1. Which Images?

The most important thing to consider when choosing images for your photography portfolio online is what the client sees. Your website is a marketing tool above all else. I think it’s important to only put photos up on your website of the types of clients and situations you want to photograph. Not every client of yours will be your ideal client although they  may still be wonderful. It’s important to only show the types of clients and style of photograph you want to photograph because it will help you attract those types of clients. For example, let’s say you love photographing clients who want to do vintage inspired sessions, but you did book a client who wanted to do something super modern. They were wonderful clients, but weren’t your ideal client. If you put those photos up on your website you are advertising that’s the type of photography you want to do and may attract more of those clients, despite not wanting to photograph super modern stuff.

2. How Many Images and Galleries?

I like to have 3 easy galleries. One for weddings, one for a featured wedding (that shows a whole wedding day in 30 or so images), and a portrait gallery. Too many galleries can be overwhelming, but how you set it up depends on your business structure. I keep galleries down to 15-20 photos, except featured wedding galleries. I assume people are looking at those to get a better look at a wedding as a whole and I include more photos to give a good look at the entire day’s story. I think 15 is a great amount to leave visitors wanting more. If you blog too you’ll be able to have more images on your blog and things that people won’t have seen on your website.

3. Blogs

I like to blog each of my sessions and weddings individually and show them off. I usually end up sharing anywhere between 20-40 images on my blog. I love this method as a way for visitors to see more in-depth into my portfolio and get a good idea of what an entire session looks like. I also love using >Blogstomp< to get images ready for blogging super fast. It allows me to pair some together so the blog posts aren’t as long. Although, I admittedly really struggle narrowing down my blog choices sometimes.

Photographers Store – Become a Member

Although I consider the topic super important for me to know and understand as a business owner, it’s not something I prefer to share directly with clients. I don’t feel that these kinds of posts should be used to convince clients of the value of your work and how much money and time you put into it. If they don’t understand that they might not be the right clients for you. My philosophy is that you can’t teach someone to value something. I can’t teach my clients to value my photography the way I do – so I’m not going to try. My job is to just be a photographer and take photos of clients who are interested in my work. If people think my photography is too expensive, then they just don’t need to book with me. I don’t want to spend a lot of time justifying my expenses.

I really wanted to open this blog post with this “disclaimer.” I don’t think this is information you need to share with your clients. Keep their experiences and interactions with you positive. Don’t share this with them and use it to make them feel guilty about expecting to pay less for your services.  I see a lot of that happening in the industry – it might just be me, but it makes me uncomfortable. I try to put myself in my clients’ shoes when I see these posts being shared with clients. This isn’t intended as a teaching tool for clients, but as a resource for photographers who need help pricing their services. Just focus on you, how you can use this information personally to better your business, and what we, as a community, can learn from this.

Calculating Your Prices Based on your Cost of Doing Business

A lot of questions people ask are about pricing, where and how to price, where to start, etc. I understand it’s crazy and all economies are different. There’s definitely no one right answer for this question, but figuring out the cost of doing business can help you figure out what to charge so you can start making a profit at least.

Oh and it took me the last 5 years of reading “CoDB” online before realizing it stands for the “Cost of Doing Business.” Just thought I’d let you all know in case you were wondering like me.

The great thing about calculating your costs is that you can figure out your costs per hour, and then figure out what you need to make per hour working to make a profit.

Basically figuring out your cost of business should help you define what financial success looks like for you. It’s okay if it’s not the same for every person. Some photographers work day jobs, some work part-time jobs, and some are stay at home moms. Depending on your workload you might find that what your financial success looks like to you with your business might be different from others. Just don’t worry about comparing your success against someone else’s.

Business Costs

• Office/Studio
• Phone
• Equipment and Accessories
• Computers, Hardware and Software
• Internet
• Website Hosting/Fees
• Vehicle Expenses
• Office Supplies and Furniture
• Postage and Shipping
• Education (Classes, Workshops, ebooks)
• Marketing
• Subscriptions (memberships i.e. WPPI, PPA, etc.)
• Insurance
• Health Insurance
• Legal and Accounting Services
• Taxes and Licenses
• Utilities
• Travel

Calculate

Calculate all your total costs per year. Then divide your cost by month. Then consider how many sessions on average you do per month and how much you make on each of those sessions. Comparing your monthly costs to your monthly profits will help you look at if you need to book more sessions, if you want to raise your prices, etc. You can even break this down further by the hour. You can tally up how many hours per month you work toward your business and compare that to the costs per month to see how much your business is costing you per hour and how much you are making per hour.

Personally, I prefer to look at it hourly so I can make a goal toward how much I want to make per hour.

There’s a great online calculator by the NPPA (National Press Photographers Association) you can use to calculate your business costs – I highly recommend it! Check it out >here<

Business Tools Shop – Become a Member

You see, I know all about branding, I understand its psychology and how it works – it’s just that at some point with business it got too expensive to implement and fell down at the bottom of my to-do list instead of at the top. I wanted to invest in good equipment, the best lenses, marketing, etc. and branding came last. I thought it was not as important as all of those other things I was investing in, but I was so wrong!

