Newsletter February 2010 See Previous newsletters here.
Hiya All
As many of you know I'm a little behind at present due to a week in Copenhagen which I have to say was a great deal colder than I had been prepared for. Most days it was minus 3 or 4 and at night it was a lot lower than that. Somedays we found ourselves turning white as great flurries of snow covered us. It made taking pictures out of doors almost impossible as we are not talking blue skies and Sun like on the ski slopes, but that grey dead light.
However now I'm back and have organised the next workshop with the lovely Samantha who some of you will recognise as my make up artsist. She models quite a lot for me, and is really looking forward to her first workshop. She is also one of the models who is accompanying us to Marbella for our glamour holiday in October. So for those of you thinking to come this will be an opportunity to meet one of the models. There are at the moment 7 places left.
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Places are now starting to be filled on the Marbella holiday and its all very positive indeed so don't hang around and remember you can ring and ask me anything. Holday Page.
As promised here is part 1 of turning pro and it seems I’m not 
the
only one that has had the idea to look into this seriously. Archant Press
are launching a new magazine in April called Turning Pro. There will be 4
issues a year covering many aspects of the whole photo industry.
Naturally they will be concentrating on wedding and social photography which
is where the majority of money is made. Wedding photography can be incredibly
lucrative and if done properly can earn a photographer a fantastic income.
Those that are as much business man as photographer usually do best and their
businesses can just grow and grow. I know of one that he himself admits is
not the most talented, but has a team of people that are, and covers 3 or
even 4 weddings on most Saturday’s for 9 months of the year.
Using capable photographers who are delighted to earn £250 for covering
a wedding he is easily able to ensure all his customers receive the very best
service and care, because he is not running around trying to find the best
man, chief bridesmaids, or bride’s mother. In the office he has a full
time Photoshop artist who works to produce fabulous pictures. Printing on
highest quality paper using professional printing equipment he is able to
charge an average of £5000 per wedding - you can work out what his profit
margin is.
Another lucrative road to try is social photography. This is photographing people, families, children and even pets. Usually studio based some of the work produced is outstanding and with good back office Photoshop will produce amazing results. Usually confined to your high street photographer this is an avenue to pursue. Today people see black and white as art so a display of large eyed children beautifully rendered in deep black through grey monotones to pure crisp white will be a winner every time.
The next path open is ‘Make Over’ days where a perfectly normal looking lady (usually) is made up by a professional has her hair done by a stylist and is then photographed in the most flattering light and poses. After the shoot she is then give coffee while in the back room a team work away feverishly making her truly beautiful using every trick possible. Within half an hour she is shown the pictures on a PC and asked to choose the one picture that is included in the ridiculously low price. Naturally she is blown away by the pictures and hopefully will purchase several at this point a ridiculously high price each. These are so popular you can now buy make over days on QVC the shopping channel.
This all very well I hear you say, but what about fashion and glamour? How do you earn an income from photographing beautiful women? That’s the billion dollar question and if you are talking about a real income so it becomes your full time job, pays the mortgage the school fees and the holidays then for this part 1 of the story all I’ll say
1) Get an agent.
2) Find an agency you can work with.
3) Be very self critical and be prepared to put yourself about!
Part 2 next update and I'll be going into the 3 points above.
I will move turning pro over to an archive next update so later on you will be able to read them all together.
Until I see you here, or until next time
Paul
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