Where You Should Invest Your Earnings
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
Where You Should Invest Your Earnings
So while we're talking about spending money on gear, we have to talk about the sort of philosophy behind that, right? I mentioned that earlier investing in yourself. If you really think that you are going to be a wedding photographer, this is a dream that you're going to be as your full time gig. I think it's time to think about investing in yourself. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that all your money needs to go into equipment and gear, you need to have the minimum gear to shoot a wedding, but you're also going to need a website, you're going to need a laptop or a computer to process all your or your photos, you're going to need the correct outfit for what you're going to wear. You're going to need a lot of different things. You're gonna need a business license, potentially. Um You have to think about investing in yourself as a wedding photographer. So if you're doing this on the side and you don't have a ton of money to get going start small, make sure you have the equipment, tha...
t's the, the bare minimum, make sure you have the equipment to shoot a wedding next, you're gonna need to be able to share what you're shooting on a website or on social media. So the high level of investment here is mostly in your equipment, not necessarily the social media yet and the website minimal costs, but you're gonna need to do it as you move out from there. You're gonna want to think about maybe a client based website, something like Zen Folio where you can share your photos with your clients. Well, you can start thinking about more equipment. You can start thinking about a faster computer. You can start thinking about all the little intricate things that will help you in your business. Now, if you have the money, it's really great to start investing right away in all these things. If you know it's gonna be a thing. But if you don't have the money and you need to start small, like I said, just focus on having the right equipment to shoot the wedding. Well, that is where you need to start and you can start building up right? Every wedding you take on where you make money, start putting a little bit more money into savings, start putting a little bit more money back into your website or back into something that helps push your business. You don't want to forget that you are an investment in yourself and you have to grow. If you don't put money back into your business, you're going to stay stagnant and it's possible that you may not grow and you may not get more clients. It's possible to not put any more money into your, uh business than what you already have done or you've already started. But I think it's worth putting in, uh the money in places that will either make you more confident as a photographer, more creative as a photographer or let it automate certain things. For instance, I had a, a long time, I was trying to avoid putting money into a sort of client management app. I really wasn't feeling like I needed to and I finally did, it was like, I forgot what the, what the starting cost was. It was like 25 or $30 a month. But as soon as I did it automates contracts, it automates uh notes it automates schedules, like everything it does has allowed me to take the time that I would have spent organizing that and put it back into editing photos, reaching out to clients being on social media. So balancing the investment of money and time and how that correlates to your own time and the time that you can invest in yourself as a business and a photographer is important and you need to find that balance for yourself. Once I was able to have a site where I can just click a quote, send a contract, it connects to an email. I don't have to. It all happens within 10 minutes. Whereas before I was custom making contracts, I was custom making emails. I was custom making schedules and the administration part of my business was taking up so much more time and it's honestly not something I like doing. So investing in the things that help you get back to the part of wedding photography that you love, I think is very important and you need to discover for yourself. What are the things that I love about wedding photography in the business? And what are the things that I'm not too excited about? I don't know, any wedding photographer that is excited about every single process in the thing. You know, you either love editing or you love shooting or you love the whole creative process or you love the organization and accounting money coming in, dealing with contracts or maybe that's not the part you like or maybe you don't like going out and getting clients. So invest more money in the parts that you don't necessarily like to do and see if you can automate those things. See if you can find tools that will help you make those things easier for you. So then you can enjoy and spend your time on the things that you do love to do.
Class Materials
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Student Work
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Wedding Photography