Archive for Workshops

A Photographer’s Diary, Civic Duties

By Ruth Bayley
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

I suddenly had a wonderful rocket of inspiration this week as I was thinking about locations for Healing with Photography courses. Why not use civic and town halls?

So this week I have been busily setting up appointments and viewing the facilities in my local towns. The great thing about them is if you are looking for a location to do seminars or courses for your business, they are all fully set up with facilities.

A Step Back in Time

Given that this week winter has returned once more, it made me think about those important things like making sure heaters are working in the rooms I will be hiring. The rooms usually come with kitchens of some description nearby or attached, meaning you can have tea and coffee available to your participants, and of course there are clean toilets available. The majority have the all-important car park or are on bus routes. For sure, they aren’t completely set up in a business way in terms of projectors and screens, yet what they lack they can make up for in many other ways. Read More→

Categories : Inspiration, Make Better Photographs
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Marketing Campaigns for Photographers – Teach Photography Basics

By Michael Shilling
Friday, November 18th, 2011

Let’s face it, everyone today is an aspiring photographer whether they are taking pictures of their kids with a camera phone or shooting over your shoulder at a wedding with an entry level DSLR.

Photography tuition and training is a busy marketplace, especially at the semi-pro level (these are the ones with the spare cash after all) but I think some photographers often overlook people that could potentially turn into photography clients as well as tuition clients. It’s all very well training other photographers who want to go pro but at the end of the day what is the likelihood of them asking you for a family portrait session?

Back in the days when I was working as a cruise ship photographer I hosted a series of photography basics classes aimed at people with very little knowledge of their camera other than knowing that the big button makes the picture (that’s not a typo it’s a direct quote).

The first class we offered (which was free) would always attract a full house of up to 200 people. That was about 10% of our rather uniquely captive audience.

Follow up classes, for which we charged a rather modest $20 for, would usually be compromised from about 10%-20% of the freebie crowd.

$400 might have been a drop in the ocean (excuse the pun) when it came to our $60,000 weekly target but it did help us build relationships with our clients in a different way than we had before. Most of the time we were hassling the passengers for pictures on gangways and in the restaurant so this sort of interaction was a welcome change.

We sold cameras and probably more photos than we did before so it did prove a success. Read More→

Categories : Grow Your Business, Marketing Campaigns
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Starting a Photography Business: Part 54 – Going Home

By Ruth Bayley
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

The island of Capri

Well today is the day that I’ve been waiting for for some time, to be returning to the place I lived in Italy, to a place that always feels like home when I am there. And it’s really important this time as I’m going back to recce the places that I will be including in the photography holiday, and I can’t wait. I’m really excited about stepping on the plane about being in my favourite hotel and being around the friends that I made when I was there.

Also the area is so beautiful, so bewitching and when I set up the photography website, the thing that I most wanted was to have a fuller portfolio of Italy, of my part of Italy that I love. Alluring photos of the hidden corners, secret alleyways and beautiful viewpoints.

I’ve allowed myself a couple of days in the schedule where I can relax and enjoy myself although they will be days that I visit hotels. Sorrento is notoriously expensive for hotels even as a tour operator, it’s very hard to get a break in Sorrento and when you look at holidays in Italy, you will see that they are so much more expensive than holidays in Spain, Greece or anywhere else in the Mediterranean, because the initial costs to us are very, very expensive and it’s very hard to drive them down and get good tour operator rates. Read More→

Categories : Grow Your Business, Starting a Business
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2011 PhotoPlus Expo and WPPI NYC Keynote and Seminar Schedule

By Trevor Current
Friday, September 2nd, 2011

September 2, 2011 – PRESS SUMMARY – PDN PhotoPlus International Conference + Expo has announced its 2011 keynote presentation and seminar schedule at the Javits Convention Center in New York from October 27-29, along with a daylong series of wedding and portrait seminars scheduled for October 26.  The lineup offers the largest and most diverse learning curriculum for photographers, videographers, and other visual creatives in the Expo’s 29-year history.  The addition of Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) to PhotoPlus Expo 2011, along with keynote presentations from Art Wolfe, Frans Lanting, and Thomas Mangelsen, among others, sets the stage for an incredible learning experience filled with inspiration at every turn.  Visit PhotoPlus Expo to register for the show and see a complete listing of seminars.

