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Diversify Yourself

Lesson 29 from: Senior Photography: Break the Mold

Blair Phillips

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Lesson Info

29. Diversify Yourself

Next Lesson: Volume Photography

Lesson Info

Diversify Yourself

back in 07 when construction was absolutely booming. I mean, that was just more money floating around than anywhere. It was like we lived in Dubai or somewhere just mean big buildings going up everywhere. Well, you know, seven. The market took a big crash, and it left a lot of us kind of in a bad shape. I mean, I lost a lot of money on my home. I sold my home that I was living in tow. Move to another area that I wanted to be in. And I lost a significant amount of money because of the market. Everyone in my neighborhood had to go through foreclosure, lost their jobs, and I was fortunate enough not to have to go through that. But in turn, I ended up losing a Thanh of money. So I know how it is. I've been there and I've done it. And I figured out why. Wait a minute. I'm getting off on a rabbit trail here. And I was seven when the construction market tanked. What if we were all in construction? What would we be doing now? We may be slowly starting to get back in the construction. A little ...

bit, but it would have left us there with our tool belt. Ah, hard hat and no work. But if I was construction guy and I learned how to on the side build cabinets and I learned how on the side to build decks on the people's homes and then I learned a little bit of you know, something else there's there's things and avenues that you can do to put into place should something fail. So don't put everything you own into. One idea. You know, this is a senior program, and senior photography is awesome. I mean, it's a great great avenue of photography, but you have to think with the advancements of IPhones and android phones. I mean, how many? How many parents do you see at the zoo or a Disney world taking a picture with their IPhone everywhere? Do they carry their DSLR, or do they even carry their point and shoot camera anymore? No, I think about when you guys grew up. Did you have photo albums all in your house? Yeah, Like I said before, kids these days don't even have photo albums. They haven't burned to a disc that gets thrown in the drawer that in seven years from now the disk is not gonna work and they're gonna have nothing. So it's a constant reminder that we need to try and educate everyone on the value of photography on. If we don't do that, we may not have a business one day, so you have to face the reality of things and a lot of time. I don't like to face the reality. I'll tell my wife sometimes, like they don't want to hear about it. I just don't even tell me. I'll just I'm just gonna go keep working. But you have to listen and you have to pay attention. So what happened with me? Waas. As I said, Wait a minute. What if the senior business was kind of construction? What if in 10 years from now senior photography kind of goes away, which it's not going to? But you may hit a spot in your business that's kind of solved every once in a while, you know, with me, I told you before, newborns, believe it or not, that's my highest average. So I really need to promote my newborn business because it's really hot. Families is not my highest average, but I really like shooting the warns. I don't like photographing family, so that's what I go for. I diversify myself, and that's exactly what this next segment is about. Is about diversifying yourself. If I was in construction in those seven, I would probably not be in construction right now. So I'm gonna give you a lot of tools and things that I'm doing, not ideas that I have that Oh, I think this could work really well. If you did this and you did that, that could work as well. I'm out here tearing down. I'm beating down the bushes, knocking down doors, opening up things to diversify myself and make sure that I don't become complacent in the market. So a lot of this stuff is it's all still relative to photography. Is all photography related? But how would you like tohave? Maybe, let's say, four times a year that you could make several $1000 and one day shooting the same thing over and over and over, just like if we had this piece, this right here and we got paid to photograph that over and over and over and over we never had to move this set. We never had to redesign anything. And every client they came up with hand us hand us a check full of are a check with, you know, obviously good funds in the bank. I could work with that. Some people say, Well, that's not very creative. I'm more of the creative type. Well, listen, I'm type about trying to make some money. You know, being creative is awesome, but show me something I can make some money at it. I'm gonna talk about next is limited addition sessions. All right, I started doing this about four years ago, and it's basically one particular day out of the year where I lower my prices for one day and it's a one time on Lee set. A lot of people say, Well, you should never reduce your prices. You know, you should You should never reduce your prices. Well, this is my theory behind it. If I can pre design one particular set and