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The Disc Debate with Q&A

Ah found it quite bizarre that you know there are people that are saying you could make money out of your shooting share weddings disc disc bert burn to disc you know you khun how to make more money out of your burn to disc albums I don't I don't get that now that that leads you to a place where I don't sell my digital files I never give out my digital files now let's be completely realistic about this everybody's got their price if I said I don't give out my digital files and the client comes to me and says give me a million dollars for that for your digital files what am I gonna do? Well, I don't give up my digital files off course not everybody's got their price everybody's got their price. It just depends on what your prices now if somebody wants to buy the digital files from me it's going to be two or three times more expensive than their wedding their whole waiting. So if you want your digital files right away and you took the twenty twenty thousand dollars package give me forty ...

thousand dollars give me fifty thousand dollars I'll give you it's not gonna happen it's like a pie in the sky I think it's not gonna happen, but I've set a precedent and I haven't I'm not you're gonna be really stupid to not accept an offer off a good deal amount of money. So what I've done and what I've thought about and this might sound a little contradictory, but when I thought about was the fact that when somebody gets married, this whole euphoria, they were engaged, you know, six months before the wedding and it's, a big, big deal, and the wedding happens, and then what happens off to you winning, uh, you know, six months later, you're looking for a heart moving into the suburbs, doing this. So, you know, pregnant, your mind is completely gone off the wedding thing. You've ordered your reprints, and you, you've done the waiting thing, they're up in your house. So what I do now, after one year, you can have your digital files after one year, but I've set a limitation on for one year, I will be dealing with all your reprints and enlargements, which means that they're not going to, uh, they're not gonna wait a year because I so excited, and they want their pictures, and it was like, don't you have pictures of you waiting up in your house? Like, yeah, and then I'm gonna order them one very quick thing about the ordering thing as well, and the website thing as well, because this is quite important, I run a bride of the month competition on my web site. You can make it a bride of the year competition or whatever, and you have a little tab where you can vote for a bride. Now what I do there is I do that you need to give me your email address to vote for a bride. Which means that if she's getting married sorry at her wedding she wants everyone to vote for her for bride of the month. And what I've done there is I've really just made it a twenty five percent discount on your reprints. That's what you're gonna win as bride of the month but to effluent people that's not the incentive. The incentive is I was bred florence bride of the month so what I do there is I'm getting the database off all her affluent friends. So that's a little incentive to get people to get traffic to your to your website. Yes, one quick question because we need to move on. How do you take twenty five percent off if they have? The unlimited reprint package doesn't matter. It's not about that it's about winning. Okay, so just to chat a little bit about my perfect ideal client clear and chris are are literally my perfect line, and when I shot chris's sorry, clare's brother's wedding jason I shot his wedding and I just connected with with with claire and she had booked me to do her wedding and I just saw that this was my perfect line so I approached her and asked her if I could film the process off her wedding so this was from the engagement shoot these were images that we shot during her engagement shoot you've seen these images up on you during this presentation and a little earlier so these are all that's not chris on the left there but that's clear on the right all these images came from the from her wedding which really was a perfect waiting for me I mean everything worked amazingly it was one hundred percent brand representative and yeah it was it was it was cool yeah one quick question do you give them the images after that year and you let them purchase that no give them to them give it him yep I've made my money out of them already then it starts to look like exploitation and emotional blackmail. Okay, so um uh claire had the unlimited package that unlimited pricing one so this was the most expensive option that I have so in your mind you're still thinking okay, so what does she actually get what is it? What is she received? I'm going to speak for thirty seconds about another cool idea because you could see my mind is racing uh the engagement album the images from the engagement shoot turn it into a guest signing book so so use pictures from the engagement station put in guest signing book and that goes around at the wedding for people to sign that conceal they see or images from the engagement station all right, so let's just have a quick look at this video which is video off clear receiving this you watch this last night you could watch today this's a video off clear receiving her products all the albums, the storybooks, the moments box and all of those things so let's have a look at that based on my brand in my stuff yeah and on your possibilities from what I've seen because so what was it about my specific style that attracted you to my photography looked at other photographers in the past and at my friend's photo albums and, uh just saw that a lot of the photographers are quite unstructured that that sort of winners and that I don't really lack and it's all very cheesy big smiles and you can tell that they're not genuine, so I didn't like the whole idea of just winging it on the one day in my life it's hopefully never gonna happen again so you'd almost call it like an insurance policy in a way exactly I mean those those pictures will laugh you don't wanna have a mess up you wanna have beautiful pictures and that's how we went with you so in terms of yeah your choice of photographer how much did price influence your decision to use me? Well, we just thought that you know you get what you pay for that the end of the day when the wedding's done when you know the tense taken down the wedding dresses put away all that's left of the photos yeah, there we were willing to pay really good fighters just in terms of understanding my target market a personal question but I'd like to ask you how old you and chris are we are both twenty six so after having a look atyour images which image for you is the most special there are a few but I'm I'd probably