Haileywood

Medford Photography

Monday, February 7, 2011

In With The New

We have been working very hard on some improvements for our photography business and we are very excited about all the new changes! Below, is a little insight into what we've been so busy with lately...

-We finally registered our business name! And yes, Medford Photography was still available locally, so there is no name change! We probably should've done this already, but we wanted to make sure this cool thing we created was gonna stick around for awhile first! :)

-Now that we're a little more official, we will probably be making enough to file taxes on the business this year. We are saving every receipt, calculating mileage, and basically tracking our every move to make sure we do things by the books. This is definitely an overwhleming, yet exciting experience and we're ready to face it full-on!

-We are slowly, but surely, beginning to get our schedule under control. It will probably take approximately three months for it to catch up with us, but it's starting to look like we might have some success in that department and we are really looking forward to seeing it all come together!

-We now, have a logo! We had an awesome opportunity to work with with the talented Bethany Cullen, of 2 Degrees of Artistry, a graphic designer and artist, who helped us create a wonderful logo that we are extremely proud of! You can check it out in the top righthand corner of most of the pages on our website. And incase you don't catch it, the top tree is actually camera shutters. ;)

-Along with the logo, we finally decided to work on a watermark. We are happy with what we've came up with and it's going on all the photos that are on our client proof cd's, which are now low resolution only. Just as every other photographer, our photos are copyrighted basically right as they're taken. We have emphasized that to our clients and most, if not all, of them have signed agreements that they won't print or have them printed, etc... without written permission from us, although, very few have actually followed through with the agreement. It's a bit of a slap in the face to us, after puting all of our hard work, effort, and long hours into making the photos what they are today. Don't get me wrong, we have amazing clients and we totally love them, without a doubt! But the copyright issue just seems very trivial to anyone that's not in this business and that's a general fact thesedays. Well, it's not trivial. And not only that, it's against the law and especially after signing a contract--that's a whole other story. Not to mention, having our photos printed at somewhere such as Walmart highly degrades what we do and we would never stand behind that type of quality, with something we hold so dear to our hearts. The paper is thin and weak and the colors are very inaccurate and just plain gross. Our prices for prints are competitive with stores such as those, although the quality is unbelievably greater, the color is true, due to our extensive monitor callibration, and the options are nearly countless. It may not be one hour photo, but would you rather have your pictures on low grade paper in an hour or on high quality paper that lasts a lifetime, for nearly the same price? The prints we sell depict our work the way that we intend it to be seen and they stand the test of time. That's what we want to represent, as a business.

-Which leads me into the next update...all prints are now sold through us! Not only that, but with upgrades to our hosting site that came about a few months back, we are now able to take orders through our online client albums! So basically, it can be 3:30 in the morning and someone can place an order for prints (or other products such as keychains, callendars, gallery wraps, metal art, etc...) and within a few days, it will be shipped straight to their door! This takes a lot off of us, so that we can focus more on taking pictures, scouting, editing, and endlessly critiquing ourselves. Not to mention, it's just easier and more appealing to our clients, since they don't have to make various appointments with us to place orders and pick them up, etc...

-We are now lightscribing our client proof cd's. We've had this option right at our fingertips all along, but it didn't even cross our minds until just recently. We've just been labeling cd's the old fashion way...with a sharpie (even though we have ventured out into the colored ones over the past year). That may have been a bit unfitting, but our photos speak for themselves, not the cd labels. Even so, we do have great clients, and they deserve great labeling on their proof cd's. We are happy to have this option and it's definitely a big upgrade in the right direction!

-Our wedding packages will now include a $50 print/product credit, rather than 50 photo save the date/thank you cards. These were a great start for us and we really enjoyed giving them to our clients. However, we started to notice a small trend...cloud nine sets in once you're a newlywed and nothing else seems to matter, not even your photo thank you cards. And that's great, we want our clients to enjoy every aspect of newlywedded bliss as long as possible! :) Which is why we're moving on to new things. The print/product credit will allow our clients to pick and choose what they would like, as they please, since ordering is done online now. I think this change will be appreciated and welcomed with open arms!

