Doranne and Graeme

Officially the last Wedding of this year, and what a laugh it was too. Doranne and Graeme live in Brighton but Doranne comes from Aberdeen and they had decided to Marry there, I seem to get a lot of Weddings where the couple live either abroad or in other parts of the UK. I’d never met Doranne or Graeme which is never an ideal situation but we had spoken on the phone and I had a feeling we’d get on well. I found Doranne in her dressing gown surrounded by hairdressers so a quick hello then of I went to look round the hotel. This was my first Wedding in Mary Culter House Hotel, it’s an old building with many new parts added on, quite honestly it’s not ideal for Photography, the grounds are lovely and in Summer it would be great, winter – well thats a different story! We were very lucky, the sky was clear and there was little danger of rain. The inside of the hotel seems a little cramped to me, not any spare space to take decent photographs except the residents lounge – but of course that is filled with residents, and it’s a really dark room with very high ceilings.

I was glad there was no rain but acutely aware that we were as close to mid winter as I’d like to be, the sun would soon disappear, leaving us little time for outdoor shots with no flash. I hate flash, I really do. It’s harsh and unflattering. Now, other Photographers will say they flash looks great and can be really nice, I agree, but a Wedding is not the place to be setting up studio flash heads, umbrellas, softboxes, power cables etc so you have to rely on “on camera” flash – and no one can argue that this causes problems.

I found Graeme in his room and introduced myself and we agreed to get some shots of him and his Best man first.



Just for a laugh I always try to find something amusing. Graeme was one of the funniest people I have met, he laughed at everything, even my jokes which was great.

  
Eventually Doranne was ready – just 15 mins late and we headed off to the service room.

The service was conducted by Esther from Banchory register office, she was relaxed about photographs which was good.


The Bridesmaids were all looking great, I’m after one as a model, guess which one!


This would have been better an hour earlier when the sun was just sitting on the river, cloud had come over and it had gone which was a great pity.

3 people came up to me and asked for my card, they all said they liked how relaxed I was and said that they had daughters or cousins or sisters that were getting Married. People often say that I’m very relaxed at a Wedding, I’m not really but I guess I keep it hidden, they are very stressful. It seems that this is  important to people that the photographer is relaxed, I had never really considered it but one person from last night said the last Wedding they were at was ruined by the Photographer shouting at people and going in the huff. I guess you have to remember that the purpose of the day is to 1) Get Married, 2) Have fun and 3) Meet friends. The Photographs are a side issue really and as a Photographer you can’t let it take over the day.

I stayed for Dinner and then photographed the speeches and cake cutting, it was a lovely evening but once I sat down and relaxed a little I felt really tired, I’d been working non stop four hours and on my feet the whole time. The meal was excellent and we all received lottery tickets as favours, when the numbers were read out no one won, I guess I’d keep quiet if I had won the million on someone else's ticket. I did say that if I won the jackpot I’d give them back their fee, that seemed only fair!

Doranne and Graeme are a lovely couple, full of fun and I can;t imagine any time spent with them being boring, they laughed all the time.

Christmas

Sorry I’ve been away from the blog for a while, it’s been a strange period, not busy enough to have anything exciting to blog about and too busy to do it! Christmas eve was a good day, I’d arranged to meet Katy and Gordy in Dundee at DCA they are getting Married next December 09 in Fife, they live in England although Gordy grew up In Dundee, we actually went to the same school but I was  a few years ahead of him and didn’t know him although I am sure if we had spent enough time talking we would have found someone we both knew! Anyway, back to the point, Katy was keen to book me but understandably she wanted to meet me first to make sure I wasn’t some sort of nutcase, I must have passed as they booked me up for their big day. I’d been holding the day for them for a while, I wont be doing that again as I almost get in a really sticky situation a few weeks back. As of now I don't hold dates, first person to send the booking form in is the person that gets the date. Just yesterday I had an email from someone that had enquired in early December asking to book me, in the 2 weeks between them asking if I was free and them deciding on me, someone else had booked me.

Dundee was very quiet, much more so than I had expected so I wandered round a little to pass some time as I was heading to Forfar to meet up with Karen from Aberdeen, she is getting Married in 2010 in Dunfermline and was keen to talk to me about their Photography. We had agreed to meet at McDonalds – I know how to show a girl a good time! It was packed with Kids having a party so I changed venue to the coffee shop at the country store, it was much more peaceful. We had a good chat, they are a lovely couple and they have just called to confirm that they want to book me as their Photographer which is great news.