advertise it and say, Listen for this one day, Onley, we're gonna do many sessions that in the last 10 minutes apiece and the prices air reduced its one set 10 minutes in and out. What it's gonna do is it's gonna allow all the people in town that say Well, Blair Yeah, I love his work, but I've heard he's, like, $10,000. First of all, there. I wish I was that. But I'm not. I had a wedding client come in a while back and she said, Yeah, I'm just looking around. I said, Well, you know, can I help you with anything? She said? Oh, no, I can't afford you. I'm just looking. She said I heard that you were, like, $15,000 a shoot wedding. And I was like, Okay, first of all, you need to come sit down. And second of all, you need to tell me, where do you hear that? You okay? Thank you. I went back and had a little friendly visit with that person, and we had a We had to come toe, uh, he had a you know, we had a good meeting. You know what I'm saying? Lorenzo? So we had a meeting about it, and I educated her. So limited edition. It's one day, only 15 minutes sessions. And what if I could put like to say, $200 for every single family I want. If I could line up 30 families and that's just a minimum and then you know they're gonna bomb or I'll give you some examples over I'm talking about. I'm encouraging you to try something different. Bring some more revenue to your studio. Check this out. These air, some of the things that we did This is back in 2011. Briar patch ties and two twos. The vintage twenties, Field day Old World Santa I had an old world Santa come in and it was awesome Field day. I just did that feel did the field day right before I came here. I did it on Saturday and I flew here on Sunday and I did 29 28 appointments own Saturday and each one of those that came in they were already prepaid, already had their money. If they didn't show up, I kept their money because we've communicated that they know they don't show up. I'm keeping their money. So take a look at some of these that we do here. Sugar and Spice. This is one day one set And let me tell how easy this is. You take these kids and you just sit him down. And you you supply all this stuff and it's beautiful, and it's like shooting fish in a barrel. It's really easy. Your lights never change. But people love that set. They love it and they will pay toe, have pictures made in that. And that's my little girl. And she Cute. Goodness gracious. Thank you. Better said that. Yeah, I'm kidding, but yeah, Mom was the one that reached for stuff and ate most of it. But anyways, these images here, I mean, who who's not gonna love those of their kids for that one day, a reduced price? Now what it does, it allows me to reach those people that say Blair's too expensive. Remember? If half the battle is getting them to me, if I can get you in front of me, I can express why I charge what I do. I can bring you into my studio. You'll only be photographed on this one set. But while you're there, I can say, man, these girls are awesome. Look around while you're here and see all the different designs and elements that I have here, and it'll kind of give you an idea of what people expect when they come here. So I'm planning that seed and they're like, Ma'am, Honey, we've got to come back here and do family pictures one day. This stuff is amazing little boys I normally will do. If it's if we do the two twos, I do something right next to it for boys. So we did this and then we had this set for the little boys and it was a Cracker Jacks baseballs. And it's a very boy specific set, and it's sold like wildfire, two twos and ties. You just make up a name and you roll with it and bought a bunch of lemons. Threw him out. Hunger chandelier a backdrop. You're good to go. It's more about the setting. More about the outfit. You know, that's that's what selling people like The idea of it, little boys. I mean, you wouldn't normally take your kid to get a picture may like that, you know, we do it with the tie without a shirt taken. Leave his shirt on for a little time. We supply everything so that the parents don't have to show up and say Well, I didn't bring anything. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know. I had to bring anything. So it's all about that constant communication. And these boy, these guys had a great time doing it. The parents love it. They laughed, you know, they laughed at the kids when they were up there doing this and the, you know, the boys. I would say, Hey, I'm going to give money to your girlfriend and I say, I want you to be really tough. You know? You just get great expressions that time to jump on the couch. That's they way. They're jump on the couch now jump and fall down on the couch. Now give me a silly face. Give me a really silly feitian of something really crazy. Show me your muscles. You like you been working out some of those big old muscles and you just get all kinds of expressions. And not only are we fulfilling their minimum order now, they're gonna order way more than what they expected. Another example, One of the most successful ones that I do is called a field day. And how many how many times do we get that client that comes in and says, Well, yeah, I want to get family pictures made. But my husband, he works all the