say the one with me and my father walking down now was definitely one of my favorites what happened? Uh well obviously when you're about to walk down the aisle it is quite a tense moment um I was actually trying to stretch myself on my dad from crying by talking about my dad it's racing and trying to distract ourselves and as you're walking down the arsehole chris's face and he was in tears and I just thought, oh goodness, I can't believe us I'm gonna burst into tears and as he started walking down the aisle we had these trees on the other side of the owl and it was quite a large dress and as I walked past august stuck in the tree, my dad stepped on my veil and then I tripped on my skirt so the images of, uh, me and my father laughing and it was just such a special moment because it really broke the ass and then by the time we got to the end of that I mean, everyone was smiling and laughing as opposed tio team some crank, so it was a good moment which other images are special for you so far apart from all of them on they are some pictures that you took of us in summer fault about the racetrack the sun was just going down beautiful like golden globe absolutely loved them, the sun shining through now they're beautiful and then we did a post wedding shoot uh, what was your reasoning behind the post wedding shoot? Why did you want to do a post winning shoot as opposed to getting everything done on the death? Getting everything done on the day can be quite a rush, as I say, I've seen friends weddings in the past and the girls are rushing and everything so tense and you're trying to get that special moment all and black one hour photography and between the the ceremony and reception so I thought instead of rushing and getting tense and smiling like this and see it rather dio persuading shoot so that you know you're a little bit more relaxed and you could do what you want to do and you're not rushing for flat space because our wedding was in winter sun stating cem and I see that I mean obviously I see that because I was there when our shooting but way involved your all you other best friend yes, my horse so beautiful yes, it was so special to have my horse in the photos um my family is a very a question family, so be ableto have horse in any picture is amazing. So now that you've received everything that I'm going to give you, what do you like about the products that have given you? Well, first of all, the presentation is absolutely beautiful. Um the albums I love the fact that there are customers to each family chris's parents are divorced so it's quite as to be able to have separate albums for them that are done personally for for each of the families uh love the fact that each fries van and each groomsmen gets a christmas album for themselves just a little coffee table books absolutely beautiful and these moments back so that I think I just so much fun to be able to put them on a coffee table and show them till my friends I think they're beautiful thank you okay, so yeah that's that's what claire received and you saw on the table it's quite a big presentation with regards to what? She what she received so yeah, I mean, any questions from you guys? Okay, molina, I believe what was the large box and do they get to pick the images in the moment? Box in the in the large box was her coffee table. Sorry, lord of the rings uh, italian leather album. Who is it that size? Well, it's in the box. Okay, show excuse me. She don't show that one. The one she was showing another no, there was a story book that she showed that that isn't the entire video. She, uh the entire video is obviously two hours long that's that's a clip from the from the one wedding dvd, so yeah, yeah, so they choose the fifteen images in the moment box very good, christian. I choose the images in the moments box however they're all labelled this one is for claire's parents. This one is for chris's parents. This one is for clearing chris and this is for chris's, mom or dad depending on the on the dynamics. Okay, good. Just question she she mentioned there and actually you mentioned it. I think yesterday as well that you allow about an hour between of a photo shoot between ceremony reception I just know what your thoughts on I've been in a few weddings recently where they've allowed about four hours of shooting a scene vue two's just to do an hour's that you could do the most thing, or do you like if the client has specifically done that and this happens in the uk a lot in the uk, they have a system or sort of system it's like a custom type of thing where uh, you haven't a list in a b list in a way because it's very expensive to get married, so you'd have, like a hundred people at your reception, a story at you at the church service and then they would go to the wrist to the break. They call it breakfast, but it's it's actually an evening meal and then your friends arrive at a little later just for the party. It it sounds bizarre to people who haven't experienced it, but it's a common custom and it's, not that's, how it works there. So I've just lost your question the time, a lot of the times in england, the church ceremony will be at eleven o'clock in the morning and then everybody goes home and then comes back at like five in the evening for the meal. So you do have that four hour gap which is fantastic to go and do the most amazing stuff you want to do bearing in mind you can't get the dress too dirty but you can you can I would utilize all that time to go to go and shoot again my my good friend jim gonna what he does is he would take the bride and groom and go off to teo place where they could go to you know to bond have a drink afternoon and shoot some really cool images of them just relaxing and having a good time maybe not even shoot sorry tom I know that you can shoot when you do that but yeah uh take them off and go and have a really good time so that they can have a bit of a time out I know that that's one of his his tactics to go and do that but I would utilize that time definitely but but the guests it's part of the tradition like you were saying a few of those weddings like that so they give it's expected it's not you holding up proceedings it this is how our wedding is if I go and shoot for four hours but the guests are waiting and they were expecting me to be there at six and now it's eight o'clock you know that's when I don't want it to reflect negatively on my brand okay, and notice that your products have the little label, the metal plate on the boxes and on the albums. What was your thought process behind that? It just makes it a little bit more customized. I know that a tte, the lab there actually sinking this it's a little bit flatter. But I had just had these made I'm at a local badge company, and we just put them on just in terms of the branding, just to make it look a little bit more exclusive and branded.