Decisions, Decisions
Shortly after starting my business I realized I needed to make some investments in marketing – website, etc.. The business was doing well for a startup but it was clear that if I were to take it to the next level, I needed to up my game. I created some loose specs for what I wanted and talked to several vendors about doing the work, and contracted with them for the work. I made my choices based primarily on budget vs. what my gut (and years of experience) was telling me. Fast forward, I eventually reinvested in those pieces, this time going with my gut and the results exceeded my expectations. I realized I was never happy with the outcome of the original investment, and it wound up costing me more in the long run – it’s not like I couldn’t afford to go the more expensive route initially – I just set an artificial cap on spending. The kick in the head for me was that I’ve had this experience before in making purchases both personal and for business.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a similar story from new clients who want to update headshots of their team even though they were done not too long ago by another photographer. The original decision was based primarily on price and many people did not like their photos - now they’re paying for another photographer (me) to come in and shoot these people again. Not only is costing more, but there is an additional disruption and people already have a negative experience they have to overcome.
It turns out the cost of the original shoot was directly proportional to the previous photographer’s process, which involved shooting someone every 2-3 minutes – smile, click, turn, click, smile, click next person. While this may work for people who are comfortable/experienced in front of a camera, it’s not going to work across a broad spectrum of people.
A more effective approach is to make it more of a collaborative process by allowing more time for each person to establish some rapport and to help them relax, establish some communication, and lay out the process for how things are going to go. You then need to coach them, shoot some, review the results, go back in and shoot some more based on those results, etc.. – and make sure they like the images before their mini session is complete.
My recent work with Tulip is a great example of why this process works so well – some people were comfortable in front of the camera, knew the look they liked – others needed more time and had specific concerns about their appearance. For the latter, we had enough time to work through those issues and get images they liked. For both, we had enough time to explore whether they looked better smiling with teeth, or without, some facing the camera directly while others were turned slightly. We also had time to work to get shots that looked natural – not like those high school yearbook pictures where the smiles look like they had something bad for lunch.
Ultimately, the choice depends on what your goals for the session are – if you just want everyone to have something better than a selfie then a higher quality headshot may be overkill. On the other hand if you plan to utilize these images in various channels, on various platforms (eg, website, trade publications/websites, speaking engagements, etc), or as a perk then a higher quality result is likely a better choice – unless you’re OK learning the lesson I did.