2 new bookings with 2 great couples all in one day.

Christmas day was interesting – say no more.

Boxing day we sat glued to the telly for most of it, apart from walking the dogs, I ate a whole tub of smarties and most of a box of wine gums, I felt a little sick after that – wonder why.

Saturday I had agreed to meet Emma and Aaron at Discovery, they are getting Married there in October and we had never met as they live in Wales although Aaron comes from Dundee. Emma had won the free web site a few weeks ago and I also agreed to do a photo shoot with them so we had a chat about the day then walked round the ship (or is it a boat) taking pictures. They are a really nice couple and we all got on well – it’ll be a good Wedding.

Afterwards she sent me a really nice email

“

Firstly I would just like to say how pleased we were after Saturday.  We feel we have definitely made the right choice for our photographer, we all felt at ease with you and happy in front of the camera – especially as I am usually behind ours!!  The kids enjoyed themselves and we are really looking forward to the results and the website.”

It’s always good to get feedback, especially such positive feedback.

We had a walk with the dogs on Tentsmuir beach in the afternoon.

 

450D Troubles

I’m posting this separately as it’s probably only relevant to people that are interested in cameras . Remember my problems with the 450D, well it has gone back again, the pictures were still soft and I was not happy to use it, I’d never use a camera like that for a professional job (although some do) so it’s not a real issue but I want to use it for some Stock Photography. Warehouse Express who have received so much of my money over the last few years are not being overly helpful which is unusual for them. I called to say it was still not right and I asked for a refund, they refused saying that it was something to do with the distance selling regulations. Not sure of my facts I kept quiet then called trading standards.

Apparently it is nothing to do with this but in fact the “sale of goods act 1974 as amended”, don’t you just love these facts. Anyway, I’ve sent it back with a letter to the MD stating that I am entitled to a refund or replacement. I’ll let you know what happens.

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New price structure and more family pics

You might remember from a previous post that I’d been to see a lovely young couple in Coupar Angus regarding their Wedding in February, well a few days back the booking form arrived by post so I’m delighted to be chosen as their Photographer, this year is going to be a busy one, I have over 20 Weddings booked so far and I’m getting enquiries every week. At the moment I’m getting a Wedding Booking every week which is so much better than I expected - thank you to all the couples who have booked me so far.

I have changed my price structure slightly by adding more services in and making a small increase to my fixed copyright free service. My new price structure can be found at http://www.amforbes.com/wedding/weddingphotography.php I have chosen to drop the package that included an album, only a very few people have booked this service and  the people that want an album are generally looking for a different type than the one that comes in with the package. I’ve concentrated more on a menu type system to allow couples to pick and choose the services they want so they can build their own package rather than be forced into the typical Bronze, Silver, Gold packages that most photographers offer. If you have booked the album package in the past, don’t worry, your price will hold, this is for new bookings after 1st Jan only.

I have started offering a Wedding Web Site, this is a small 4 page site that the Bride and Groom have control over, they add their own photographs and information in advance of the Wedding and their guests can then be kept informed about the times, location and other details. I launched this service by offering a free site and a free photo shoot, I emailed all my booked Weddings and almost everyone responded saying they want it. Unfortunately there can only be one winner and it went to Emma and Aaron who are getting married in Dundee next year. I haven’t met them yet but I am meeting them on the 27th and we’re going to do the photo shoot then, lets hope for good weather. I’ll post the link to Emma and Aarons site in a few weeks.

I have had loads of great comments from my family photo shoots, the orders are still coming in and people still want them for Christmas, sorry no chance now! I also got permission to use more of the photographs so they are below. I’m sorry this blog centers round family type stuff, my commercial work is generally confidential so I wont be putting any of these photographs here. I was at a function last night and 3 totally unconnected people came up to me and said “are you the guy that took photographs of xxxxx Kids or xxxx family, they are really lovely. It was great that total strangers took the trouble to seek me out and say that.

Are there less Weddings?

Chatting to someone today who said that there are less Weddings every year, well you’ll be surprised to learn (I was) that actually, Wedding numbers are increasing in Scotland, slowly but still increasing.

