Out of Frame

Client Love - part 2

2010-09-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite photographers EVER is the focus of our client spotlight today. And not just because her photography is gorgeous, which it obviously IS.

Ashley Thalman is one of my favorite photographers because she is one of my favorite people. She is REAL. And when she took our family photos last fall, I felt truly blessed to be captured by her lens.

Take a look at some of her beautiful work at her website, and her blog.

And here:

Client Love

2010-08-23T09:29:00.001-07:00

Forgive us for the long sabbatical from blog land! We have spent the summer working hard for some amazing clients, and trying to find our groove in this amazing new work load.

I would love to introduce you to our fabulous clients over the next couple of weeks. We do different work for each of them, but we love them all.

Today's featured client is Michelle Trujillo of

Trujillo Photography in Folsom, CA.

She's currently building her new business, and her portfolio has some great stuff

with some interesting twists.

Like pets!

Go on over and visit Michelle's site! And if you live in the Folsom area, give her a call!

Spring Special

2010-04-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

Take advantage of our Spring Special before the week is over.

If you sign up now for an initial meeting, you will receive 20% off of the service of your choice to use in the future.

Wedding/family photo season is just around the corner. This is the time of year that things get crazy for all of you, and we'd love to be here to help! If we can meet with you and go through your process BEFORE your work gets overwhelming, it will be a breeze to send your work to us in the heat of summer.

Questions about our services?

Email us at outofframephotoservices@gmail.com

We'd love to talk to you and figure out what we can do to simplify your business life and make your summer about fun and family, rather than stress.

PhotoCamp is Streaming

2010-03-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

Even though PhotoCamp Utah is sold out, you can still watch it. . .

streaming live to your very own computer

(follow that link or search for PhotoCamp Utah on ustream.com)

Follow this link to watch tomorrow.

SO many cool workshops and an amazing keynote by Zack Arias.

Sponsorship

2010-02-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

We are excited to announce that Out Of Frame will be a sponsor for PhotoCamp Utah this year!

Check out their website for all the details.

The event is sold out, but you CAN get on the wait list.

We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on March 20th at the

Miller Conference Center in Salt Lake City.

2010-01-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

Who Are You Guys?

2009-11-10T21:20:00.000-08:00

Melanie and Ben Hess are a wife and husband team who both earned BAs in theatre arts studies, with an emphasis in stage management. Now, after you’ve rolled your eyes and said, “Theatre people...” to yourself in an exasperated tone, let us explain. Stage managers provide the needed communication and organization to prepare a show for performance, and bear responsibility for maintaining the show’s artistic integrity through its run. While we do fancy ourselves creative types, we are used to being the left-brained people in the right-brained room.

Melanie has made a living as an organizer in marketing departments at two different billion-dollar companies. She’s spent the last 10 years as a photo archivist, has worked with countless photographers and work flows and, believe it or not, loves the tedious stuff most photographers hate.

Ben found he missed college, and went back to earn a master of public administration. After four years of managing a multi-million dollar budget and talking down the occasional angry parent at his day job, he's well-prepared to help with your administrative needs.

We live in Utah, and love to work with local clients because it gives us the opportunity to see their process first hand, and eliminates the need for costly shipping for exchanging hard drives, packaging materials, and prints. We love clients from any state, but we're especially fond of our local photographers.

Pricing Example #1

2009-11-10T21:10:00.000-08:00

Stephanie is a maternity, newborn and child photographer in Austin, TX, who does about 8 shoots per month, for which she charges $300 each. She has 2 small children and is spending all of her stay at home mom time working on photography.

She likes to do her own editing and prefers to communicate with and bill her clients herself, but forgets to remind her clients when they need to order prints or when their galleries are expiring. She also finds the packaging part to be fun, so she doesn't need help with that. She doesn't offer client CDs. She does, however, have several online albums that need to be uploaded to for each session and she can't seem to stay on top of all of them. Each of her sessions produces about 40 final images.

During her two week trial period, we did 20 hours of work to figure out what she needed from us and how long each of her processes would take. For that 20 hours of trial time, we charged her $100.

After those two weeks were up, we set up a monthly and per session breakdown of how much our services would cost.

Her pricing breakdown looks like this:

Resizing/watermarking: $10/session (app. 30 minutes)

Uploading to her website, blog, Flickr account, and facebook fan page: $15/session (app. 45 minutes)

So, Stephanie hands her photos over to us after they're edited, saving her 1-1.5 hours of work on each session, or 8-12 hours a month. For that, she pays us $25/session or $200/month.

Stephanie makes use of 2 of our monthly services:

Secure off site back-up: $5/month

Client reminder emails about print orders: $10/month (app. 30 minutes)

Her monthly total, on average: $215/month

She will update her pricing structure in January to absorb the cost of outsourcing.

