Starting a Photography Business: Part 10 – It’s Just the Little Things

By Ruth Bayley
Monday, November 29th, 2010

In the last few weeks lots of little yet important questions have come up as regards the site. Mainly what mood and ethos should the site take, what should it say? I guess by now you know me well enough to know that I’m a heart on my sleeve kind of person and that I am quite happy to wax lyrical about why I love photography and how being in the moment when I’m taking pictures grounds me and helps me appreciate the countryside and subject. Yet does my customer need to know this? Does my customer even care?

If they know this will they buy more photos? Or will they turn tail and run? Hand on heart, I was going to go in this direction; this is me, this is why I do this and this is what the photos mean to me. I’m finding it hard to take a step back on this one, a friend and I have discussed this many times and although I understand and now agree with his opinion that it’s not important for people to understand why I take photos to buy one I still wonder if I’m being authentic by focusing totally on the commercial.

Sometimes I find it hard to come away from the passion of a picture and put my commercial hat on as when I surf the internet looking at other photography sites and I read the about pages well some are just beautiful and I know when I’m in an art shop I quite like knowing about the artist or photographer, but does it make me want to buy their work? Well no, not always.

I stood in an art gallery the other day looking at a beautiful painting of a boat bobbing up and down in a bay with mountains lining the horizon. It reminded me a of a place where I had taken some photos a few weeks beforehand and as I stepped forward to look at the label and see where the scene was, I disappointed to find that it didn’t tell me. An artist who worked in the shop suggested it was better this way, ‘Let people bring their own memories to a picture.’ I only mention this because this week I have been busy uploading my photos to the site and working out what if anything to write about the photos.

I have been to art galleries taken what I want from a painting, then read the notice next to it and had things pointed out that I hadn’t seen or been told the artist had actually had a particular thought when he painted it and it’s completely changed my opinion on the painting, sometimes making me dislike the sentiment with which it was painted.

I remember years ago listening to singer George Michael say how much he regretted having made a programme about his songs in which he explained their true meaning. By revealing something deeply personal to strangers it had in some way to his mind tainted his work. And I can totally empathise with this, I used to write songs and still do sometimes and to explain what they mean the emotions that were flooding out in that moment would feel wrong, it would be like explaining a diary entry – if I ever remembered to write one after January that is!

As I’ve written this it’s become a therapeutic piece, a work in progress; I now realise it would be totally wrong of me to impose my thoughts about a photo or my reason for setting up the business onto my customer who will have their own thoughts and feelings and that includes not giving place names to my work. Thank you for taking the time to read this and listen. Now though it occurs to me that if I don’t have too much writing under my photos or maybe not any, I wonder if I should change the design of the add to checkout pages! Ooh, did you hear that sound? I’m sure I just heard the web designer switching all phones and computers off.

Notes

  • Working out what is important; it’s good to know what style and feeling you want for your site, yet take a step back. Whilst you are busy putting your beliefs onto it are you making it feel to your customer that if they don’t agree with your vision they aren’t welcome? Have a chat with some trusted friends who are already in the commercial world and get their opinions
  • The photo isn’t the place you thought it was does it matter? Imagine you have had a fantastic holiday on the coast of Italy, a few months later you come across a photo that is almost definitely the same place, yet the name of the print tells you otherwise, will you still buy that image? Have you just lost a potential customer?

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Categories : Grow Your Business, Starting a Business
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Comments

  1. Very interesting article. This is something I too have struggled with on the prints that I offer for sale. Then I’ve had it where I think a particular image is not ‘salable’ but someone contacts me and wants a quote. There was something in it that connected with them emotionally and they had to have it – and in those cases I said nothing about it.

    Trying to predict what people will ultimately buy has been elusive, as has the decision of what and how much to say. Lately I’ve taken a slightly different tactic and said things that point out details that might normally be overlooked, and in other cases put things that encourage people to make up their own story with the image.

    Maybe there is no right answer. Hopefully we’ll all find out along the way…..

  2. Hi Chris, thank you for getting in touch. I really like your idea of higlighting different details of the image, it’s given me food for thought.

    It’s true it’s so hard to predict what people might want. If we find out lets share the secret.

  3. A very thought provoking piece Ruth.
    Only last week when meeting with a customer they asked, what made me tick as a photographer?. To be honest I felt I’d been placed on the back foot but told them anyway. I came away wondering why I’d felt so uncomfortable with the question. Is it that what I see and what I want to portray is personal to me and therefore no one else shall know?

    There are times I really struggle to write anything under my images and would much prefer to leave as a plain title unless it’s an image of something historical. There I feel others may be interested in the object rather than what it meant to me at the time.

    On one of my images of a Fairy tree I placed a simple title. For me it was so much more than that. The wonderful sense of magic, myth and in a strange way respect I felt for the tree and our legends at the time was mine. If someone else felt similar from the image then I see that as success.

    Now forgive me for hogging your article..

  4. There’s no need to apolgise Ray; it’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only one struggling with this.