So, using the great Google Statistic site I searched for Weddings in Scotland

The graph below indicates volumes of search in Scotland on the word Wedding, not very scientific but interesting. You can see that there is a spike in the 3rd Quarter of most years on the search but a huge drop at the end of each year. Guess that makes sense but I always thought that people would be planning Weddings in January, maybe they think about getting married towards the end of the year then “pop the question” over Christmas.

More Bookings

It’s been a good week, last Saturday I had to go through to Kirriemuir to meet a couple about a Wedding, it was the first time I had met Karen and Jochen and we got on well. In an “it’s a small world” kind of way I had recently photographed Karens niece and her baby. Karen and Jochen are getting Married in South Africa as that is where they met but they are having a Wedding Celebration a few days later in Scotland and they wanted some good photographs of the day. By strange coincidence I also had another meeting in kirriemuir to discuss the possibility of photographing the Wedding of Stephan and Sheena, although they live in Edinburgh Sheenas parents live in Kirriemuir and in another “it’s a small world” kind of way, Sheenas Mother knows Andy and Jennifer (whos Wedding I Photographed a couple of weeks back). Sheena and Stephan are a lovely couple and I feel their Wedding will be a great day. So, lots of coincidences that weekend.

By the time I got home both couples had emailed me to say that they wanted to book me for their Weddings which was really good. Saturdays post also contained a booking form for another Wedding in July 2009 – taking my total number of weddings in July to 7, and I still have a Saturday free! Getting Married on weekdays is proving to be quite popular. I have not even met this couple yet, they live in Edinburgh so I’ll make a point of going through to see them before the big day.

Monday I was in Edinburgh doing a little selling on the Commercial front, I love doing Weddings but Commercial work is important too as, despite what I said above, most Weddings are on Saturdays and there are only so many of them. I have turned away 3 potential bookings since the 1st November so I need to get Commercial work to fill the gap. It’s also a completely different discipline, requiring different skills and on some occasions can be quite exciting. It was a successful day and I managed to catch up with some old customers.

Speaking of Commercial work, I have been asked by a Commercial Client why I never put examples or client details here. It’s purely that I don’t want my competitors to try and steal my work, I do work with some really interesting organisations and I want to keep them. If any Commercial Potential Clients want more information, just ask.

Tuesday I was in Glasgow shooting some Educational work for a client, it was a lovely bright day with clear blue skies. The difficulty at this time of year is the sun is so low in the sky, in some regard it is good as it gives really nice warm long shadows. On the other hand, when shooting amongst tall buildings as I was, it creates problems as the sun hits the top of the building and not the bottom, creating great contrasts between light and dark.

Thursday evening I was off again to see another couple that may want me as their Wedding Photographer, they are a really laid back couple and I think their Wedding will be a very relaxed affair.

The rest of the week has been admin, selling, accounts and trying to get my tax return sorted out. I’m doing a bit of research on my advertising, I pay a fair bit to Yellow Pages for an advert in the book and on line. I have asked every person that has approached me how they found me, none have said Yellow Pages so unless that changes I’ll be dropping my ad next year. I look at the Photographers in Yellow Pages and it’s easy to get caught up in “they are there so I must be”, if it is not generating any business then it is a waste of time.  

My 450D has returned and I have tested it many times, I am still not happy so it’s going back again. I am going to try and persuade them that the camera is not fir for purpose and get a refund, not sure of my rights here but I’ll keep you posted.

A difficult day

Thursday night was a difficult night. I had arranged to go and see a really nice couple about Photographing their Wedding next June. They had first contacted me a week or so back but we could not get together until Thursday due to work commitments. We had a good chat, they liked my work and I was fairly sure they would book me but I never like to take a booking at the first meeting, it seems like hard sell somehow. I think it’s better that the couple have the opportunity to chat about it after I have gone.