Timeline Example #1

2009-11-10T21:05:00.000-08:00

Stephanie is a maternity, newborn and child photographer in Austin, TX, who does about 8 shoots per month. Each of her sessions produces about 40 final images.

Her timeline breakdown looks like this:

Resizing/watermarking: within 24 hrs

Uploading to her website, blog, Flickr account, and facebook fan page: within 24 hours

Client reminder emails about print orders: Once a week, on Monday, until the gallery expires

Pricing Example #2

2009-11-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

Jenny is a portrait photographer in Layton, UT, who specializes in family and senior photography. She has a full time job, and does photography on the side to help support her husband through his last year of college. Jenny LOVES to take pictures, but is really not a fan of the time she spends stuck in front of her computer editing. Her color correction process is pretty simple, but she finds it tedious. She does about 5 sessions a month.

Jenny only charges her clients $200/session and included in that price is a CD of their high res images. During our two week trial with Jenny, we gathered her information about her work flow when she edits and did some test runs. We sent files back and forth for approval until she was happy with the results we were getting. We determined that her process takes approximately 1.5 hours for each session of 75 photos.

After those two weeks were up, we set up a monthly and per session breakdown of how much our services would cost.

Her pricing breakdown looks like this:

Post processing/color correction: $20/session (app. 1-1.5 hours)

Resizing/watermarking: $10/session (app. 30 minutes)

Uploading to her website, blog, and facebook fan page: $10/session (app. 30 minutes)

Client CD burning and labeling: $5/session (app. 15 minutes)

So, Jenny hands us her SOOC photos and we do the rest, saving her between 2-2.5 hours a session, or 10-12 hours a month. For that we charge her $45/session or $135/month.

Jenny only takes advantage of one of our monthly services:

Secure off site back-up: $5/month

Her monthly total, on average: $140/month

To make up the cost of outsourcing, Jenny is thinking about adding one extra client a month, from her waiting list.

Timeline Example #2

2009-11-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

Jenny is a portrait photographer in Layton, UT, who specializes in family and senior photography. She does about 5 sessions a month. Each session consists of about 75 final images. Because we are doing her post processing, the time lines are slightly longer than average.

Her timeline breakdown looks like this:

Post processing/color correction: 72 hours or less

Resizing/watermarking: 72 hours or less

Uploading to her website, blog, and facebook fan page: 72 hours or less

Client CD burning and labeling: 4 days or less

Pricing Example #3

2009-11-10T20:50:00.000-08:00

Abigail is a child and family photographer in Lehi, UT, who does about 10 shoots per month, for which she charges $500 each. She has 5 children and is completely overwhelmed by the amount of work she has to do once the kids are in bed.

She needs help with almost everything.

First, she likes to do her own editing. But after that, she is happy to hand her images over. Each of her sessions produces about 50 final images. During her two week trial period, we did about 30 hours of work to figure out what she needed from us and how long each of her processes would take. For that 30 hours of trial time, we charged her $150.

After those two weeks were up, we set up a monthly and per session breakdown of how much our services would cost.

Her pricing breakdown looks like this:

Resizing/watermarking: $10/session (app. 30 minutes)

Uploading to her website, blog, and facebook fan page: $10/session (app. 30 minutes)

Client CD burning and labeling: $5/session (app. 15 minutes)

Photo Album Creation (Blurb): $20/session (app. 1 hour)

Print order fulfillment & packaging/shipping: $10/session (app. 30 minutes)

So, Abigail hands her photos over to us after they're edited, saving her almost 3 hours of work on each session, or 30 hours a month. For that, she pays us $55/session.

Abigail also takes advantage of several of our monthly services.

Secure off site back-up: $5/month

Client billing/Invoicing: $40/month (app. 2-2.5 hours)

Client correspondence: $75/month (app. 4.5 hours)

For our monthly services, which save her app. 7 hours a month, she pays $120.

Her monthly total, on average: $670/month

Rather than add extra clients to her work load, Abigail finds that it's worth the money spent to ENJOY her photography again, enjoy a good night's sleep every night, and enjoy her time with her kids.

Timeline Example #3

2009-11-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

Abigail is a child and family photographer in Lehi, UT, who does about 10 shoots per month. Each session averages about 50 images.

Her timeline breakdown looks like this:

Resizing/watermarking: within 24 hours

Uploading to her website, blog, and facebook fan page: within 24 hours

Client CD burning and labeling: within 48 hours

Photo Album Creation (Blurb): 5 days or less

Print order fulfillment & packaging/shipping: within 48 hours of order placement

Client billing/Invoicing: within days of booking/shoot

Client correspondence: response to the client within 24 hours

Pricing Example #4

2009-11-10T20:40:00.000-08:00

Seth is a wedding photographer in Phoenix, AZ. Photography is his second job, and while he loves the artistic side of taking photos, the left brained stuff is just too much for him.