I believe branding has two distinct parts. One is an emotional connection that fans and customers develop with your business and the other part is the visual side. I think with branding we quickly assume that our logo, color scheme and other visual aspects of our web presence is what defines our branding. We think it’s simple and easy to be visually consistent, but it’s so much more than just a logo or a color scheme.

It is those things and those things are important, but the have to go beyond Facebook, our website, Twitter, and other social media. Those consistent visuals are something your clients should come in contact with every time they interact with you! Adding logos images, color schemes to your thank you cards, your business materials, your marketing materials and anything a client could possibly come across will develop a sense of consistency. Consistency helps customers feel they can trust a brand.

Also if you need some good fonts I always recommend myfonts.com

Another part of that visual side is starting to take photos of the types of clients and situations that you  most want to photograph. The whole notion of doing a ‘styled shoot’ seemed beyond me until recently. I just sat back and wondered why no clients were coming to me saying they wanted to be photographed in a vintage dress in a sunlit field with mason jars and lace everywhere. Hello? Clients don’t think like we do. I’ve been sitting around waiting for a client to come to me and say what they wanted, but I think an important part of branding is putting out there what you want to photograph. A styled shoot can be the absolute perfect opportunity. You may not be working for pay and you might have to purchase the props, gather models, and do more work than usual, but it’s all for a purpose – to take photographs that you want to take and put them out there for customers to see and think “hey I like that…” It will help you attract the types of customers you’ve always wanted to have.

Now, onto that emotional side of branding. I believe a good brand is one that people are passionate about – either with love or hate. Hate can still be a passion if someone dislikes something enough. Think of places like Apple or Canon and Nikon. People either love or hate Apple. Rarely do you find a person who is wishy-washy in between about the company. That’s part of a good brand. Apple is attracting the types of clients who are passionate about them and even those that don’t like Apple are still talking about the company. A brand has to be more than a visual – it has to be something that a client can connect to on an emotional level – especially to photographers since we’re a huge part of documenting the memories of their most important events.

For me my dogs have become a large part of my branding. Posting photos of them on social media and telling the funny stories about them (like that one time Lily ate $200 and I made her throw it up and took the scraps to the bank to cash them in) is something that people can connect to. Simply sharing those things and my dogs have made me put it out there…I’m a dog person. What’s interesting is that most of my clients are too. And they’re not just dog people, they’re like me. They tend to have more than 1 dog, they consider the dog as part of the family – they think their dog is more than just a dog.

Humor has also been a great way for me to connect with my clients, being my usual funky self, talking about my oddities, and telling stories is what makes me unique and helps me stand out from others. Clients have used phrases like – ‘we feel like you’re a real person and not just a photographer’ and I am a real person. I want my clients to connect to me on a very real level and not feel as though they are just a paycheck in my eyes.

Finally, the Photography Awesomesauce members and I were having a conversation the other day about writing unique website bios. We were talking about how almost every photographer’s bio says stuff like ‘I got my first camera when I was 3 and I haven’t put it down since….etc’ Take the opportunity to look at your bio in a new light and find a way to make it stand out and connect with your clients! The first place I make an emotional connection from my brand to my clients is my bio. The funny, quirky, weird side of myself is out on display for all to see. And yes, I did have a camera at a young age and loved to take photos, but didn’t we all?

Awesomesauce Store – Become a Member

So, what is exceeding expectations all about when it comes down to business? I think exceeding my client’s expectations all comes down to building word of mouth referrals. One of the things I hear most in the photography industry is photographers saying that word of mouth referrals are a huge part of their business. At the same time I hear other photographers saying they don’t get any word of mouth. Word of mouth referrals aren’t as simple as setting up a referral program for your clients and hoping that certain incentives of free prints, discounts and more will urge them to refer your work to their friends and family. If you think about it the companies and services that you love and talk about the most are the ones who went above and beyond on customer service. Rarely are they ones with a rewards system for referring them. I think we, as business owners, need to create businesses that are so full of amazing customer service and products that people will want to talk about us – whether we give them incentive to or not. The more effort we put into going above and beyond with our clients the more they will want to talk about our businesses and I think that’s the bottom line when it comes to building word of mouth referrals. Give your clients something to talk about, something that excites them…something they didn’t even expect!

