SmugMug Development Lab

Do you know Lee Morris, pro photographer, video producer, and educator? He's a seasoned commercial, advertising, fashion, and wedding photographer, plus he's co-founder of the website Fstoppers.com. He took a moment to reflect on the wedding business, why it's so hard, how it's changing, and how pros like you can make the most of it by staying true to your heart.

‍The role of sentimentality in business.

When it comes to managing a business as intimate as wedding photography, it’s easy to let your emotions take over. I try my best to approach my photography business as I would any other business. I need to manage my time, keep my current clients happy, consistently book new clients, and make money. Many photographers fail to meet at least one of these goals. Maybe you’re really good at making your current clients happy, but you work too much and you don’t enjoy your job or have time to enjoy your life. Maybe you book a ton of work, but you don’t charge enough and you’re constantly struggling financially. 

During the digital revolution, many photographers who didn’t change their pricing structure were incapable of making their current clients happy. Maybe their pictures were great, but as digital started to take over, couples felt like they were getting nickeled and dimed after the event. If you can’t make your current clients happy, you’re going to struggle to find new clients.

When I started my business years ago, I learned early on that I hated making prints and albums. I could shoot a wedding in a few hours and make a few thousand dollars, but it would take me a full day to retouch a few pictures, print them myself, or take the files to a lab, package them up, take them to the post office, and I would only make a few dollars’ profit. In many cases my clients would have to wait weeks to actually get their prints because I was out of the state shooting another job. I decided I was going to start giving away the digital files with each of my weddings. Maybe I would lose a few dollars on the back end, but I was also gaining a ton of free time; and my clients were happier because they could print their pictures how they wanted, when they wanted.

As a single guy in my twenties, money was important to me, but free time was far more valuable. Once I had booked my 20 or 30 weddings for the year, I knew I had plenty of income to support myself and had the security to start working on other things. With the extra time I had gained, I created the photography website Fstoppers.com. If I had focused on custom prints and albums like other photographers do, I have no doubt I would have made a bit more money, but Fstoppers has been far more rewarding. Creating videos for our website like Bon Jovi’s photographer behind the scenes, Peter Hurley’s: The Art Behind The Headshot, or How To Become A Wedding Photographer has been the most exciting experiences of my life.

My point is that you may love your photography career (I sure do), but if you can give yourself some extra time, who knows what you’ll be able to create.

SmugMug = time = money.

When I found SmugMug, I realized it filled three major needs in my business:

1. High-resolution backups are included with the subscription.
2. It allowed me to promote my photography by giving guests and family members a place to go to see my work.
3. Bay Photo integration meant I gave my clients high-quality prints without actually having to do any work.

By simplifying my business, I was meeting all four goals above; I had more free time, my clients were happier, I was marketing to new potential clients, and I was making money from print sales each month.

It’s easy to think we know what’s best for our clients. We may know that if they don’t book an album now, they will probably never get one made. But the sad truth is that many of our clients would rather put their pictures on Facebook than deal with an album. It’s important to remember that we are hired by these couples to do a service for them; if they don’t want prints, we should figure out what they do want and charge them accordingly for that. 

If you’ve ever bought a car before, you know how obnoxious it can be when the salesman tries to sell you on something you don’t want. There are so many other ways to make money with wedding photography that may not involve expensive prints. I make far more money than I ever did selling prints by selling engagement and bridal sessions, setting up a photobooth at receptions, selling video slideshows of the event, and offering a video service. Many photographers also don’t know that SmugMug makes it incredibly easy to sell digital copies of files. If you don’t want to give away your files like I do, you’re able to set the size and price for each individual picture.

I want to make clear that I love high-quality prints and that many wedding photographers make a lot of money selling prints, even today. I love seeing my work printed huge, professionally framed, and hanging on a wall. My point is simply that times are changing and the current generation of brides probably do not want the same things that their mothers wanted. To stay ahead of the pack, you need to deliver exactly what your clients are looking for, not what you think they will appreciate one day.

If I could sum up this article into a single point it would be this: Listen to your clients, and give them what they want. A happy bride will tell her friends how wonderful you are, and you will never have to worry about a shortage of work. In some cases, especially this one, it can make your life a lot simpler, and you might even make more money.

All photos by RL Morris Weddings.