He books about 6 sessions per month, including 2 bridals and 2 engagement photos, as well as 2 weddings. On average, he makes $2000 for that work. The smaller sessions average around 50 images each, while the wedding day averages 300 images per session. He chooses about 15 images from each to post on his website, blog and FB. He provides a CD of low res images to each client as part of their session fee. Much of his income comes from print orders. Placing the orders is time consuming, but the packaging is very important to him and has to be done by him. His print orders are shipped to him in AZ. He also gets a backup disc burned each month and shipped to him.

His pricing breakdown looks like this:

Small session resizing/watermarking: $15/session (app. 45 minutes)

Small session CD: $5/session (app. 15 minutes)

Upload to web/blog/FB: $10/session (app. 30 minutes)

Large session resizing/watermarking: $50/session (app. 2 hours)

Large session CD: $10/session (app. 30 minutes)

Print order fulfillment: $15/session (app. 45 minutes)

On average, we save Seth 1.5-3.5 hours/session, or 19 hours a month. He pays an average of $330/month for his 6 sessions.

He uses the following monthly services:

Secure off-site backup: $5/month

Monthly DVD backup: $10/month (shipping is included)

Seth pays $15/month for our backup services.

Seth's monthly average is $345 for our services.

Since this is a small fraction of his income, the time savings and speed of service make it completely worth it both to him and to his clients.

Timeline Example #4

2009-11-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

Seth is a wedding photographer in Phoenix, AZ. He has about 6 sessions per month. 4 of those are smaller engagement/bridal shoots which are about 50 images, 2 are large weddings of about 300 images.

His timeline breakdown looks like this:

Small session resizing/watermarking: within 24 hours

Small session CD: within 48 hours

Upload to web/blog/FB: within 24 hours/within 72 hours

Large session resizing/watermarking: within 72 hours

Large session CD: within 72 hours

Print order fulfillment: within 48 hours of print order placement

Post Processing / Color Correction

2009-11-10T20:30:00.009-08:00

This is the one part of your business that is likely very difficult to let go of. It's crucial to your business that your images are YOUR art. They have to look exactly the way you want them to look. That is a given. We are just as committed to that concept as you are. The last thing we'd want to do is change what's working for you.

If you hand your photos over to us, we will follow every step you ask us to follow. You can write out a process, step by step, and say "Do it JUST LIKE THIS" and we will. If you're less controlling of the process, you can give us general instructions and some examples of your work and tell us to "Make it look kind of like this. . ." We will run test runs on your images, send them back to you for approval. . . whatever makes YOU comfortable.

Bottom line is, we want your photos to look great, and we'll do what we have to do to make sure of it.

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What we need from you:

- Sample images to which we can compare our work

- A step by step outline of the process you use, if you'd like us to follow it

- Any actions you may want us to use on your photos

What we use:

- Apple iMac with Spyder3Pro calibration

- Adobe Photoshop CS4

Resizing and Watermarking

2009-11-10T20:30:00.008-08:00

Once the editing is done, the tedious task of resizing comes next. This is where the art of your business ends. And this is something you can easily hand off to someone else. If you have multiple places you upload your images, you may need to resize 3 or 4 times, for EACH photo.

We do the tedious work for you, exactly the way you would.

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What we need from you:

- Specs for the pixel sizes you use for each upload

- Any additional steps (ie. sharpening) that you use as part of the resizing process

- Any watermarks you want used to brand your images

What we use:

- Apple iMac

- Adobe Photoshop CS4

Updating your Website/Blog/Social Networking Sites

2009-11-10T20:30:00.007-08:00

There are so many online options for displaying your work. Your website, your blog, Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket. . . the list goes on. And keeping your work updated on those sites is crucial to your business. But it's also a pain to keep them up to date.

We resize photos for each of your online spots, watermark them the way you do, and upload them for you. It will feel like magic. And you'll never have to apologize to clients again. Their photos will appear quickly after their session and they can share with their friends and family while they're still excited about their shoot.

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What we need from you:

- Your final files

- Specs for sizes you prefer for each site

- your preferred watermark information

- Log in information for your various online business accounts

What we use:

- Apple iMac

- Adobe Photoshop CS4

- Mozilla Firefox

Photo CD Burning

2009-11-10T20:30:00.006-08:00

Do you provide photo CDs as an option to your clients?

We burn the discs for you, using your labels, or print directly on your discs. We use your packaging. The client will never know it didn't come from you.

Combine this with print order fulfillment and packaging and shipping to take all the stress away from your sessions once the editing is done.