I set off home in the snow, when I arrived there was a letter through the door, it had not been delivered by the postie but it was stamped. I now know that it had gone to a neighbor by mistake and they had put it through the  door for me. In this envelope was a booking form and deposit cheque for  a Wedding, it was the same date as the couple I had been to see. Digging frantically through my emails I found an email enquiry going back 2 months from this lady. She had emailed asking if I was free and if I could send a price list, I get emails like this all the time and always say that at the time of writing I am free. However, this lady had just sent in a booking form. I wasn’t sure what to do and I wandered round the house for a while thinking about it. I finally came to the conclusion that I had to go with the people that had “officially” booked me first. So, I emailed the couple from Dundee and explained the situation, they emailed back saying how disappointed they were as they had already filled the booking form and were planning on posting it.

I feel really bad about this as the couple from Dundee were really lovely and for various reasons their Wedding was going to be different, very colourful and I was very much looking forward to photographing it. I struggled to get to sleep that night! I’ve decided that I must firm up on the booking process, I’m quite lax in the amount of time I give people to confirm their booking with me but from next year I’ll be a lot stricter, I never want this situation to develop again. So, if anyone reading this plans to book me, please do let me know as soon as possible and remember, the booking is not confirmed until I receive the form and deposit.

Family Photographs

Well, I promised you a few of the shots of the family sessions a few weeks ago and finally I have some permissions to publish these - thanks to the models, you know who you are!

 

 



The shoots actually turned out to be quite good, I have decided to run one every month starting early next year, watch for the new expanded family section of the web site being launched over Christmas. There are a few other people that I have asked permission from to publish their photographs here, more to follow hopefully.

Web Site Stats

It’s a full month since my new site went live and I got the first set of numbers through from Danny at Aerovision IT. It’s an interesting set of numbers. Firstly I see a map of the Uk with dots to represent where my visitors are coming from. 




You can see that quite a lot of my visitors are from the Central Belt of Scotland which is what I’d expect, also quite a few from London which you’d expect purely because of the population coverage there. There are a few odd numbers, like Huyton with Roby where I have had 10 visitors, it’s a small suburb of Liverpool and I can’t for the life of me figure out why I have had so many visitors from there. Only 10% of the visitors are new visitors and the visits are spread over a few days so it’s likely that it will be someone looking for a Photographer in this area and going back to the site over and over then emailing the link to their friends. They spend an average of 3.8 minutes on the site which is quite a bit of time for a small site.

Slough and Bristol have had 1 visitor each but they spend 14 minutes on the site which is a very long time for a site of only 8 pages, most time seems to be spent on the gallery pages which you would expect. In total I have had 427 unique visitors to the site, looking on average at 4.7 pages, spending 3.43 minutes doing so. The bounce rate is critical, this means people that find the site then immediately leave, it means that they are searching for something different but find my site – this would indicate an error in the search engine wording. My bounce rate is 20% which apparently is quite low, over 50% would be an issue.

 

I’ve had visitors from USA, Canada, Egypt, Africa, France, Spain and various other countries.

What really matters to me though, is customers and since my new site went live then I have had a real increase in clients. I set a target to do 40 Weddings each year, that roughly equates to 3 bookings per month. At the start of November I was averaging one booking per week, the last 4 days have resulted in 5 bookings so I am really pleased. I can’t say it is all down to the web site, about 50% of bookings during November are recommendations from other clients which is fantastic but you could argue that without a decent web site they might not have booked.

I’m working on phase 2 of the site which goes live in January, this will include testimonial pages from existing clients as well as links to other wedding suppliers.

Man Flu!

It's been a hard week so far, I started feeling a little under the weather on Sunday night, Monday was a little worse but by Tuesday I was feeling pretty awful, Wednesday was a right off and thankfully by Thursday I was on the mend. I am sure it was the worst case of flu that has ever been recorded but apparently "it was just a mild cold".

Sundays photo shoot was quite busy despite the bad weather, I had some lovely families round for photographs and so far the feedback has been excellent with loads of great comments. The fact that Christmas is looming means that people are looking for photographs to give as presents or put in cards and the orders are coming in thick and fast, trying to keep on top of them has been a challenge but I think I am hanging on. I cant put photographs from Sunday here because they all include children and the world has become slightly paranoid, I am sure most people really would not mind so if any of Sundays customers are reading this and they don't object to their photographs appearing here then please email me and let me know.

A couple of the older kids would make great models for my stock photography which I want to spend a little more time on next year, so again parents from Sunday, you may get a call from me regarding this! You can see my existing stock library at Alamy

 

  

Monday was spent processing and sorting through Jen and Andys Wedding Photographs, creating contact sheets and getting them off to the lab. They have just arrived back today so Jen, they will be with you Monday!