Among all the elements that make seminars at PhotoPlus Expo a rewarding experience for attendees, the world-class knowledge and instructional know-how of its speakers is probably most notable, and this year’s group of presenters is exceptional.  A veritable who’s who in the world of photography, education, and the creative arts, this year’s lineup of presenters will add a dimension of learning and inspiration that has made PhotoPlus Expo one of the most anticipated imaging expos in the world.  Some of this year’s confirmed presenters include, Julieanne Kost, Colin Finlay, Jasmine Star, Michael Grecco, Lauren Greenfield, Bambi Cantrell, Jay Maisel, Mary Virginia Swanson, Joe McNally, Derrick Story, and Joyce Tenneson, to name only a few.

WPPI NYC Special Wedding/Portrait Seminar Schedule

For the first time, the Wedding and Portrait Photographer’s International (WPPI) show will become an integral part of PhotoPlus Expo, complete with a full Expo consisting of leading industry manufacturers and a comprehensive series of seminars, roundtable discussions and a keynote presentation scheduled for Wednesday, October 26, the day before PhotoPlus Expo officially opens.

Now 15 seminars focused on wedding and portrait photography will be presented by industry icons including Jasmine Star, Ken Sklute, Me Ra Koh, Tamara Lackey, and Lindsay Adler, to name a few, and for the first time, a series of seminars will be presented in Spanish.  To view the entire WPPI NYC seminar schedule for Wednesday, October 26, please visit the seminar listing at PhotoPlusExpo.com. Read More→

Categories : News and Reviews
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Starting a Photography Business: Part 36 – Old Foes

By Ruth Bayley
Monday, May 30th, 2011

An old friend came to town this last week and I think my friend has been having more fun than me catching up.  The old friend I speak of is my old foe; pricing.

We’re just starting to get all our prices together for the holiday tour and it’s kind of interesting. I’ve just had a moment of looking at all the figures, thinking oh no they are getting a little bit scary now and it’s all getting a bit real, and then I realised; hello, hello hello, here’s my old friend. I didn’t enjoy you first time around and guess what; I’m not going to jump into your swirling pool of gloom this time around. I’ve seen you lurking in that dark corner of my mind and I’m showing you the door.

It’s interesting though isn’t it how we deal with an issue and then feel stronger because we’ve dealt with it, and then have to deal with it all over again when it comes back to visit again a little while later. It’s been a while since we’ve been here but here it is again, though I caught it and I feel quite good about myself for realising what was going on.

Quite often when I find myself getting a little bit tense about hotels taking a while to get back to us, or writing proposals to do photography workshops in local hotels, I take a deep breath and come back into the moment. I stop and realise that gosh a year ago I was no near this point and this is a pretty fantastic thing I’ve done to launch a business, and now we’re talking about photography holidays and I’m moving on with a second business which is photography related. Read More→

Categories : Grow Your Business, Starting a Business
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Starting a Photography Business: Part 34 – Staying True

By Ruth Bayley
Monday, May 16th, 2011

This week has seen a change of heart in one area of my photography holidays; the cruises. There have been a number of things about doing a cruise that have been bugging me for a while and this last weekend events happened to help me realise that I needed to make a tough call on these holidays, and postpone them for now, so I can stay true to my love and passion of photography.

A cruise holiday is such a wonderful idea, and from an organisational point of view the accommodation is easily sorted, yea! From a logistical point of view though, recce and supplier costs were starting to rack up. Working out the logistics of how to do our group excursions independently of the cruise ships excursions, without incurring huge costs for wanting to be flexible, was proving tricky too.

There was also a very good chance that if we weren’t careful, with the time limits imposed as to when you can disembark at ports and the time you need to return to the ship, we wouldn’t be able to get very far into the surrounding countryside and so be limited to towns and cities; and there a little part of my being would have started to die. We, my business partner at her travel agency, Life By Travel, and I, had done our best to choose cruises with varied port of calls. Yet it would have been very frustrating for example, in a Tuscan port, not to be able to drive into the countryside and take photos of the rolling hills and cypress trees, or stay on for a sunset. Our guests were going to lose out on so much.

So we took the decision to re-think and instead I followed my heart to go with three things I love, gardening; so I’m close to nature, photography and the Amalfi coast in Italy. In combining the three, we are embarking on a holiday tour, in the Gardens of Naples and the Amalfi Coast that fills me with joy. When I think about this tour, which we have pretty much organised in a week, partly because I know the area so well and partly because I’m so excited about sharing some little known places with people; it’s shown me the difference between doing something different, and doing something that fills me, and hopefully our guests, with passion. A land based tour will give us the flexibility to take sunrises or sunsets at the best locations, rather than making do. Read More→

Categories : Grow Your Business, Starting a Business
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