Jaw-dropping image quality at ultra-high ISOs, fast, accurate auto focus with an incredibly high hit rate.  Backup card for peace of mind.  It’s just an awesome wedding camera.  I’m not sure what I would change about it if anything.

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Venue:  Cipriani

Coordinator: Janine Immiti - Exquisite Affairs Productions

2nd photographer:  Johnny Arguedas

Makeup:  Sally Duvall

Hair:  Steven Walters

Florist:  Jerry Sibal Fusion Designs

Band:  Star Talent

Transportation:  Dave Luxury

Cake:  Ron Ben Israel

Videographer:  Arnaldo Reyes

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