The good, bad and ugle truths of running a photography company - Part 1

I thought it would be fun to share some insights into what running a niche photography business is like warts and all. We frequently get asked a lot of this. Most people don’t realise how specialist this hospitality photography game really is. We are a tiny team but came together in 2015 and over the years added a complimentary web design service to initially help clients use the images properly. This is part 1 of the good, the bad and the ugly. Hope you enjoy it!

The good :

-???????It’s definitely a great feeling being able to help totally lift and transform a business (holiday properties, hotels, B&Bs ?etc) in just 2 days. 1 day shooting and 1 day editing then WHAM! We have just given the business the ammo (killer images) to market themselves better than they have ever before. Owners always LOVE LOVE LOVE their deliverables. It’s such a wonderful discrete service and always feels amazing to be able to support like this. ?They call us, we arrange dates, we shoot, edit, WHAM! (We just need to remember to invoice as sometimes we have been known to forget)

-???????Working with such passionate photographers is amazing and inspiring. These guys really love their art and are always pushing to improve and learn. Working closely with such people really does help to leading a happy and fulfilled life. ?

-???????Clients and partners. We learnt early that if we listened really hard to our clients and partners we would find many answers to all our business problems. We genuinely feel so lucky to have many amazing clients which makes us naturally want to go the extra mile for them.

The bad :

-???????Trying to get our pricing right for photography over the years has always been really hard. For far too many years we worked like crazy and realised we had hardly made any money and quite often we were losing money on jobs! But it was actually OK as we made a bit of a name for ourselves and had gained many happy clients. Commercially we had to improve a bit as we wanted to look after our guys long term. Now we focus on quality not volume. Interestingly we seem to have even happier and more satisfied clients. Basically, it’s good working with customers who value you more. ??

-???????Petrol prices. Stupidly we never charge for mileage – but ask for a small contribution. Not such a wise move right now :(

-???????Seasonality – the problem with photographing holiday homes is what to do with the guys in the holiday periods when it’s very hard to access properties! We don’t always want to take 8 weeks off – so any ideas are hugely appreciated!

The ugly :

-???????Editing. This happens secretly, painstakingly and quietly in dark rooms. No one see’s every image being edited by hand and no-one like to pay for it. Two times we experimented trying to outsource this in the early years but it always returned absolutely rubbish results, was expensive and so not ACT. Editing is an art and so we vowed never to try it ever again and people would just have to wait. And that’s been OK. Interestingly if you send images back too quickly then customers don’t feel you have spent long enough giving then the love.

-???????Hiring the right people has been incredibly hard. Not many people ‘get it’ and have the same values and talent as the rest of the team. You have to be so careful and in this business people don’t realise its hard work ensuring they have enough work to always do. Also whilst everyone has a camera –finding ‘hospitality grade’ property photographers are like unicorns. We used to advertise occasionally and got ~400 replies. Another vow was never to advertise again. ?

-???????Admin – lets face it – no one loves admin. Given how bad we have been at it we firmly believe our poor accountant hates us with passion but we are artists so admin comes last! Richard is most definitely a super star and we do love and value his support. ?