-We are currently exploring the land of photo books and we hope to extend our focus more in that direction. We already sell them, but there are a few other professional photo labs that we have been looking into and we're in the process of narrowing down which ones produce the highest quality books at the best prices. Photo books are such a creative approach to displaying your memories and they've really came a long way over the years. There are so many different options out there right now and we can't wait to get our hands on them!

-Starting in a few days, once everything comes in, we will also be accepting credit cards as payment for our services. This should be a positive addition to our business and we're looking forward to opening new doors.

-We have already made a few changes to our website, but we have plans to continue building on that. Once we're able to expand on everything, we hope to add additional pages and sections to continue appealing to our viewers.

-We have concocted a really cool new flash setup that is completely unique and it's producing outstanding results for us! We can't give away our secret, but I will say, that the odds are slim to none that anyone else out there has came up with this kind of work of art!

-We are putting more emphasis on discovering new visions and ideas for our photo sessions and our wheels have really been turning. We're looking forward to putting it all into motion and continuing to learn and grow from our new developments!

I'm sure there's lots more, but those are all I can think of for now. We are definitely facing 2011 in a whole new light and we're very excited to see what the future holds for us and our clients!!

Monday, January 10, 2011

It's A New Year

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year!! We sure did! It's so hard to believe that 2011 is already here! Where in the world did 2010 go?! I am totally loving all of this snow that we are getting pounded with (hence the fact that I am able to sit down and catch up on this blog a bit). It is so beautiful and it makes me feel like a little kid again! I can't help but not love it!! We have high hopes that 2011 will be one of the most memorable years for us. If it's anything like 2010, it surely will be! Below, are some of our hopes for the new year.
  • First and foremost (and I'm sure you could probably guess what this one is going to be), we want to do some major maintenance on our scheduling. We hope to space out our photo sessions and weddings enough that we're able to get caught up on editing in between them, as much as possible. I realize that this may not always be the most realistic goal, but we're really going to work hard at it. Being completely caught up on editing is one of the most amazing feelings and we weren't aware of how gratifying it actually is until we were able to have a few true days off over the holidays. It was such a huge sense of accomplishment and we want to be able to feel that as much as we possibly can, to minimize stress and to keep our sanity. We have absolutely no choice but to get it under control. It is the only way to stay positive, be true to ourselves, and still thoroughly enjoy what we do.

  • We want to allow ourselves more time to learn and grow. There are so many different aspects and techniques of photography, whether is be with lighting, camera settings, posing, location, etc... We want to explore and discover new options that we haven't came across yet. This should prove to be a big advantage to ourselves and our clients. We are anxious to bring new perspectives and ideas to the table, as we expand our work and build on how far we've already come.

  • We would love to do more travelling, both in our personal and professional lives. This, of course, demands goal number one to be carried out before it can happen, but we are optimistic that it can be done. We want to photograph more destination or not-so-local weddings, in addition to the ones we do that are closer to home. Travelling has always been a love of mine, so I am very excited that we both have this goal. Of course, we will, most likely, have to do some exploring into the best ways to market ourselves for that, but we are up for the challenge.

  • It would be such an honor to have our work on display somewhere, whether it be at a hospital, airport, restaurant, etc... or in a magazine. This is something we will definitely have to look into, as far as how to go about it, but if we're able to accomplish this goal, it will be one of our main staples in 2011.

There are going to be a few changes coming to our business in 2011 that are already in the works and we couldn't be more excited about them! We already consider our work in photography to be one of our most treasured gifts and we hold it very dear to our hearts. With that said, we have finally came to the sole conclusion that we should do more to make sure it is also presented in the best way possible. This particular change will not only do a lot to protect our name and benefit us, but also our clients. Stay tuned, we will elaborate more on this as it is introduced into our business. We are truly looking forward to introducing many new, positive angles to our business!

We cannot wait to meet all of the new faces that we are going to be photographing in 2011! 2010 has surely proven to be a year of making new friendships and strengthening some of the ones that were already there, thanks to our work. We look forward to all of the opportunities and experiences that this new year has to offer and we are going to approach them with smiles on our faces!!