time and we could be here at seven o'clock on like a Thursday night. Why did you guys know I'm not taking a session at seven o'clock at night? I don't care if the president of the United States called. I am not photographing him a seven. That's my family time. Okay, I probably would on No, probably not. That's another story, but I would not. I would not photograph anyone. It doesn't matter because that's my family time, and I've had to make a commitment to say marking that off, and that's it. So doing these types of things have allowed me to be able to make revenue so that I can stop. But field day? Yeah, my husband can't be there. We'll listen. This is what we're gonna do. It's a 10 to 15 minute session we do on a Saturday. I'll bring a couch and various things out into a field, and we have a piece of property not far from here. It's like four miles down the road. We set it all up your husband. All he has to do is just woke and sit down, get a few images made. I'll work with him. Show him how easy it is. 15 minutes. He's in the car and gone. Now, you tell me when you go home and explain that to your husband. He's not gonna hate picture day quite as much. Okay, so it breaks down the barriers for when that guy comes in. He's already mad because he doesn't like pictures. And he's like, uh, excuse me, but how long is this gonna take? And I can say, Hey, don't worry about me. I got you. I can start the small talk like I told you, you know? What kind of work do you do, man? I drive a truck. Oh, that's cool. What do you drive? I used to drive a truck as well. Yeah, I used to go from here to Virginia every night. Oh, yeah? What? Do you drive? A Volvo? Yeah. Cab over. What? Figure out ways to make conversation. And I make that guy my friend. So when he leaves, we shake hands, and I say seaman. And when that bad wasn't, you know that that was all right. It's a lot better in the last one we did. I told my wife I was going to punch the guy out if we didn't leave soon. It's because it lasted like, 2.5 hours and kids were screaming, everybody was going crazy. But now I had 28 families lined up. They were all prepaid, so they had the money in hand before it even happened. And they show up and I just sit him there. Bye bye, bye bye. And it's just one right after the other. And now I don't do the same exact pose. But, you know, just do whatever whatever is indicative of what I feel depend on their body type and dependent upon. You know, the demographic and sizes shapes everything. You have a question you say you you're doing in minute intervals of what you're going like complete Once you get the shot that you think. You you nailed 10 minutes and you sort of give you kind of chance to take a breather. Drink your drink water and yeah, exactly. Do you set those up A za point mints? Okay. Your time is two o'clock. Your to 15 absolutely has to be on that appointment, and what I have to do to it lasts feeling I have to allow for people to be late throughout the day. So you know, about every seventh session or so I'll leave a blank space of 15 minutes in case we start falling behind and on these days here, Normally I normal don't even take a lunch break. I'm just shooting. I've had as many as 40 at one time or have 40 appointments back to back to back to back all day from sunup until the sun's about to go down. But I don't mind doing it because it's easy and I know I'm making money. I know I'm making money. Love those images and again, they're easy to photograph, amount in the elements. I've got my lighting. So no matter where I am, I've got good light. These families, I mean, out in the field, they I'm never gonna be able to get these guys Look at how much pain that guy looks like he's in the back there. I mean, he has just killed He hates it right now, but I can get him there versus getting him into a studio and I could make that work now, moving forward. Do How many of these do I want to do? Yes. Quick question from the Internet. That's all right with these small sessions. What do you about? How many eminent images do you show a client from this session? And that's from a Leah Carroll. And then also follow up from K. Hey, what do you offer with the base amount for that position? Yeah, I'll get into the and more into the pricing here in just a few minutes. But I would say, on average, I'm looking to give him if I could give them 10 15 images, one image per minute that they were there. I'm totally cool with that. Totally cool with that. And I'm getting the pricing structure in just a minute. So hang tight. But that is a great question. People say, Okay, we get it. But tell me, how do I make money on it? So families air. Great. Now what about Can I partner with someone and do something a little bit different for Easter? My brand is not just plain Jane. I want to do something a little bit different, a little prettier. So I partnered with a local petting zoo and I said, Listen, I will feed your rabbits. I will take care of your rabbits. I would donate money to your rabbits. Should you let me borrow them for one Saturday? I said I'll make a contribution and buy some food to give back to you guys. Absolutely. I went to a petting zoo because I know that they're used to being obviously petted and, you know, they're not