What can we do to exceed our client’s expectations then? Well, that doesn’t mean we need to give them low expectations. I give them high expectations and do what I can to “over-deliver.” These can be really simple things. Telling a client their photos will take 2 weeks to be finished and delivering them in 24 to 48 hours – imagine the excitement and surprise! I also build in client gifts into my pricing so I can plan on surprising clients here and there with a gift. These gifts can be a 16×20 canvas (they cost about $27 from cgproprints.com), and anything else you’d like. I’m working on incorporating a glamour photo session for each of my wedding clients too. These are things I don’t tell my clients, but instead surprise them with. A 16×20 canvas of their favorite photo shipped right to their door? That would be awesome! I think these small things let clients know that you care about them beyond a paycheck, it builds a relationship, trust, and allows you to exceed their expectations. Nothing will get clients talking more than the photographer who surprised them with a free canvas, a date night before their wedding, a hand written thank you card…

If you can find ways to exceed your client’s expectations in your business you’ll be on the right track to building more word of mouth referrals and getting your clients to talk about you. Once you give them something amazing to talk about you’ll be well on your way to building more clients!

Awesomesauce Store – Becoming a Member

1. What is SEO?

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and is basically a way for you to format your website and marketing to help boost your rank in search results. The idea is that when someone searches for a photographer in your area and types in “Atlanta Newborn Photographer” you want to show up right there on page 1 and not page 100. The higher you are in the search results the more likely it is that you’ll be found. It can greatly increase your inquiries into your business and from there it increases your business overall.

2. How to Build SEO

SEO is a world filled with terms like ‘keywords’ and ‘algorithms.’ Basically all over the internet there are little automated bots from search engines trolling and reading content on websites and noting if the content is relevant to popular searches done. This means that the content on your website is being combed over and indexed with search engines. The idea is to make that content as relevant as possible to various search engines. There are lots of ways to do this and we’re going to go over a few in this blog post. I also have an SEO Guide, which can help you go through 8 basic steps to boost your SEO. >SEO Guide<

3. How SEO Has Changed

In the old days of search engines a big part of how high you ranked was how many other websites were linking back to your website. The more people linked to you the higher you would be in search results. Now, a few of these types of links which we call, ‘backlinks,’ can help, but only if they are truly relevant to what work you do in business. Creating listings with websites like Google Maps, the Yellow Pages and more can help, but you can’t go overboard. Too many backlinks from websites that aren’t similar or on the same topic as yours can actually drop your ranking. Google has recently re-worked their algorithm for calculating how a website is ranked. What Google wants to see is incredibly relevant things linking back to your website, not just any old backlink. Commenting on other blogs, although a tiny bit helpful, has not actually proven as a great way to boost your rank.

4. A Few Places You Can Start Building SEO

• Google Plus – get a listing! Even if you don’t want to use it as a social media outlet, just existing and listing your business, website, etc. can essentially prove to Google that you exist and you’re a real person. 
• Guest Blog – Instead of spending time commenting on other blogger’s posts to build SEO, find blogs that you like and are related to photography and see if they ever feature guest writers. If you’re posting on a website that’s related to photography and leaving your link to your photography website a search engine likes that type of backlink because it’s relevant to your website.
• Build a Favorite Vendors Page on Your Website – This is a stepping stone type of tip. If you have a section on your website where you’ve listed links to a few of your favorite wedding, family or newborn vendors you can send that link to those vendors and say ‘hey I listed you on my website as one of my favorite vendors since I’ve enjoyed working with you and building a referral network in the past. I would love it if you would list me on your website too!’ For a wedding photographer this can be great.Having other wedding vendors talk about your wedding photography and link back to you is one of those good types of backlinks that Google likes to see.
• Get Your Photography Published – It’s scary, I know. I’ve been refused my fair share of times (and still get refused), but for every time your work is accepted and shown on another blog that’s a relevant link back to you. I use >Two Bright Lights< to submit my work to be published to wedding blogs, but it’s also a great place for newborn, family, and senior photographers to submit work as well! You can read a guest post on this blog by Emma Smith about how to use Two Bright Lights for submissions >here<
• Use Your Own Blog – As I said above, those little search engine bots are going over your website and reading the material on it. A static website is one that is not a blog (i.e. the content doesn’t update). So once it’s been read and indexed by a search engine there’s nothing new to add. A blog is a great tool for always having new content for a search engine to index and read. Using more of those local terms (ex. Atlanta Newborn Photographer) in your blog that people will be searching can help you a lot too!

Awesomesauce Store – Become a Member

by Ashley Fisher
>Website<
>Facebook<
>Blog<

If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t have enough time in the day. And when you get an inquiry, you’re probably so excited about that inquiry that you sit there and type something out and send it…and then maybe you forgot something important. Or maybe you can’t even remember what you told one of your clients because you don’t have a system in place or a standard response. I can’t even begin to explain to you how much time I have wasted in the past year repeating myself and actually typing out the same email over and over again. Or how many times I have struggled to remember what I have told my clients at a certain stage in their experience with me. That is…until I found this little gem called TextExpander.

What is TextExpander?

