Tempting Photography Opportunity

Mike D90

Senior Member
I currently work part time at a local animal boarding kennel. It is a private kennel on a gorgeous piece of property and not ran or owned by any city or county entity. Most of the clients that board there aren't exactly poor folk but some aren't as well off and I expect I wouldn't get 100% customer participation.

I have had this idea for more than a while now and I think it might be time to act on it.

I figure that, with some good planning, I can set up a "portrait day" a couple, or more, time a year and do portraits of the owners with their pets or just the pets portrait for the owners to enjoy.

Since this is not a wedding or other once in a lifetime moment type event there should be none of that heavy liability issue.
No one would be charged in advance for any services.

I could easily set up an indoor or outdoor "studio" days ahead in advance and get most of my lighting needs figured out.

Once the photos are done I could put them on Zenfolio and contact the clients and send them their links.

Or, I could do the processing myself and put them on DVD and sell the DVD's.

I am looking at this more as a learning/practice type of thing and not something to make a killing with. Any shutter release time is good skill building I suppose! Portraiture is one of the areas I enjoy.

Anyway, I have done similar things before and it went pretty well but that was years ago.

Any advice or suggestions? Which way would you take this? Upload photos or just sell the DVD images?

Would you actually charge for the "session" or just the images?
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Whatever you do, don't work 'cheap' just because you can. Work for the rate other studios charge. Otherwise, you are merely derating the value of everyone's work.
 

Mike D90

Senior Member
Whatever you do, don't work 'cheap' just because you can. Work for the rate other studios charge. Otherwise, you are merely derating the value of everyone's work.

Don't mean to derate value but if I charge studio prices will they not expect studio results? What if I don't measure up to that?

Charge for your time..How long the shoot was + processing time...Cd's are not the best for quality..

What is the better medium?
 

wud

Senior Member
Hi there! Its a great idea :) I hope I can help.

Dont know if you've used flash before, but I find it easier to use natural light - this can be done under a roof, with a flash bouncing, if wheather isn't good. But if you get a dog and a person to test some shots with, of course a setup indoor could work just as good.

I charge something between 10 and 18$ pr picture, if doing a lot of different dogs on same location/day.
Or (which I prefer) I say e.g. 70$ and then they get between 4 and 7 images, somewhat like this one:

oldies_3468_print3_web.jpg


This was taken under a roof, natural light from left side, flash bounced on sealing right side.


I use Zenfolio, this way I can either create an album pr person, or a shared one (if Im not sure I can remember who is who, lol). From there, you can allow them to buy downloads - both for web use and for print - or you can offer download of web sizes, and let them choose the print they want.


I have a problem with always taking and processing to many images, and some people will only select and buy 1, but thats not what I am going for, somehow. So they can get and use (or not use) what ever I give them, for a price we agreed on. Works best for me, I think.


But! Try it out, see how people respons to your images, and raise your price if it seems like everybody are really happy :) Thats what I did.


 

Mike D90

Senior Member
Hi there! Its a great idea :) I hope I can help.

Dont know if you've used flash before, but I find it easier to use natural light - this can be done under a roof, with a flash bouncing, if wheather isn't good. But if you get a dog and a person to test some shots with, of course a setup indoor could work just as good.

I charge something between 10 and 18$ pr picture, if doing a lot of different dogs on same location/day.
Or (which I prefer) I say e.g. 70$ and then they get between 4 and 7 images, somewhat like this one:

oldies_3468_print3_web.jpg


This was taken under a roof, natural light from left side, flash bounced on sealing right side.


I use Zenfolio, this way I can either create an album pr person, or a shared one (if Im not sure I can remember who is who, lol). From there, you can allow them to buy downloads - both for web use and for print - or you can offer download of web sizes, and let them choose the print they want.


I have a problem with always taking and processing to many images, and some people will only select and buy 1, but thats not what I am going for, somehow. So they can get and use (or not use) what ever I give them, for a price we agreed on. Works best for me, I think.


But! Try it out, see how people respond to your images, and raise your price if it seems like everybody are really happy :) Thats what I did.



Your suggestion is not far off from what I had in mind. I was thinking to charge each customer, that participates, around $25.00 to $30.00 for their 15 to 20 minute session and then upload the images to Zenfolio and let them choose and purchase what they want. I would also give the kennel a small portion of that $25.00 for use of their customer list and property area.

As to the lighting, I had planned to do this outdoors with natural light and fill flash. I plan to build a scrim to filter sunlight when it gets up higher and more harsh and reflectors to modify/bounce light if needed. I have used flash before indoors and out so it would not be a problem if I had to move under a cover. That is where the problem would come though. There is no indoor area on location large enough to accommodate a photo shoot.