gonna kill anybody. And big advice of us. Don't let people hold the animals they could scratch. They could do something crazy. True story. I know Lady in town is a retired for one of the kids reach down and grab it. You know how they do. They hugged a rabbit and they put little thumper down. And little thumper wasn't thumping anymore. Yeah, she she suffocated it and killed the rabbit. That's kind of a downer for your many sessions, So But here briar patch, people love the fact that we have live animals now have always work with rabbits. I did. I've had some lambs before. They worked pretty good. Sometimes people are freaked out by him. I don't recommend doing ducks or chickens. They poop everywhere. These guys. This may sound mean, but it's not. If you take their food away the night before, let him eat. And then they will do their business all throughout the night so that during the day they won't do their business all over everything. And you can get a little snack about three o'clock and then put the food back in. Their kids love this. I can get great expressions from little ones because they're intrigued like, Oh, my goodness. What's going on? This guy, I mean, the lambs, the baby lambs. Now, I'll tell you what's crazy. You don't think this guy tops on some growth hormones, do you? I mean, he's just a bigas a little baby lamb right there. But these rabbits are awesome because that one up top, he'll stay up there pretty much all day. Right there. He was just trying to get to the cares like give me something else to eat. Gotta have it. So another idea. The ninja vanity. This is another one we did. We get these little rompers, we make a headband, and we've made like a little sewing set. And this is kind of a throwback to maybe like the forties. Parents love this stuff. You're never gonna You normally never gonna dress your kid this way. But come in for a little mini session, you can do it. So what are the details? Let's get to those details for Internet viewers and for you lovely people again. 15 minute appointments. If you're gonna try this for your very first time, I would say, Don't don't get any deeper than my 25 appointments. Actually, I might. I might even break that back just a little bit. If it's your first time, I could do probably 40 now. I'm tired the next day, but making money. So here's the pricing. It's a $25 session fee. Now they say, Well, that's not a lot of money. It's a 15. It's a 10 minute session, $25 for every person because I have to have some sort of a commitment that they're not willing to pay for a session than I don't need him. And plus I have to pay for the rabbits or I have to buy this type of stuff, so I need some revenue to be able to do that $25 session fee with a $ minimum order. Now what we do is we issue them a gift card number, and then they will go on to our store site, log in and they look at all the images and they check out. And then when I check out, they enter that prepaid gift card number, which takes $150 off their current order. So let's just say, if you've got appointments and it's a 250 to $350 average, just say it's a 3 4300 bucks in, you know, in one day, and that's just a $150 minimum order. Now for me, my home. I could go shoot a wedding, has a ton of pressure for about eight hours, or I could stand here and take pictures. It was a little girl eating doughnuts and make more money. So So I think four or five times a year I could do something like that and squirrel back some cash. I mean, we've had these things before where we've done 12. $12, from a mini session. I mean, now that's that's doing a lot of work. But if I can shoot one day and make that kind of money, I'm like, You know what? I may turn into a limited edition photographer, but there is a caveat there. You got to be careful and not do it too much. Don't do it too much and explain in a minute why here? The prices And I don't mind sharing my prices with the guys. These are the discounted prices now we don't really have. We don't have packages per se for this type of stuff. Everything is all a card. So the old adage money spent is money for gotten. That's the reason we take the 1 50 for their minimum order commitment up front, because if it's if they've already spent $150.4 weeks ago and they get in there, check out and they just start ordering. They may by $400 for the prince because I've got 150 credit, So why not? So it's very common to have people spend 45 $600 on on a mini session like Man I figure out a way to do that. How do you get that out? How do you get that out in the community that you know? Hey, Blair, Phyllis Photography is doing a mini session in three months from now, and I want you to come. I want you to get there, but you can use constant contact t e blast all of your current clients, all of the current clients that you have. That's why it's important to get their information, get their emails. And then also, now that you have an intern and you have an IPhone or some sort of a phone, you're gonna have them go through and send text messages. You're gonna create a generic text from you because you know Hey, what's up, guys? This is Blair, and I am so excited to announce that we have this going on blood above of a bubble book and you have them shoot a text out to