TextExpander 4 is an AMAZING productivity app for Apple products (computers, iPhones, iPads – requires 10.7 or 10.8…earlier operating systems can download previous versions of TextExpander). Unfortunately, TextExpander is not available for Windows products. Your frequently used text, pictures, and links can be turned into “snippets” and can be inserted into emails, Facebook messages and posts, blog posts, Twitter, Evernote, and so many other applications. TextExpander also lets you insert email signatures, fixes typos, breeze through forms, and SO much more! Any email that I send to a client (inquiry response, scheduling consults, scheduling engagement sessions, engagement session FAQ, emails with questionnaires, album design, and so much more) has been inserted into TextExpander. For example:

This is a response that I send to brides who inquire through any method other than my contact form (because my contact form asks these questions). Instead of typing this out every time, I just type out the “snippet” which is in the box called “abbreviation” down in the lower right corner. So to respond to a basic inquiry like this with no information other than name/email/date and asking for price, I just type out :price inq (without the space) and it populates in less than 1 second:

Hi {BRIDE}!

Thank you very much for taking the time to inquire about my wedding photography collections. I’m truly blessed to do what I love, and I appreciate your time and consideration in advance! Because I accept only a limited number of weddings each year, I like to get to know my clients very well to ensure we’re a good fit. If you could take just a few minutes to answer the following questions, it would streamline our communication and ensure you’re well taken care of! If you haven’t officially decided on something I ask, just put potential ideas that you may have instead!

Bride’s Full Name:

Bride’s Phone Number:

Bride’s Email Address:

Bride’s Birthday:

Groom’s Full Name:

Groom’s Phone Number:

Groom’s Email Address:

Groom’s Birthday:

Wedding Date:

Ceremony Location:

Reception Location:

How Did You Hear About Us:

Are You Working with a Wedding Coordinator?

If Yes, Coordinator Name:

How Did You Meet:

Tell Us About the Proposal:

Three Words to Describe You as a Couple:

How Would You Describe Your Wedding Style:

What Would Be Included in Your Dream Package:

Price Point Range:

Level of Excitement to Work With Us (1-a little; 10-very):

Skype of Coffee Consultation:

Anything to Add?

Again, thank you for contacting me and I look forward to our paths crossing in the near future!

Warmly,

Ashley

Note – you can also insert automatic fields if you would like.

How much is TextExpander, and how do I get it?

TextExpander is NOT available from the AppStore. You have to go the >TextExpander website< to download the app. It is $34.95 (one time fee), but it does include a free trial to make sure that it works for you (and a 90 day money back guarantee)! $34.95 is SO worth the amount of time that you will save, and you’ll be able to make sure that all of your clients have the same skeleton for their experience with you!

Learn More

>Frequently Asked Questions<

>Videos<

Awesomesauce Store – Become a Member

I’ve got stickers ordered in the mail to label the box and small round stickers with my logo and website in case anyone manages to not put something back when they’re done – then, hey! It’s free marketing!

You might be asking yourself, why go to all this trouble? I realize that bringing a big kit to the wedding is completely unnecessary, but I feel that it’s part of providing top-notch customer service. I even bring this to portrait sessions – you never know! I know that my job as a photographer goes beyond simply taking photos and getting paid. I want to provide my clients with the best experience ever and not let anything ruin their wedding day.

So…here it is, there are little tips and tidbits in the captions of each photo.

Oh P.S. I also bring a leatherman with me too, but it’s always in my pocket!

Lily (#thelily) decided it was very important to be in these photos. These are all boxes I bought at Ikea. I have stickers for the top of the box to say it’s mine and feel free to look inside and use what you need. Each individual box has a theme with a label of the items inside.

The infamous bride hanger. I have a groom hanger too. I do not allow my clients to take these.

This pink box has a lot of odds and ends in it. Straws – so the bride doesn’t ruin her lipstick. Antibacterial hand gel. Mentos – for yummy breath! A paper and pen. Girly things – need I say more? Snacks – just in case. Sometimes people forget to eat on the day of the wedding.

This is the green box with all the hair and makeup things you might ever need. It has 3 tiers.

Inside the hair and makeup box we have: hairspray, hairgel, bobby pins, face wipes, makeup remover wipes, nail polish remover wipes, tweezers, nail file, nail clippers, chapstick, sunscreen, deoderant, lotions, vaseline, razors, and baby powder. These are all little $1 travel-size items.

This box is the ‘medicine cabinet’ with: pepto, claritin, benadryl, advil, tums, contact solution, and eye drops for red eyes.

2 Little Pink Boxes! One has a first aid kit and the other has extra phone chargers and batteries (AAA an AA).

The big black box has items used for fixing things, fixing dresses, clothes, buttons, decorations and tissues for fixing happy tears.

Inside the big black box of ‘fix-it’ tools there are mini tissue packs, duct tape, a mini sewing kit, static guard, wrinkle release spray, a bleach pen, lint roller, and clear nail polish.

These four little jars are in my big black box to carry all the smallest items.

Inside the little jars which are inside the big black box are q-tips, safety pins, straight pins, super glue, and jewelry parts (extra earring backs, necklace fasteners, etc.).