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What we need from you:

- The images from your shoot

- Your labels and or instructions for printing onto CDs

- your packaging

What we use:

- Apple iMac

- Epson Artisan 800 Inkjet All-In-One

Photo Album Creation

2009-11-10T20:30:00.005-08:00

Do you create a keepsake album for each of your clients? Putting one together thoughtfully takes time. You want it to reflect the memories they wanted to capture in a beautiful way.

We do it for you. We can use Blurb. We can use Apple. We can use Snapfish. Anything you use, we can use.

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What we need from you:

- The images from your shoot

- Direction on how YOU create the albums, so we can do it the same way.

What we use:

- Apple iMac

Print Order Fulfillment

2009-11-10T20:30:00.004-08:00

If you're lucky, your clients order lots of prints. Grandparents and aunts and uncles order prints. There's plenty to be done, taking their orders and submitting them to the printer of your choice.

We place the orders for you, and if you combine this with packaging and shipping, can have prints shipped to us, package them and mail them to the client without you having to touch them. If you like to see each print, we can ship them to you, or can bring them to you, if you're local, and get your approval before they're shipped.

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What we need from you:

- Your choice of print vendors

What we use:

- Apple iMac

- Mozilla Firefox

Packaging & Shipping

2009-11-10T20:30:00.003-08:00

Do you already have great packaging that makes your client CDs and prints look amazing when you ship to them? We use your packaging materials to maintain your beautiful presentation. We put everything in the right sleeve, put it in your box, tie it with your bow. And then, we take it to the post office for you, and ship it off to your client. You don't have to do the leg work, but they think it came straight from you.

We keep an inventory of your pieces and let you know when you're running low. And we can reorder for you when the time comes.

Do you still need packaging for your orders? We know some great resources. We can help you design and choose packaging that reflects your brand. And then we can do all of the packaging for you.

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What we need from you:

- Your materials. If you're local, we'll come pick them up. If you're not, just ship them to us

What we use:

- Our own two hands

Secure Off-Site Backup

2009-11-10T20:30:00.002-08:00

No one expects their computer to crash. We expect techonology to work the way it's supposed to work. But sometimes it fails us. And sometimes our kid knocks the Coke over onto our laptop.

No matter how many stories we hear of people losing all of their data, it never really hits home until it's us. And even if you are one of the responsible ones, making 2 or 3 copies of all of your photos and storing them in various places in your home, you aren't completely covered until you have a backup off site.

That way, if the unthinkable happens, someone else has a copy of your information and your business isn't ruined. And we can retrieve it for you and make a copy any time you need it. We can even do periodic backups to DVD so that you can have an extra copy at home.

Let's be honest. . . isn't $5/month worth the peace of mind you'll have from knowing that there's another copy of everything?

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What we need from you:

- Your files, uploaded to our FTP server or on a hard drive or CD/DVD

- Any organization structure you would like to maintain, if there is one

What we use:

- Apple iDisk

- Apple iMac

- 1 TB Western digital external hard drives

Client Correspondence / Scheduling

2009-11-10T20:30:00.001-08:00

Responding to client emails is repetitive and time consuming. Many of the questions are incredibly simple to answer, and can be handled by a third party. We can respond to inquiries about availability, pricing, etc for you. . . in your name, if you prefer, so that your clients can have timely responses without you having to be glued to your email all day. We will respond to their questions quickly, or forward on the questions that require your specific attention when those arise.

If you have specific dates and times that you work, we can also schedule your shoots, eliminating the back and forth of scheduling that often happens from crowding your days.

We prefer that you have an exclusive email for your business that we can have access to, for everyone's security. If you prefer, though, you can forward emails to us that require response, and we can reply from our own account. We want you to feel as secure as possible. And while we guarantee the security of your information, if you're more comfortable forwarding emails, we can easily make that work.

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What we need from you:

- Log in information for your email account (if you are providing it)

- A basic list of FAQs so we will know the answers to client questions (we can provide a list for you to answer for us)

- Available dates for scheduling shoots, updated regularly

What we use:

- Apple iMac

- Mozilla Firefox

Invoicing / Billing / Quickbooks

2009-11-10T20:30:00.000-08:00

Not only is billing your clients and collecting payments awkward, it can be time consuming and hard to stay on top of. We create invoices for you for each shoot, and send reminder invoices to clients that don't pay promptly.

And if you get bogged down in balancing your finances, remembering who has paid and who hasn't, we can take that on as well. We issue monthly statements to keep you aware of where you stand and update you if there are any issues.

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What we need from you:

- Your logo to add to your invoice

- If we aren't managing your client emails, new client updates

- Access to your financial data (securely protected, of course)

What we use:

- Dell PC Laptop

- Quickbooks