everybody. Everybody, this on your database does not take a little bit of time. Yes, but does it work? Yes. Absolutely. Start with your current clients. First, A lot of times were so consumed with trying to get new business that we fall short on offering things to our current clients. It would buy them automatically. And I'm not saying you quit looking for new clients, but give your current clients and opportunity to fulfill that. First, let them know. Hey, I wanted to give you an opportunity at this before we release it to the public. Makes them feel special. Makes them feel special. Biggest way. We promoted his on Facebook and Twitter, Facebook. That's how we book every single one of these. We don't do it honestly, every single enormous book through Facebook. All of our clients see him and their own Facebook at their job all day. You know their own Facebook like it's their job. A friend of mine works for a big corporation, and he said it was ridiculous. She walked by every cubicle in here and they got Facebook pulled up. That's crazy. Crazy. I did not see that here, Creativelive. Though I've not seen one person on their Facebook. I'm very impressed with that. They run a tight ship here, but yeah, Facebook. That's how we book every single one of them. We placed flyers and clients orders, so whenever they come in to pick things up, located in their little bag along too fast. Located in a little bag is a flyer that talks about Hey, this is coming up. This is on the way. I give you this biggest advice. So when I said, how many times have you heard me say you can't steal it if you don't show it? Probably tired of hearing that. But there's so much validity in that that I can't express it enough. If I told you guys okay, we're going to do and too much. Or now I'm gonna do this session and it's gonna be called Sugar and Spice. It's gonna be awesome. You should really book an appointment for your kids. Okay, Sugar and Spice, that makes a lot of sense. First thing I think about his Old spice, for some reason, I don't know. So what do I have to do to be successful at a at a mini session or a limited edition session? I have two of couple of months before it's gonna happen. Unfortunately, I have to design it, have to put it all together. I have to get a couple of test subjects to come in and photograph it like I'm going to photograph it that very day, or at least similar, so that people have a visual. If I tell you how pretty something is, it's like, Yeah, cool. But if I can, if I explain it to you, it may look like this in your mind, but if I say it's a it's a girl, it's going to black and white image with dark hair. She's gonna wearing pearls. But if I can show it to you, it makes perfectly good sense, right? That's why I can't harp on it enough about showing what you want to sell. So we've put together the whole theory of systems that we use the way we keep up with everything. If you're gonna do a volume shoot and you don't know how to keep up with it right on a piece of paper, every clients last name and whenever it my first client comes up, Mr Johnson, I have a card that says Johnson. I photographed that card and I turn it over, and then I photographed him. I know that every image that follows that last name belongs to him, and then she comes up. Have another card with her last name, a photograph that every image I know that follows is her. So you don't have to have sophisticated software is you don't have to have all this. You just need someone that's been through it, and that can help you along the way. That says, Look, hey, I'm over here. I do this all the time. I'm a small business and I finally got it all figured out, got it all figured out. And what I want to do is obviously, believe it or not, we have a limited edition Siri's DVD that has everything that we do that you could ever imagine. Everything is own their. We have promo materials that will help match what you're trying to do. We've got we've got that of their We've done all the homework for you, so you don't even have to mess with it. Don't even have to mess with it. So not only did we tell you how to do it, but we basically almost give it to you for free and say, Look, we want you to be able to succeed without having to jump through all the stuff that I've had to now. I was approached recently. Have you ever had one of those jobs where someone says, Do you? Can you do this? You like? Now? I don't I've never really done that, man. I'm kind of I don't know about that Kind of messed up on that. I don't know. I don't know if that's really my forte. I don't know with May I don't care what it is If somebody says, you know Hey, I need to do a session with this TV right here. And I want you to make it look like it's a high quality TV. So what are you have to do? I wanted to go in a print ad. Can you do it? Yeah. Okay. I'm done. I'm done stuff like that all the time. Have I ever know? Do I know that I'm capable of doing it? Absolutely. Would I be mad if I didn't take the opportunity? I don't. It depends on what they paid. But maybe I was approached recently. There's a show that airs on Fox Sports. And they contacted me and they said, Listen, is there any way that you could come into the woods and photograph our pro staff members. It's a