Tuesday was on the Photographs from Sunday there were over 400 to sort through and upload to individual web sites, because I was feeling ill it took longer and I had to finish it on Wednesday. I've been planning a trip to Spain which is purely business, I want to photograph the Jerez Horse Fair so Susan has given me a pass for 4 days of travel - all alone in Spain! You'll remember from my last post about Ryanair that I am now the proud owner of a Visa Electron card so I was able to buy my easyjet tickets with no charge - sorry Stelios.

Wednesday was a little selling, I was over at St Andrews seeing a potential new client, the meeting went well and it looks like there will be some business there in the future. Thursday was a continuation of the selling with a trip to Glasgow to see 2 potential commercial clients and a potential Wedding client, all meetings went well and I have some work to do for 1 of these clients in the next week or so and another job in January for the other one. The Wedding Meeting went well and hopefully I'll have another booking from that. All in all it was a good day, feeling a little better and a successful day. The evening was spent processing, sorting, cropping and generally tidying up photographs for clients then uploading them to the labs web space for prints. I worked solidly until 10.40 so I was knackered.

Today I am writing this blog using the free wifi in Braes, Perth Road Dundee as I have dropped Susans car in for new tyres and I'm getting my hair cut at 11.00 so I better go. Exciting stuff ehh!

Ryanair

We’re off to Spain in January for a break, Ryanair have started a route from Edinburgh to Malaga which is easier than Glasgow for us, also the times are better than the Easyjet flight. So, we tried to book 2 tickets, they are  quite cheap at £60 each return so I was happy. We expected to have to pay a Credit Card premium but we were not expecting a premium of around £4 per person per flight – an extra £16 on the fare.

 

 

I can’t believe that the banks charge Ryanair that sort of money for each card, in fact it must be a charge per transaction rather than each flight – what a con!

The only way to avoid this is to use a Visa Electron card, they have obviously chosen that card as almost nobody has one, well guess what Ryanair – I now have one, you’ll not be getting any more credit card fees from me.

Andy and Jen

Today I was in Farleyer House, Aberfeldy for Andy and Jens Wedding. It was a small intimate affair with only 19 adults and 15 children. Farleyer house can only just accommodate that number of people, it's a stunning venue but very small.

Jen and Andy are a lovely couple and welcomed me into the day like a member of the family, everyone was very friendly we got some great shots. Although I'd only met them twice before the Wedding I felt as though I had know them for ages. As usual I was far too early but I wasn't sure what the weather was doing, at least I had plenty of time to take photographs of the cake - which was lovely and made by Jens Mum!

The Registrar turned up and the whole Ceremony was over in 10 minutes. I got on with some formal shots but Andy and Jen were both slightly uncomfortable in fornt of the camera so we got that bit over with quickly and I set about capturing the fun and emotion of the day. I left just after they had sat down to eat.

450D

A few months back I bought a load of new kit, this included a Canon 450D which I wanted to use as a travel camera as it is quite small. I bought a Sigma lens to go with it. I'd never really used it before Tuesday when we went to Tentsmuir and I have to say I was slightly disappointed with the results. On close examination they were quite soft and grainy, even at 200iso. I examined this further and took some shots with expensive lenses, this was better but still not very good. I also took the same shots on a 5D (a much more expensive camera) and the difference was like night an day. I appreciate that the 5d is 3 times as much but I still feel that I should get a nice sharp image from the 450.

A chat with my supplier, Warehouse Express discovered that this might be a known problem (I guess the guy at Warehouse should not have said this) so he agreed to have it back and will return it to Canon - we'll see what the outcome is. If they say nothing is wrong then I'll be wanting a refund, if they say they will replace it then I'll be testing it thoroughly as soon as I get it.

This was a replacement for the camera that was damaged when we were travelling through Europe earlier this year and readers of my previous blog (http://ourbigtriproundeurope.blogspot.com) will remember that thanks to our dog Ben my last camera ended up in the river. If I am not satisfied with the Canon then I don't know what I will go for next.

Days Off

I am gradually figuring out that it's difficult to distinguish between days at work and days off. Today was a day off, Susan had a day off so I decided I would too. We took the dogs for a run on Tentsmuir for a couple of hours then we went for a nice lunch. On the way back we did a bot of shopping then I had to head back to Dundee to see a couple about a Wedding next June.

