Choosing Your Business name
Philip Ebiner, Will Carnahan
Lessons
What this course is about and how to succeed
01:48 2Why you should become a wedding photographer
01:32 3Business Section Intro
00:28 4Building your kit
06:00 5Where You Should Invest Your Earnings
04:30 6Will's Wedding Photography Kit
09:57Choosing Your Business name
04:50 8Action Item - Choose Your Name
00:25 9How to build your Wedding photography package
06:58 10Setting Your Wedding Photography Prices
10:16 11How to Get Your First Clients
06:54 12Talking with Clients
09:41 13The Importance of Contracts
04:27 14The Wedding business workflow
06:34 15Good Accounting Practices
02:26 16The philosophy of a well run business
03:38 17Wedding Day Overview - Schedule of Common Events
13:32 18Taking care of Business before the shooting day
02:37 19Tips for working with a wedding coordinator
03:31 20Action item - List out the key moments - Try to memorize
00:31 21Know what you will be photographing ahead of time
02:23 22Conclusion to section/ recap
01:32 23Introduction - The meat of the course
01:11 24Equipment checklist/ cleaning lenses and cameras
08:24 25Do you need an Assistant/ 2nd shooter?
05:07 26Being a second shooter
08:32 27What to wear as a photographer
05:09 28How to shoot: Getting Ready/ Hanging out
05:18 29How to Shoot: Dress/ Rings/ Bride details
10:41 30How to Shoot - Groom Portraits & Posing
09:11 31How to shoot: Groomsman
12:51 32How to shoot: Bride Portraits & Posing Interior
04:49 33How to shoot: Bride Portraits & Posing Exterior
08:14 34How to shoot Bridesmaids
12:56 35How to shoot: First Look
03:28 36How to Shoot: Posed Couples Portraits
06:34 37How to shoot: Walking down the Aisle
10:17 38How to shoot: Ceremony Coverage and vows / ring exchange
09:17 39How to shoot: First kiss and walking out
05:39 40How to shoot: Formal family and group Photos
12:26 41Action Item: Save your fav pose
01:14 42Action Item: Find inspiration
02:07 43How to shoot: Reception intro and Grand entrance
01:34 44How to shoot: Reception Details
04:55 45How to shoot: Reception Speeches and toasts
04:41 46How to shoot: Reception First Dance
06:23 47How to shoot: Reception Bouquet and Garter toss
04:46 48How to shoot: Reception Dancing and Partying
05:58 49Recap of “How to shoot”
02:47 50Introduction to Editing Section
01:25 51Photo applications and Profesional Apps
03:42 52Organize, rate, and cull
28:21 53Editing detail shots
31:42 54Editing bride getting ready
29:23 55Editing Demo: Editing Outdoor Ceremony
23:10 56Editing single portraits
52:10 57Editing Demo: Black and White editing
09:39 58Editing Demo: Stylized Editing/ Finding your editing Style
12:20 59Advice on how to edit hundreds of photos efficiently
06:01 60Exporting your photos for client/ portfolio/ print
10:05 61Delivering Digital images to your client
07:06 62Intro to Succeeding in Wedding Photography
00:48 63Being happy as a wedding photographer
07:05 64Making it as a business and sticking with it
03:14 65Getting Testimonials
01:35 66Using Social Media and networking to expand business
02:08 67How to deal with unhappy or difficult clients
04:37 68Competing with mobile phones and family/ friend photographers
01:58 69Working with other wedding vendors
03:16 70Section conclusion
00:53 71Thank you!
01:29Lesson Info
Choosing Your Business name
As a wedding photographer, you are gonna have to decide how you want to present you and your business. Now, there are two ways you can do this that I'm aware of. There are your name as in, I'm William Carnahan wedding photographer or William Carnahan photography, or you can come up with an entirely new business name and use that as like your moniker or your calling card. So I actually do have my own photography company and it is called Helio Road Incorporated. I've incorporated myself and I originally actually started using that as like the photography name and I still have it in places, but it's sort of under the hood. Now I've shifted over to William Carnahan or William Carnahan photography. And there are advantages and disadvantages to both. When starting out. You need to check your local laws and see what conducting business is like. Often in many places in the United States, at least you can conduct business as a sole proprietor, which means you just be using your name as in Willi...
am Carnahan Photography or Sam Shizu Jones Photography. Now, other places may be more helpful if you actually create an LLC or you create an S Corp or you create a DB A, this is gonna be varying for all different areas all over the world. So it's hard for me to target in exactly what your situation would be like. But it's something that you need to research and look at this also has tax ramifications. So if you're gonna be earning money as a sole proprietor versus an LLC or corporation, it will be very different for the area that you are living in. So please research that yourself. Talk to the person that helps you with your taxes and try and understand what would be better for you from a business side. Now, from a creative standpoint, I have always thought that it might be nice to separate the person from the business. Now that's not necessarily like a good thing or a bad thing because I've also noticed that having my own name in the business has been really helpful for branding. People know who I am. They know exactly what's going on. Wayne Carnahan photography. He's a photographer versus Helio wrote Incorporated. What the, what the, what the hey is that? So deciding, do I want to present myself as an individual and a photographer or do I want to present myself as a company can be a very important decision? Something that I think is also very crucial to think about is your own motivation. If you call yourself a photographer and you use your name William Carnahan Photography as your business. You should be stoked on it. You should be so excited about that name that it gets you going because you're starting a business and I think it's really important to pick a name and pick an identity that you are gonna be excited about that. You are gonna be motivated by that. You're gonna have no problem with presenting to the world because that is an underlying thing that mm is really helpful when you're really down in the dumps or you can't get clients or you just gotta stand by your name and be motivated by it. So sit down and think about, I'm excited about presenting myself as a photographer or do I want to come up with something creative to separate myself as a bigger company? There are so many disadvantages and advantages to both. If you decide to later on do something else that's not related to photography, it might be nice to have already had a business name that you can hide your next artistic project under. However, if you're going to go out and network and meet people and have an Instagram or a youtube channel or some big social media, it might be helpful to have that name recognition. It all depends on how you see yourself going for the future. And if you can't decide if you're not sure, stick with your name, your name is gonna be always consistent. It's gonna be across the board everything and it will confuse people less. I found times when you're sending invoices or you're sending emails from some name where you haven't built up recognition, using your actual name is more helpful in branding and in people not getting as confused. And if they need to send money to you through Venmo or through an online service or through a check, there's no question. It's that person. I'm writing a check to that person. The most important thing that I want you to take away from this is to be excited about your name, really be excited about it. And also make sure you check with your local tax rules and your local business rules and see what would be better for you if this is going to be a full time gig. If you're in the United States, a really, really great resource for these types of questions is SB A dot gov, you can go to this site and they will answer all your questions on what the different type of business and entities are. And it'll really inform you on where you can go and it'll also get the conversation started with you and your tax person.
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Wedding Photography