The Professional Photography Forum

The Professional Photography Forum is one year old!

We have grown from a rag-tag group of 3-4 people into an international (still rag-tag) group of 250! We have generated 16,731 posts on 1,369 topics.

The first few months were slim, but by being a place where professionals could ask questions and share thoughts without fear, we have managed to create a community that currently gets 200k hits per month (1.5 million since inception) from 6k unique visits per month (50k since inception).

Most stats will be available in the Forum Discussion category of the fourm. I’ll leave the stats on added revenue for our members via ideas spawned on this forum for more private conversations.

Thank you all for helping make this site what it is. Hold on tight — year two promises lots of great additions.

What are your pricing policies regarding duplicate CD/DVDs of images?

A discussion of flash brackets for event photography with recommendations and other observations

A discussion of the why and how of syncing your assistant’s cameras to yours when shooting events, what to do if you forgot

Thoughts on the recently discovered Ansel Adams glass negs and their meaning to Adams collectors and other legal considerations

Scratching your artistic itch while shooting for the client

One member wrote: “I was reading this morning about the SBA and the loans they give out.  I’ve always been the type that doesn’t like to be in debt.”

“What is our clients’ perception of us” is a topic in Marketing:  “One guy kept talking about how great he was…this guy kept on ‘talking himself up’…. “It was a real turn off… ”

Another member posted: “I plan to have 5 banners at the county fair this year as the BG to my booth (10′ wide and 6 feet high). Cost? about $85.”  Find out how he plans to do that.

In the section on dealing with Clients, a member expressed the concern we all feel with ‘no show’ and short notice cancellations and how we deal with them.

A studio posted a gallery of corporate head shots and requested a professional review, with guidelines for future improvement.  Because TPPF is geared toward professional development, no one ripped the work, and most had constructive comments towards improving.

Another, just started thread, wondered “How does one’s website get hacked, and what can be done to lessen the chances?”

To find out more, join TPPF by getting authenticated – enter the forums!!

In order to keep you professional photographers who haven’t taken the plunge  yet up to date on what’s being discussed in the Private Fora, here’s a partial list of what’s been getting attention recently:

Cost of Doing Business-What’s an 8×10 Cost? Discussion of how we figure the cost of doing business (CODB).  Since this forum is about the business of photography, these are the meat and potatoes essentials.

What Do You Make Per Client?–How to push it up? While related to the topic described above, this is different enough that both are getting good attention.  Since most of us are by nature more artistically inclined, sales and marketing often get short shrift – even snubbed as beneath a “real” artist.  Bull.  Or is it?  Get yourself authenicated and chime in.

Video is a Time Sink This recent post is warning that the much vaunted video inclusive DSLRs or add-on items like the Video Flip take far more time than we may have thought.  Since we’re all being told this is the “wave of the future”, what to do and how to plan?

Still going hot’n'heavy is “Are Prints Becoming Secondary?”-private discussion. While originally started in the Open Forum, this topic quickly took turns that indicated it risked business sensitive discussion.  Good discussion!

Don’t hesitate!  If you’re a professional photographer, tired of watching the gutting of the market, this may be the place for you.  It’s free, we have pros from China to Australia to the US and Canada to the UK and all we ask of you is that you establish your credentials with us (authentication) to gain access to the closed sections.  We take copyright seriously, encourage collegial discussion and the moderators are alert to unprofessional behavior or communications.  Hey, if not satisfied, we’ll refund your money (tha’s a joke Mate, it’s free, OK?)

Not to pat our collective selves on the back (well, not too much) but TPPF has just surpassed 10,000 posts.  As a fairly niche market forum, we’re proud of that accomplishment in a mere 8 months and want to thank ALL the members who make it so fun and interesting.  Let’s keep this ramped up and rolling along, providing a place for pros to discuss our business and industry concerns.  Congratulations to everyone.

As you may have figured out by now, TPPF (The Professional Photography Forum) has two levels of participation.  Open membership which, as the name implies, is viewable to all on the ‘net.  The other level, Private, is available through a process of what we call “authentication”.  It’s not heavy lifting, and it is FREE but it does require an applicant to provide his or her real CV to Admin.  This allows the professional photographers who do authenticate to know that they are talking with people like themselves: folks in the business of earning a living, at least in part, through the sale of their services and images.

There are varying levels of this, as we all know, as well as different areas of specialization, but one of the more remarkable features of TPPF aside from the quality of photography, is how polite we are as work together to deal with the “opportunities” this business presents.

What’s being discussed in the closed fora?  Well, the hot topics the past few days have been:

“Senior Marketing and Pricing” How to adapt and stay current in marketing and selling to high school seniors

“Boudoir Bride” Samples and critique of a boudoir session an upcoming bride commissioned for her groom to be

“Retouching Proofs (or not)” In today’s competitive market, how are you putting your best foot forward?  Retouch everything before showing or something else?

“Impact of iPad, iPhone and iTouch on Photographer’s Websites” The recent release of the iPad and how these products may affect photographers, as the don’t play Adobe Flash based sites.

You know all your flashes and other photographic gear that requires you to have hundreds of ‘AA’ batteries sitting around the studio?  Well, here is everything you always wanted to know about rechargeable batteries, from a professional photographers standpoint. Learn to get the most life out of your batteries – both while on location and extending the usable life of the battery itself; as well as how to test your old ones to know if they are any good.

Jump to the Battery information article

Looking to produce printable DVD’s (maybe some Taiyo Yuden Watersheild discs that we talk about all the time) as deliverables to your clients, but can’t quite make the templates work right? This article goes though and shows you how to make it happen. Full of other Photoshop tips and tricks, it’s even useful for photographers who don’t plan to make discs but just want to speed up their Photoshop workflow.

Direct link to photoshop tutorial post here. Remember, you must be a member of the professional photography forum (free) to read the articles.

Photobooth, Portrait Station, CRaZyBooTH!… whatever you call it, the idea is the same: To provide something even more special, unique, and fun for your clients than the traditional photobooth concept (which, itself, is still seen as pretty unique by most people). This article is a technical and logistical “how-to” – from lighting, to tethering the camera, to on-site printing. We even offer a $100 off deal on a great printer.

This article is only available to members of the forum . It is posted in the “Articles” section of the forum. Sign up for the forum (it’s free)

Forums are a dime a dozen; good forums are few and far between; good photography-based forums are even more rare. Even of those that offer some value, none quite offer the right mix for a working pro (or even an aspiring pro) who doesn’t feel like dropping hundreds on a forum before they even see the contents, or whom doesn’t feel like wading through a tidal wave of dross in order to find a single nugget of value.

Fed up with the current state of the internet with regard to online sharing of information amongst photographic professionals, we have decided to start fresh – create a new forum where sharing is to be rewarded with further sharing by others and honest (which doesn’t always mean complementary) critique and/or discussion. A forum where immature sniping will be moderated and condescension banned, and where mutual respect and a common desire to raise our profession will rule.

So welcome – we are looking forward to having you join the discussion.