I’m not here to name any names, it’s happened multiple times and I usually don’t talk about it. I’ve even had my photography stolen. However, there is something you can do about it, you can report it. In the US we are lucky to have the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). After this last bit of blog post stealing and having the content removed I decided I could turn that negative into a positive and tell you guys a little about the DMCA and how it can help you.

The DMCA is a copyright law. Part of this law is the Online Infringement Liability Limitation Act. This part of the law basically keeps online service providers (blogs, hosts, and anywhere else people post content) from being held liable if a user posts content that doesn’t belong to them. In order for an online service provider to quality for this they must comply to certain guidelines, block copyrighted material, investigate and remove it.

Even though this is designed to protect websites like blogger.com from being held liable it does something for you – it allows you a way to report when your copyright is infringed in some way. Any big website where someone might take your photo you can report it, Facebook, Google, GoDaddy, Blogspot, WordPress and more, they all abide by this law and allow you to report your content when its stolen. Once they review all you need to do is sit back and watch them remove your stuff.

If someone ever steals and re-posts your blog posts, images or anything else that belongs to you without your permission just check whatever service they are posted on and report it to that service. For example, if they’re posted on Facebook you can google “Facebook DMCA” and it’ll come up with all the links you need to report and make a claim. Once they review your claim and find it’s true they’ll remove the content and sometimes ban the user/close their account/delete your stuff etc.

This might not be the complete solution if someone is found stealing from you, but it’s a great place to start. It gives me confidence as a business owner to know that I have some easy and free way to get my content removed, even though the DMCA can’t be a substitute for legal help or assistance.

Plus can you imagine the email the user gets when they get caught stealing from you and their online service provider (be it Facebook, Google or otherwise) tells them they had to remove stuff due to copyright notice?

You can read more about the DMCA >here< I hope this gives you guys a starting place if this ever happens to you and helps give you a feeling that if someone steals from you, you CAN do something about it. You are definitely not powerless.

Awesomesauce Store – Become a Member – Carrie Swails Photography

Image from http://www.twobrightlights.com

Emma and Josh are photographers who get featured a lot on weddings blogs online. I don’t have a lot of experience in this area so I invited Emma to come and write a little bit about how it works for her. It can be a great marketing tool. If a wedding blog choses to feature your photos they will link back to your website, which can help your SEO!

I’m a big fan of doing a gallery review with my clients after their photo session or wedding and have always used this as an opportunity to make print sales, offer discounts and ensure that my clients have great archival memories of their photos after all is said and done. I do want their photos to last both online and offline. I want my clients to have their digital files stored for a lifetime online, which is why I use PASS, but I also want them to walk away with heirlooms to pass down to their family, like an album.

So, I wanted to tell you guys a story about something I’ve learned lately. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve come in business – I’m always learning and trying new techniques to try to be better at this job. When I learn something new and find out what’s working for me I like to share it here with you. Of course, my techniques are not always right for everyone, but they work for me and that’s why I share them.

The story goes that I was talking to a photographer friend of mine over the phone. We were talking about how the demand in the industry is getting higher for digital photos and we want to be able to provide that, but how we also believe they need to have something hanging on the wall. Somehow pricing products came up and it just dawned on both of us how much the photography industry marks up print products. We mark up our products more than most any industry in the world. I was telling my friend that for some reason the last year I’ve noticed my print sales decreasing and I couldn’t figure out why. I was still selling, and I wanted to provide the digital files, but I wanted to find a balance to do so.

That lead me to last December where I started thinking about how we, as photographers, not only have to compete against each other in this industry, but how our print prices now have to compete against the likes of Walmart now too. I wanted to check out some of these crappy print options for myself and compare them to some of the professional labs I’d been using and see if I could use that as a marketing tool. I had done the same thing years ago, but with how fast technology grows I figured it was about time to check it out again.

I have to tell you that Costco’s print lab beat out several of the professional labs. A lot of the other labs like Walmart, Shutterfly, etc. (I tried them all) didn’t look great and had color problems, but man Costco caught me off guard. Of course I doubt that Costco uses the same sprays and tools that a professional lab does, but it makes for some legit competition.

The big question was, how can I compete against the likes of Walmart’s prices, still sell high quality prints, and meet the demand by my clients for digital files? So, I’ve been sitting on this idea for several months, researching, thinking, and planning.

I realized that we as an industry don’t have any set standards for professional print prices. They are all over the place. When I first priced my products I did so by looking at what other photographers were pricing for theirs. I have learned that I may be over valuing what I thought my prints were truly worth.

That led me to experiment. I wondered what it would be like to drop my print prices a little bit to compete with the likes of Walmart, but still make sales and a small profit off of what I sell. So the last several months I cut my prices on my prints a lot. I was surprised because I worried that no people would still print elsewhere or that I was devaluing my own work. However, my print sales have increased hugely. My clients are loving the new prices and the ability to get professional quality prints, and products at affordable prices.

I guess I didn’t expect it to work well, but I was willing to try it out. I’m making more off my print sales then I ever have before. I think my clients are happier. I’m happier too. This is an experiment I’m going to continue throughout this year to see where it leads me as wedding season begins.