Venture - No More?

Many Photographers have a dislike of Venture (www.thisisventure.com), the Professional Photography news groups are full of people moaning about how much they charge and how much money they seem to be making. I, however, look at this slightly differently. Venture came along and took a pretty old and tired section of the Photography market, they fine tuned it, made it better and massively increased the value of high class family portraiture photography. Personally, I have a great deal of respect for Venture for what they have done. Other Photographers have 2 choices, they can carry on moaning about what Venture are doing or they can join the band wagon. What Venture do, technically, is not difficult and any Photographer with a few thousand pounds of Studio equipment, space and a modicum of technical ability can easily create these type of photographs. And, they can do it it a fraction of the price and still make good money.

Whether Venture are justified in charging the prices they do is a question that can only be judged by the clients. And that brings me to my point, Perth Venture is no more, they shut down in the last few months and all business has been transferred to Aberdeen. So far as I know Edinburgh and Glasgow are still trading as normal. Now, this might be due to the Credit Crunch or it might be just the fact that people dont want to pay hundreds of pounds for a print any more, or, it might be because people like me have come along and are doing it as well as them and charging less for it - who knows. Personally, I'd have thought that Perth and its surrounding area would have been a great place to open a Venture Studio but obviously not.

Odd Email
I've just received an annomous email through my web site which must be from another Photographer, it reads:

You're ruining the industry as well as your business offering your clients the copyright of their images.

Now, this email is blank and unsigned so I cant enter into serious debate with this person about the merits or other wise of offering Copyright Free Wedding Photography but I do feel that it suits my business well, I'm pretty busy so that would suggest that clients are happy with it too. I understand why Photographers want to hang onto the copyright as it means they can sell on loads of prints at a vastly inflated price, dont get me wrong, there is a time and place for hanging on to the copyright, I just don't feel that it is for Wedding Photography. I like to treat people the way I'd like to be treated myself and I'd be pretty hacked off paying someone over £500 for a days work then having to go to them every time I need another print. In addition to that there is the practical point, some of my clients come from Abroad and they don't want the hassles of me shipping prints and albums round the globe, they would rather obtain them locally. Also, as people get more skilled in digital technology then they would obviously like to put together their own albums, create web sites and make their own prints - who are we to stop them.

So, if Mr or Mrs annomous wants to have a serious discussion then please do get in touch but this time dont be afraid to leave your email.

First Real Post

It's been an interesting week, Sunday was the first of my studio sessions in Blairgowrie rugby club, it was not quite as busy as I'd hoped but we did 7 family portraits and the feedback has been excellent so I'd call that a success. Monday started with a meeting at Aerovision IT in Cupar my web site people, we made a few minor tweaks to the site them it went live. I have to say that I'm really pleased with the results and I must say a HUGE thank you to Ian at Limehouse Design and Danny at Aerovision IT for the effort and commitment they made to the task, it's a great site and they both worked very hard. I'd have absolutely no hesitation in recommending them to anyone needing Graphic Design or Web site Construction.

  

 

 

 

 

Monday afternoon was in Perthshire for a Nursery Session, it was very busy with loads of Children and families, the pics are on line now and the feedback I have had so far has been very good. It's a long hard afternoon but it passes very quickly.

Tuesday morning was spent Processing and uploading the photographs from Sunday then it was back to Perthshire for the second day of the Nursery sessions. Not quite so busy this time but that meant I could spend longer with each family.

Wednesday was spent at my PC processing and uploading the photographs to various web sites, a boring and repetitive task but it has to be done. At least I had time to walk the dogs for a couple of hours round the woods. In the afternoon I went to my Mothers to help get her new kitchen back to normal 

Thursday was through to Glasgow for some business portraiture for a Housing Association client, I had to go to 2 separate venues and in total I photographed around 50 people. The day had a bad start, I loaded the  gear into my car then found it would not start. The boot had been unlocked all night which meant the little light had been on and drained the battery. Thankfully one of our neighbours came to my rescue and gave me a jump start. The job went to plan with no hassles at all.

Friday was back to processing and uploading pictures from last week, the print orders are starting to come through now so thats good.