hunting show. Could you photograph Are pro staff members. You know, we're gonna be in tree stands with running chain saws for Husqvarna. You know, they were made major sponsor, and I was like, Okay, I'm listening. I'm a hunter. I love the hunt. You would not know that, but looking at me, but any spare time I have this time of year, I have my boat and I'm in the woods hunting on the strange, right. So check this out. They called and they said, Can you do it like, let's see, Fox Sports. Ciao, Hoskins. Lorna back. Probably open some doors, you know. Ah, Haunting. Show this on television. They may have some things that I want. I might have some things that they won't. I was nervous because they said, you know, it's gonna be like, probably it's probably gonna take six or seven hours. And I knew out in the woods the sun comes up in the morning is pretty son gets up, it's gonna change. It goes here is gonna change. I don't know, but I know what three lights set up. That's what I can do to really make it work. So I did, and I took that opportunity. And now I've got promotional images for Husk Lorna and I've got promotional images. Now all of their sponsors, every single one of their sponsors. You don't think I contacted them and send them these images and said, Hey, I just want to let you know that I want to make myself available to you should you need it And, you know, because we're working with one of the guy one of the shows that you promote and I want to make myself available that if you need me to come out and photographed these bow and arrows for you, you know I'm your guy to do that. So there's a company called Lim Saver. It's a huge conglomerate, but they do millions and millions of dollars. Well, recently, these guys contact me again, said, Hey, we picked up a new sponsor. We need a couple of just generic images to send to him because they want to put it in their catalog. I was like, Game on, let's do it. So I met him on a Sunday and I did it pro bono because they didn't have a big budget And they said, Look, you know, what can we do to help you? And I said, Well, look, you like the hunt, right? I like the hunt. You got out, you got what I want. I got what you want, So why don't I run out there and I'll do that. But I want you to give me every hookup that you get from every single company. I want you to give it to me. And they said, no problem. No problem at all. So, like, uh, some of these large companies I'm not gonna name I now get 70% off, 50% off. I get all kinds of free stuff that comes to my door by trying something different. And now I guarantee you my phone's gonna start ringing from some of these people that I'm pitching my work to. How could a big flat of you know Oregon toe photograph? Something that that some sort of a product? I mean, that would be cool, because then you can charge a good bit of money. So I take these guys out them with their with their equipment. It's easy work. I even let him use my truck. They didn't even have a truck that showed up in a car. Like what kind of hunting show? Drive the car to the woods like you're killing me here. You're killing me. You're killing me. But try something different. Break out of yours. Own. This was me practicing. I said I would love the photographs from hunters and all their get up out in the woods. But it's very rare that I have that many people come in and said, Hey, can you photograph me and my buddies out in the woods? And if they're doing that, I'm like, No, there's something up with this. I know better than that. You know? You wanna go camping, you don't even have a tent. What do you What we're doing here? So be careful what you get yourself into, but never close the door. Try something different. And when I say, try something different. Do you remember the yesterday the template that we talked about that was available for the take home bags from the orthodontist office? All right, well, the way that came about Waas, he hired me to come in and photograph his staff and him as a person. Now he said, Look, I'm gonna be in this magazine, and one of his employees knew of me and said, Look, you need to call this guy. Well, the magazine called. He called and said, Look, I want you to do him said Fine. You know, how much is it? I put together a report, and I gave it to him, thinking that they would say, you're out of your mind. But I priced it really high because, quite frankly, I didn't really want to go do it. But they looked at it and they said, All right, that you're okay. Cool. Let's do it was like, Oh, man should've charged before. You want to make him think about a little bit. So I go in his office. Is this going to be a challenge for me? Yeah. I'm not really a commercial photographer at this point. Cannot do it. Yeah, I'll bring 5678 lights if I have to, because I want to make it look really good. Funny story. When I was here, one of my lights, for some reason, just went crazy, and it blew some capacitors in it, and he was like, Whoa, I look over and the whole lobby was fun up a smoke. I mean, it was billowing white smoke out of it, and I got it out probably just before the sprinklers went off. So yeah, watch out for your equipment there. So I go in and that's when I strike up the conversation. And now I photograph