I just wanted to share this story, and my thoughts with you. I think one of the most important things we can do as a business owner is stay current with what is popular with our clients and find a way to do what works for them in a way that we can also still benefit and be happy. Like I said, there are so many methods that work for different people in different ways. Mine isn’t always the right path for everyone, but I’m here to share and help if I can.

Awesomesauce Store & Carrie Swails Photography

I went and edited in a sign-up link in the previous post about PASS… So you can check it out all over again >PASS Blog Post<

Send those PASS dudes some thanks!

What is PASS?

PASS is a company that is owned and operated by the same studs who run http://showitfast.com. I’ve talked several times about what Showit is and why I use it. Showit is website software to help photographers create awesome unique websites. PASS is their software to create online galleries for your clients.

PASS is part of the “shoot & share” mentality, so if that’s not how you like to run your business than this post might not be for you, and that’s okay. PASS’s online gallery system is all about downloads and getting rid of that CD and using something far more sophisticated in its place. CDs and DVDs are about to become a thing of the past now that computers are no longer being made with a CD/DVD drive. Everyone is streaming video, tv, and music content online, so there’s no point in having a disc anymore. That’s what PASS is all about, a place that displays your photos in an amazing and unique way and makes it easy for your client to store their photos and download them all at once in one easy button.

PASS Pricing

This is the part that confuses a lot of photographers new to PASS. The pricing. Rather than pay monthly, quarterly, annually or one big flat fee PASS charges per gallery, which is usually referred to as an “event.” To see how PASS explains their pricing go here >> http://pass.us/#/free-upgraded/

PASS has two different options for price, one is free and one is $29 per gallery. The free option allows individual photo downloads and can only be hosted for 30 days. The $29 upgraded gallery allows you to turn downloads on and off, hosts the gallery for 1 year, and allows your clients to download all the photos at once instead of individually. Beyond those things, the upgraded $29 version also stores your photos for 10 years. Consider them ‘cryogenically frozen.’ After the 1 year is up they get archived and the best part is that you or your clients can access them later if something ever happened to you or them.

Now, I know the price seems steep. Believe me in the old version of PASS I couldn’t justify $29 per gallery for what they had to offer. I’ll admit that I wasn’t very impressed. They’ve spent the last several months (probably more) completely rebuilding their software from the ground up. It is nothing like what it was before. Before it was only a gallery with downloads and your clients had to individually download each photo. Can you imagine passing a wedding gallery to your clients and they download thousands of photos one at a time? Yuck. I have to say the old PASS didn’t have much to offer to me, but I am one-thousand percent happier with the new version and this article will definitely dive into why that $29 is worth every penny.

PASS Invites & How to Sign Up

Since PASS is releasing their new software version they’ve been working up a clever marketing scheme and not allowing just anyone to go sign up for their new software – you  must be invited. Kind of like how gmail first was years and years ago. Everyone who uses Showit for their website and/or is a current PASS user can access the new software. Every user is given 3 invites to send to their friends.

As I said before, I’ve received hundreds and hundreds of emails asking me for PASS invites. Mine are gone. But guess what? Since posting this blog this morning I’ve managed to score a way for you to sign up! All you have to do is go here >http://passpromo.com/awesomesauce<

PASS Marketing Features

Okay so I wanted to talk about the reason that $29 gallery upgrade is worth every penny.

It’s all about how we share photos in the digital age. You know how you’re having dinner with your BFF who you haven’t seen in a few weeks. You’re sitting there chatting over wine. Maybe your kids are crawling all over you and you’re really having apple juice in a Chuck-E-Cheese place, but you get the idea. You’re talking about all the fun things that have happened in the last couple weeks and you want to show your friend a photo, so you take out your phone and pull up the photo on Facebook or in one of your apps and pass your phone to your friend to look at. This is the way people share photos now. No more whipping your wallet out of your back pocket, guys, and letting a row of wallet sized photos of your kids and dogs photographed at Sears unravel down to the floor.

With that in mind, PASS seems to be the ideal solution so when your clients are sitting there sharing photos of their wedding, new baby, family photos, or Spot the dog they take their phone out and what do they do? They go right to the PASS gallery installed on their phone, which looks all cool and professional. Your client’s friend is impressed and wants to know who the photographer is and BOOM – referrals. That $29 per gallery, sure it has some cool features, but really you are paying to make your clients into walking, talking billboards for your business.

I have to say that I’ve been able to share PASS galleries with several clients this past month and they LOVE it. They love they can have their photos as an app right on their phone. I’ve already received referrals from my clients talking and sharing about it.

What else is in store for PASS?

PASS will be adding auto-fulfilled orders through WHCC’s professional print lab this spring into their software – super awesome. Your clients can download, share, order, and market for you all in one place.

