The Power Of Presention…
For the working professional there is a constant battle as you look to differentiate your work from that of other pros and keen amateurs. These days, with the proliferation of relatively cheap Digital SLRs and good-quality ‘prosumer’ digital compacts, it is more important than ever to stand out from the crowd.
It seems as though every man and his dog is suddenly a ‘reportage’ wedding photographer or a ‘lifestyle’ portrait photographer, and this over-saturation of the low to middle end of the market is causing a major headache for many established professionals. The sad fact is that many good photographers have had to throw in the towel and leave the business altogether, while others are feeling the pinch. Life for the commercial or PR photographer is also tougher than ever.
So the problem is: How do we go about giving prospective clients a reason to spend their hard-earned cash with us rather than go elsewhere? Obviously, it goes without saying that producing top-quality images is always important. Great customer service, good marketing, pricing, and attitude all help as well.
However these days, even if you are on top of all these things, you still need more. You should be looking for something that will help you to stand out from the crowd and which will differentiate your work from your competition, and presentation is often the answer. We’re not talking here about run-of-the-mill frames and albums that are likely to look the same as those provided by any other studio. Rather you should be spending time looking to source new and innovative ways to showcase your pictures, so that your customers will be genuinely surprised by what you show them, and are unlikely to be able to find exactly the same offering anywhere else.
Recently I have been privileged to see a few new offerings first-hand, and Digital Photo Pro asked me to share my thoughts as a working professional. Hence this feature, where I’m aiming to give my honest opinion without hype and with the clear understanding that I have no connections with the companies mentioned.
I was called by William Silverstone from Rascal Print, who offer printing of images directly onto acrylic. These days, many pro labs offer an option whereby an image can be sandwiched between a couple of pieces of acrylic with superb results, but it’s still the case that the print is made in the conventional way. What Rascal Print was promising, however, was something distinctively different and, following a chat with William over the phone, I agreed to load a few carefully-selected images onto his ftp server so that some test ‘prints’ could be made.
We agreed to meet at the SWPP International Convention, where I was a speaker, to go over the results. I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting to be particularly impressed; I was actually assuming that I would see something similar to the usual acrylic products produced by one of the aforementioned labs.
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| Well, the call went out at the convention for me to meet William at the Digital Photo Pro stand, where the images had been set up. I must admit I was instantly blown away by what I saw. A special technique had been used to print the images directly onto the back of the acrylic, and they were completely different to pretty much anything that I had ever seen before. The result is almost three-dimensional and, of the five images that we had selected for this test, I thought that three of them worked amazingly well. The best of the lot was a high-key candid shot of a bride. Taken against a sunlit window, this was a monochrome image. The acrylic print held together all the subtle detail of her veil, eyelashes and hair, and turned a nice image into a stunningly beautiful piece of contemporary art. The high-key, white background of the original print was replaced by the crystal-clear background of the acrylic and this gave a feeling of perpetual depth. I was blown away!
Another image was a colour portrait of a friend’s daughter, taken just before she left for her school prom. This was a very colourful and saturated image of a red-haired girl in a deep blue ball gown, taken by window light on a staircase. The colours were stunningly recreated and the whole image was attracting immediate interest from photographers just passing by.
The third image that worked well was one taken at one of the Civil Partnerships I regularly cover. Once again it was black and white and it featured the guys leaning against some railings, with the burned-out shell of Brighton’s West Pier heading out into the distance behind them. This is a quite a strong and graphic image and I thought that the acrylic treatment suited it particularly well, lending it a very strong three-dimensional feel with the pier heading out of focus into the background.
The other two images were a black-and-white candid moment of a bride looking into a handheld mirror with her hairdresser off-focus looking back into the shot, and a punchy colour shot of a groom with his bride set well back in the distance. For me the candid shot worked ok but I felt it was perhaps not the best choice of image to display on a wall. With regards to the colour shot, the bride ended up being lost against the clear background, and the fact that she was a small element within the original framing made this situation worse.
Small niggles apart, the first three images worked amazingly well. I was very surprised by how well the colours had been rendered and by the stunning 3-D effect that resulted when the prints were hung on a white or magnolia wall. In my opinion, the acrylic approach works best with images that have a clean, graphic look and it would be particularly well suited to high-key studio portraiture. I am also sure that this kind of look would appeal to wedding clients who want something a bit different from the canvas print that is now so prevalent, and there would certainly be a market for commercial photographers as well.
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| They would have great appeal to clients whose homes feature a modern décor. Acrylic offers an extremely contemporary form of presentation and I’m sure that, once seen, they would walk out of the studio door. The pricing I was given was extremely competitive as well: for the professional user the larger 70cm size was priced at around £65 complete, while smaller sizes come in at under £50. This would enable a studio to build in a good profit level while offering a stand-out product of some impact. I mounted a couple of the best results on a wall at home, and they work really well there. The pictures here give some indication of the overall effect, although they don’t truly capture the three-dimensional feel that results from the shadow that falls directly behind the acrylic. This is a product that needs to be seen to be appreciated, and those who intend to offer them to clients will need to have a facility to show them in situ in the correct environment. Do this and I have no doubt that you will achieve maximum impact and some positive sales.
Conclusion Over recent years we have seen the popularity of fresh and interesting lifestyle products rise beyond belief. Gone are the old gilt and swept frames, and in are newer ideas, often inspired by TV programs and fashion and interior design magazines.
This has given professional photographers new avenues to pursue, and a golden opportunity to generate extra income. Chunky canvas wraps remain extremely popular, but they should be seen as just the beginning of a market full of possibilities.
As I work from home and primarily specialize in weddings I do find it hard to sell larger, more expensive wall pictures. However, with clients becoming more design- and fashion-conscious year on year, being able to offer products that they can’t pick up at the local minilab in Tesco is a great way to keep the bank balance healthy.
The biggest issue is that they ideally need to be seen, properly displayed in an appropriate environment, to be fully appreciated. For myself, as someone who works from home and who is often booked blind on recommendation or through our website, it will be a challenge to see how many we can move. Our idea is to have a few items that complement each other and which feature our own children on display around our home and this, we hope, will suit our own requirements as well, since my wife certainly doesn’t want to see last year’s brides hanging from every wall!
The main beneficiaries of the latest forms of presentation will certainly be studio-based photographers, who will be able to display lots of design ideas around their sales and meeting rooms. Once clients see some of these items in the flesh I am convinced that they will want them and, more importantly, they will be prepared to pay high prices for them. It’s all about creating desire in your clients: this morning I had two of the acrylic prints standing up against my wall and a couple came in to discuss their wedding. Their eyes lit up when they saw them and immediately the seed was sown in their minds about the possibilities.
Pitched correctly, they should be able to generate a decent level of extra sales (and therefore profits) for most social photographers, which is always a good thing and what we are in business for in the first place.
PETER PRIOR
www.peterprior.com;
01323 740741
www.peterprior-photography.blogspot.com
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