his family. I photographed all of his friends, family. All of his patients there know about me. All of his co worker are all the people that work for him. Come to me now, So don't be afraid to try something different. And don't be afraid to give away here services for things like this that every once in a while, if you have to to get started, you can't just go right into commercial businesses and say, Yeah, I'll take these images, Visit magazine and it's gonna be $5000. No number one. People don't have the kind of money. Number two. If you charge that kind of money, you best deliver that kind of goods. If you charge just a little bit starting out and it gives you a little buffer toe, have a few hiccups, which is what I did. But now charging a premium price. So I got to deliver a really good product. But in the beginning, it took a lot of that pressure off. No. One that I wasn't the most expensive guy in town. So from there out of Carlsbad, California, I got a call from Super Street Bike Magazine and they said Word on the street. Woz is your pretty good photographer. I was like, word on the street is you're right, you know, I give it back to him, you know, I give it back to him the way that they give it to me, and they said, You know, Well, look. All right, here's the deal. I've got a military guy. He paid to get this bike Don and we need to shoot it in three days. And I have to have the image is complete. Well, that was a time crunch. That was tough. But I was like, You know what? I could shoot for a magazine in California. My word could be published all across the nation. See what happens. Why not? Let's try it. So as a result, I do it. I got paid. Everything was great. I learned a lot from doing that day. I mean, I had to find the location. I had to set up lights. This was 35 minutes away from downtown in town. I've never been to, but I had. They said Whatever you want to do and then they call me again and say, Let's do another one, Cool, Let's do it. Let's make it happen. So now my works being published in magazines and you get obviously you get the, you know, credit for it. You know, you never know who's gonna pick up that magazine. Is that gonna am I gonna be a world renowned street bike photographer? Now? I highly doubt it. But, you know, is there someone that's going to see that one day and say, Hey, you know what? Give this guy call, Who knows? But it looks good, and it's a great experience to get out and have to struggle. Have to stress. I had to figure out how to get this motorcycle from the very front of this junk yard around the mud holes and mud puddles all the way back down through the barbed wire, into this spot where I could shoot it. That was so stressful cause. The guy told me. He said, Look, you know, if you scratch his bike he said, I'm probably just gonna beat you down, to be honest with you And I said, Look, well, then, you, sir, A responsible for getting this bike back here, so I leave it all in it. It's always better if you can pass the buck onto someone else, if you know what I mean. Everybody probably would agree with that now from their diversifying. I got a call from a large company and said, We want to do an appreciation day and we'd love to have a portrait of everybody and just a group picture. Just throw everybody together. Sure, I'll do it. I went over there and did that. That was probably close to a $4000 afternoon with an individual headshot. The company bought the individual headshot for them. I priced it pretty high because I did some market research and found out that this company does about $30 million worth of sales per year. It's not priced it accordingly.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Senior Posing Guide
Blair Phillips Discounts

Ratings and Reviews

David - Muse 10
 

As an experienced photographer myself, this class was both helpful and inspirational…we're never too experienced to learn from someone. Blair is really a lot of fun to watch and listen to. He has a way of making things fun with his high energy and dry sense of humor. To be completely honest in my review of this class, the lighting and posing sections, while VERY good, have been done over and over again by lots of photographers and didn't offer much in the way of new ideas. The real value was in the customer service and marketing techniques presented here. Blair's use of video as a marketing and communication tool with his clients is very unique and sparked TONS of ideas I would like to implement in my studio. His simple pricing structure and the way he presents it to his clients is also unique and has helped me rethink some of my own methods. "That being said" (Blair should appreciate that phrase) this class is totally worth the price and will continue to be a good reference for me. Some photographers are excellent at their craft but are dry teachers; others are great teachers but their "real-life" work doesn't live up to their classroom presentations. Blair is the real deal and makes this class very exciting.

a Creativelive Student
 

Blair is great. This class is packed full of great info and is a genuine good hearted person.. Really like his approach with high school seniors. I recommend it.

Student Work

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