Right now the new version of PASS is still in its beta/testing stage. Although it works there are still a few features they are adding in. I can’t wait! The awesome thing about being able to use it is the customer service behind the program. People are suggesting ideas to be added into the new PASS and the company is doing it.

How does PASS Look and Work?

Each image below has a caption explaining what it’s about and how things work. These are all samples of my own photos and galleries.

The gorgeous new layout of PASS. Rather than the look of a traditional gallery this has a look similar to Pinterest. I think it’s very visually appealing and really shows off your photos in a totally new way.

The view when you pull up an individual photo. Keep an eye on the menu off to the right. When you press the plus sign several options for sharing the photo will come up.

The view when the menu is open on the right. Your clients can share straight to Facebook or Pinterest, download and more. PASS also builds your copyright into the metadata of each image so every time it is shared, you get credit.

Another view of the gorgeous style. The little black box on the top left with three lines is the other menu with options to download all the photos and see other collections within one gallery. When you click on that button you can see this menu. Even though you’re paying $29 for one gallery, that gallery can have multiple collections within it so if you have repeat clients you don’t need to purchase a new gallery.

I like to keep all my black and white images within their own collection in my galleries. When I put them all in one collection the black and white images line up with their color counterparts and that sometimes makes the “Pinterest” style look a lot more traditional.

With PASS, as soon as you’ve uploaded your photos they are ready to share. PASS will give you a direct link to your galleries online. They can be accessed on any mobile device easily. When your clients type in the URL this is what shows up, the same style gallery and a little notice to help them create their photos as an “app” on their phone. It basically creates a URL shortcut they can access straight from their phone.

Once your clients download their photos as an app, this is what it looks like. Again, this can be done on any mobile smartphone or device – not just Apple products.

Galleries all look the same and have the same options from your phone or mobile device.

Your clients will have the same options to view all the collections within one gallery and download and share them.

They can share, download and order prints right from their phone. Pretty sweet.

The share menu on a mobile phone.

For mobile options, it’s still so awesome that photos have that same gorgeous look to them that stands out.

Carrie Swails Photography & Awesomesauce Store

I don’t have kids, nor do I have any other jobs. Photography is a full-time job for me. I struggle to balance time between here at Photography Awesomesauce with time for my photography business and clients so finding ways to save time has been crucial for business survival. I love both things and don’t want to give any of it up. I used to go into my blog here and write a post every single day, but it just took me forever to sit down and write every day and it seemed like it would be nice to batch write posts and then just go in and make them live every day. At some point I started writing blog posts ahead of time and would save them as drafts and then publish them later. That’s the great thing about a WordPress based blog – you have a ton of flexibility.

What’s funny to me is that I could have been having all these blog posts automatically published from day one, but I just didn’t know how. One day I just happened to be in the “new post” section and I went up into the top right corner where there is a box called “Publish” and typically I’d just hit the little blue publish button whenever I’m ready, but I realized there’s a ton of options there. You can change your  posts’ visibility and what was that? You can change the time it publishes??!!

There’s a great little option up in this publish box that says “Publish Immediately” and is followed by a link that says “Edit.” You can just go in there and have your post scheduled to go up at any date in the future. Now, most of the time all my blog posts are written pretty far in advance and then automatically published for you guys. I usually go in about once a week and write-up the blog posts. Sometimes I write them very far in advance if I’m going on vacation or have something else going on.

I always think that one of the things we can do best to save time is to do projects that are alike all at once. Rather than going into my blog every single day and writing a post and publishing it, I can save time by doing all of them at once. Now, this brings me to the Facebook feature of scheduling your status updates.

Yep, that’s right you can go into your business page and schedule all of your updates to happen in the future. As soon as I’m done writing my blog posts I can go check out the preview of each blog post, copy that link and schedule a status update with a link to my blog. I can schedule updates with photos, blog links, or any status!

One day a week is usually spent writing all of my blog posts and all of my status updates for that week. What I love about Facebook’s scheduling feature is that saves me a TON of time from sitting on Facebook. I used to go and post on Facebook throughout the day, and every time I would log in to make a business page status update I would find myself distracted with everything and everyone else on Facebook. Then, 2 hours later, I realized it took me 2 hours to update my business page. Now, my business page can be updated all by itself and I can check Facebook once in the morning and once in the evening to respond to comments, messages, etc.

I hope this helps others the same that it has helped me! And yes that photo of Facebook should say “click the clock.”

Awesomesauce Store & Carrie Swails Photography

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has stayed away from blogging images because it takes too long to get the images ‘blog-ready’ and watermarked. If you read much here on Photography Awesomesauce you’ll also know that I’m all about time-saving techniques. The less I have to work the more free time I have (and the more I get paid per hour).

So I’ll talk to you guys about Blogstomp today because I’m sure there’s no better way to save time watermarking your images and getting them ready for social media.

Eventually a few months ago I gave in and got the free trial from their website. I must have been out of my mind because I messed with it for a few minutes and decided I didn’t understand it at all and gave up.