One other concern is image storage. Would it be just too expensive to dedicate one memory card (small size) to each customer and label it with their name? I have not priced SD cards lately.
 

wud

Senior Member
I "give" the web images for the price they pay me for the shooting, if they want print, this is of course extra (but this goes through Zenfolio).

When I did a huge portion of dogs one weekend, I noted the image numbers from the camera on a paper, where I had their info.

I dont know if you prefer the different galleries to be hidden from other than the specific costumer, but if not, people can just go to Zenfolio and you can create several galleries, showing one of the images from the shooting, this way they can easily find there own gallery.

Also you can create a password, which you tell the costumer, then they can log in to only their gallery. This is what I do.
 

Mike D90

Senior Member
I "give" the web images for the price they pay me for the shooting, if they want print, this is of course extra (but this goes through Zenfolio).

I like that idea.



I dont know if you prefer the different galleries to be hidden from other than the specific costumer, but if not, people can just go to Zenfolio and you can create several galleries, showing one of the images from the shooting, this way they can easily find there own gallery.

Also you can create a password, which you tell the costumer, then they can log in to only their gallery. This is what I do.

I am not even signed up on Zenfolio yet but I will be tomorrow. So, I haven't used it at all yet.
 

Mike D90

Senior Member
Hi there! Its a great idea :) I hope I can help.

Dont know if you've used flash before, but I find it easier to use natural light - this can be done under a roof, with a flash bouncing, if wheather isn't good. But if you get a dog and a person to test some shots with, of course a setup indoor could work just as good.

I charge something between 10 and 18$ pr picture, if doing a lot of different dogs on same location/day.
Or (which I prefer) I say e.g. 70$ and then they get between 4 and 7 images, somewhat like this one:

oldies_3468_print3_web.jpg


This was taken under a roof, natural light from left side, flash bounced on sealing right side.


I use Zenfolio, this way I can either create an album pr person, or a shared one (if Im not sure I can remember who is who, lol). From there, you can allow them to buy downloads - both for web use and for print - or you can offer download of web sizes, and let them choose the print they want.


I have a problem with always taking and processing to many images, and some people will only select and buy 1, but thats not what I am going for, somehow. So they can get and use (or not use) what ever I give them, for a price we agreed on. Works best for me, I think.


But! Try it out, see how people respons to your images, and raise your price if it seems like everybody are really happy :) Thats what I did.



I love these images but I wonder if you would tell if there is any post processing effects or what type of adjustments have been made? They have an "unusual" look to them that I cannot pinpoint.
 

wud

Senior Member
I love these images but I wonder if you would tell if there is any post processing effects or what type of adjustments have been made? They have an "unusual" look to them that I cannot pinpoint.

Thank you very much :)
It's done mostly in Lightroom, power on contrast, clarity and saturation as I remember. And then a graded filter from top left and in to more or less the middle of the image, which I made a red-yellow-ish color, to get a warmer feel to the image.

Then I normally go to photoshop to make small corrections. Maybe make it a little lighter and add some sharpness. Don't ask me why I don't do this in Lightroom... ;)

Done with 50mm on mostly f/3.5 and f/7.1-8 (as I remember) and some fill flash.


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Mike D90

Senior Member
Oh well. This idea is scrapped. I had a short talk with the owner where I pitched my idea. Instead of what reaction I expected such as; "Yes! I would love to do this! What a great idea!", or "The customers would love this!", I get a very sour looking facial expression and "Mehh, I don't know. What are you planning to do exactly?"

So I will have to look in other areas for some portraiture practice.

I am thinking maybe I will contact the local VFW, and other veterans organizations, and offer some photo sessions to families of the soldiers leaving returning from the sand box.
 

wud

Senior Member
That's to bad. Sure you don't wanna give it a try anyways? Just a test, so you can see if it works good? Maybe your boss just isn't the creative thinking type of person..


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Mike D90

Senior Member
That's to bad. Sure you don't wanna give it a try anyways? Just a test, so you can see if it works good? Maybe your boss just isn't the creative thinking type of person..


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I know him pretty well so I will give this one up. If something did go wrong, i.e. a dog got loose or injured somehow, they would never let me live it down.
 

wud

Senior Member
Okay :) hope someone else will give you the chance!

I've thought of offering portraits of dogs needing a new home, hoping better images would sell them faster.. For free of course, I know these places don't have any money. What's holding me back, is that I would be so sad leaving all these dogs there, ugh.


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RockyNH_RIP

Senior Member
Okay :) hope someone else will give you the chance!

I've thought of offering portraits of dogs needing a new home, hoping better images would sell them faster.. For free of course, I know these places don't have any money. What's holding me back, is that I would be so sad leaving all these dogs there, ugh.



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Mai, I would not let that hold you back!!! Think of all the good you would be doing for them by helping them get a new home!!! You would be perfect for that!

Pat in NH
 
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