i wish you guys were from NY ..................

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Eddy
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i wish you guys were from NY ..................

Post by Eddy »

i wish you guys were from NY .................. so i can have you guys come and support me when this lounge (http://www.moccalounge.com)displays my photography on 6/14/2006
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Mikey_
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Post by Mikey_ »

If you were here in CA, we'd probably be taking lots of pictures together :P Well, I was planning to go back to the East coast for the July 4 weekend, but we'll have to see. It's very unlikely though.

Good luck on the display thing :)

Michael
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Post by Eddy »

hey mike,

i realize that in order to have a career has a photographer, your business skills has to be 100X better than your photography. .............. i guess exception would be for photojournlist.
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Setting up a business

Post by Mikey_ »

Having a successful business depends on a variety of factors. For photography, I'd imagine the following must be true:

- Must have skills for the product/service you're selling
- If possible, the photography skills you have are unique
- Must be able to persuade your products/services for sale: so, you should have excellent communication/persuasion/sales skills (check out the SPIN method of selling -- excellent way to sell.)
- Must have the know-how of the business, including identifying opportunities, areas you're weak at, and what the competition is up to
- Excellent customer service
- Provide a brand or sense of identity for your business (ie. a positive feeling customers can associate with when they hear about you)
- Must be passionate about the business
- Should have the technical infrastructure to streamline processes for effectiveness and efficiency
- Must have the dedication to work long, hard hours
- Must have the right clients: location, location, location...
- If someone else can do a better job than you in a certain area, put your ego away and get help

I am in no way an enterpreneur at this stage and so take these suggestions with a grain of salt. My current goal is to first obtain stability and financial backing before I decide to do something on the side (ie. open up my own photography business.)

One idea is to run a photography school, photo studio, and Photoshop workshop -- all in one business. This would satisfy my desire to help people out (school), take my hobbies to the next level (studio), and still utilitize my technical skills (Photoshop, IT, computers.)

Michael

EDIT: by the way, if you don't have the business skills, but do possess photography, you could always partner up with someone who has the right personality and sense to take care of the operation side.
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Post by Eddy »

wow

nice mike, i think you have it right on the dot, i wish i was could all those guidelines. i'm just lucky enough to be in a family where i can fool around with something i love and hopefully, making it a career (so far, so good)

I don't have a dream.......i do have goals.... this years goal is to take 20(15 booked) weddings, next year 40 weddings, and by the third year, have my studio, hire couple local college kids to do the production work. hire maybe two or three photographers and give them a set rate where they have to find their own assistant and second shooter. I'll give them $1000 each gig, but they have to manage their expenses. This is about 5-600 over the market studio wedding photographer rate per wedding, but its about how they can manage their share of it.

i'm currently working out of my basement, i want to move into manhattan, get myself a loft so i can stop this 1 hour communte for a 30 min appointment. I have to do this even when the client say no, i think this pays off in the future, i provide door to door service even if they leave in a different state.

so anyways, i have a goal............ by the time i am 45, i want to have a studio that takes 500-600 weddings a year, making that close to 1.5 million gross profit

hopefully, from the side money that i will be generating from non-wedding related photography- i'll be able to continue having my semi-annual trips around the world on my path to my goals.

i'm pretty greedy and selfish now that i look what i have plan for myself in the future.

of course, first of all i have register for a business entity first !!!!! this LLC is so complicated.
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Post by Mikey_ »

Limited Liability Corporation sure could be complicated :) Good luck with that :)

Be careful about offering a flat pay to freelancers: if they are encouraged to cut costs in order to make a higher profit, you will have to consider what those costs they are cutting are. Don't forget to incorporate some kind of quality control, of course, and to pre-screen all photographers before you put them on assignment.

Nothing is worse than a wedding day with no good pictures. Yuck. Lawsuits, anyone?

And hey, if your business takes off, leave Mel and me a spot open someday ;)

Michael
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Post by mb_rockstar »

Did I hear wedding photography?

I'm planning.....well, I haven't decided yet, but I'm planning to be my friend's photographer at her wedding next year in August. The reason why I haven't decided yet is because this will be my very first gig! Weddings are once in a life time deals and I'm a bit hesitant to accept this job offer because I'm still an amatuer.

Eddy, do you have any advice or suggestions in taking wedding photography? I've recently created my first portfolio of all my favorite photos of the places I've traveled to last year and part of this year. My next project is to start taking portrait photography. An old friend left me a myspace message the other day asking if she could hire me to take portrait photos of her. Of course, I declined to take her money, but I thought, 'Hey! That's a great idea and a great start in developing my skills in photography.' So, I have a few models lined up and ready for me to take their pictures.

All I need now is time. Work has been quite busy and hectic for the past few months. It's expected to slow down a bit starting next month. :)

So any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated from anyone reading this post.

- mb
"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
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Post by Eddy »

hey rock,

I would say those portarit practices will help greatly for wedding photography when it comes to posing them and working with people in general. I was forunate enough to be able to market myself in a way where i was getting paid to build my portfolio and i am still doing that as well. I did one free gig with a stylist of that martini shoot. other than that, i was lucky enough to convince ppl to give me a chance, of course i offerred them a rate that they couldn't refuse.

I suck at portarits, which is where i am trying to improve, especially posing people, i can stuck after couple of poses and i have stop and think which is really bad at weddings because time is crucial on the wedding day. you have to have the next post ready on your mind while shooting the current post. and also i am horrible at giving directions, so that is somewhere you can practice greatly on with portarits, i only did two portarits so far of regular people and i definitely feel like i need much more practice. the hardest part of wedding is the first 3 hours, because after the ceremony and pictures at parks or whereever, the reception will be a piece of cake, because it'll mostly be candid shots where you are just browsing around taking shots like your roaming the streets.

the only thing i always before wedding is ssitting down with my clients and discuss thoroughly of what they are looking for. since its your friends, i'm sure you can guys will know exactly what each other one.

oh yeah, and enjoy the wedding, enjoy taking pictures!!!! even thought at times, it'll be frustrating and also learn to take control of situations, because if you don't, you will have a headache by the end of the night. FOR SURE !!!!!

I learned wedding photography mainly from assisting other wedding photographers, i am still an amature so don't take my advice seriously.

Good luck !!!!!!!!!!

feel free to ask any questions and i'll try my best to give you my point of view on it.
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Post by Mikey_ »

Well, Eddy, as you requested in the Member Galleries section, I've posted a few of my past pictures here: http://www.hkss.com/comm/gall/index.php?cat=10003

Let me know what you think of them by providing comments/votes. Thanks.
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Post by mb_rockstar »

Thank you Eddy :) I will definitely put these advice you provided me into good use.
"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
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