I don’t know what made me try it again a few weeks ago, but I did and I’m so sorry I haven’t been using it since the very start of my business. I don’t know why I thought it was more complicated, because it is so utterly simple and easy. I can’t remember why I thought it would add an extra step or two to my workflow when getting images ready for Facebook and my blog.

Someone should have given me a good shake because Blogstomp shaves off minutes, and possibly hours of time getting my images ready for social media. All you do is download the software for $50 and start using it. Within minutes I can put my watermark on every image I want to. Blogstomp allows you to create different blog layouts with certain images side by side. Instead of purchasing blog templates, pulling them up in Photoshop, dragging the photos and resizing them, and then adding a watermark, exporting and uploading to the blog I can skip most of those steps with Blogstomp.

In Blogstomp all I have to do is import the images I want to use in my blog. You could import an entire fold of images instead of picking out your favorites first. All you do after importing them is clicking on them, adding a type of template and your watermark. You press the “stomp” button at the bottom and the software automatically saves it to a file of all your ‘stomped’ images.

It is SO EASY and I think it may have been the best $50 I’ve ever spent on my business. I really encourage anyone looking to save some time on watermarking to check it out. I had no idea what I was missing! No, I don’t work for them and I’m not getting any kickbacks by writing about them here. I’m only blogging about Blogstomp because I know it’s going to change the way I get my images out on social media this year. A good photography tool is worth talking about.

Check out their video on how it works >here<
Go download the software >here<

You will start saving tons of time. I also have to say that there’s a certain finished look to my stomped images that I’m really loving. I feel like it adds a small touch of professionalism that watermarking on my own didn’t have before.

Awesomesauce Store & Carrie Swails Photography

I had a wonderful time last week being able to meet some photographers that I had only known online. I was able to help out >Emma & Josh< with a ghost town photoshoot and meet up with some of the Showiteers (www.showitfast.com users). These were definitely the highlights of my week.

Meeting up with the Showit folks that I had spent a week with earlier at the United conference was amazing. It made me feel at home again to see some familiar faces. We went out to Cabo Wabo for drinks. It was supposed to be small group of only 15 or so, but when 70 of us flooded the restaurant we definitely overwhelmed them.

Monday I spent all day helping out Emma & Josh with their ghost town photoshoot. They were kind enough to invite me along to help out at the shoot and it was awesome fun. I even got to meet a couple of you guys at the shoot!! I got to take a few photos of the models they had. I also took some new photos of Emma and Josh for their website. Let’s hope they love them. The ghost town was amazing and full of awesome props.

Everything I read online about having to walk a long distance to get anywhere was so true. It’s even longer when you’ve sprained your ankle – trust me. Stay at the MGM where the conference is. Avoid crappy breakfast buffets and take a cab to the Bellagio for their breakfast buffet – you won’t be sorry.

What I was disappointed to hear from other photographers is that a lot of the classes included in a Full WPPI Conference pass aren’t always the best. Sure, there’s a gem here or there, but a lot of them end up being sales pitches. That was one thing I hadn’t expected until I got to WPPI, that the entire conference is almost like one giant sales pitch. Everyone is trying to sell you everything all the time. I also learned that if you’re not pre-boarded for classes you’ll most likely have to wait in long lines for some of the more popular classes.

I had also read online that the expo was huge and took days to walk through and see everything. Call me silly, but we walked through it within 2 hours. We didn’t stop at every booth. We walked past every single booth, and went down every single aisle. We stopped at the booths we were most interested in and were done. My expectations of the expo from everything I had read online were very different from what it was in person.

I stopped by the Blackrapid strap booth to talk to them about mine. I’m pretty sure I must have a faulty one because everyone loves their straps, but my camera has fallen off my strap several times (thankfully I’ve always had my hand on it). They gave me a free new fastener so here’s hoping it’ll work and fix my strap! I hadn’t expected them to give me anything at all – so I’m happy with the fantastic free customer service. Galler.ee had a great booth – I totally recommend becoming a member there. I chatted with the head of Galler.ee about how awesome her magazine templates were. She’s trying to work out a print company deal for members so we chatted about how many magazines are a good minimum order. That’s one of the problems with trying to print a magazine – that you have a huge minimum order and even as a wedding photographer I don’t need more than 30 or so magazines a year. I ogled the pretty Canon lenses and picked up paper samples at the WHCC booth. Since WHCC is the only print fulfillment company that Pass (www.pass.us) is using with their services I needed to check out their stuff.

My plans for next time at WPPI include skipping out on the conference pass altogether and getting out and going on some photoshoots instead. I’ll grab a free expo pass and go through to see if there’s anything new and cool too. Most importantly, I’ll meet up with some of the awesome new friends I made this time. Photography can be such a lonesome business and it’s nice to get out and meet up with other business owners who are going through the same struggles as you are and just relax and compare stories.

If you get a chance to attend next year plan carefully and maybe I’ll see you there!

Awesomesauce Store & Carrie Swails Photography