Over the last several years, Bryan and Rob have teamed up to educate professional photographers on a number of topics relevant to our industry. We have designed and created a number of workshops and seminars on topics varying from business and marketing to lighting and workflow. Our workshops are delivered with humour, inspiration and are designed to simplify the sometimes complicated world of photography.
If you would like to host one of our seminars, we would love to get in touch. Please contact us for more information.
The topics that we have prepared workshops for are:
Pricing for Profit
Running a photography business is made up of 10% photography and 90% business. The part of your business that keeps “the wheels turning” and keeps the business surviving is the financial side. Let’s face it – without the money, we wouldn’t be able to continue a full-time photography business. Funny, though, that the part of the business that most photographers struggle with is the financial side.
Most of us started out wanting to be a photographer, and then started our own business! Most of us don’t have formal business training, marketing experience, or an accounting background. We just know that we love photography and want to do it full-time.
In this seminar, we will talk about the financial-side of the photography business, starting with sources of start-up money, typical monthly expenses that you have to consider, pricing for profit, creating a win-win situation for packages, and so on.
We will compare-and- contrast financial situations for both a full-time and part-time photography studio and a home-based and a retail-space photography studio.
Our step-by-step process for calculating mark-up values, profit/loss, personal income and business profit will take the mystery out of the numbers game.
Album Design
Our album design seminar will cover everything from start-to-finish, as it pertains to wedding and portrait albums. Topics include:
- Setting expectations
- Photographing for the album
- Storytelling through your albums
- Album pre-designing
- Design fundamentals – why simple is better
- Using Adobe inDesign to design your albums
- Album workflow
- Album proofing
- Album pricing
- Album vendors
Portrait Lighting
Many current photographers have bypassed the basic fundamentals of studio and portrait lighting. Just like the basic rules of photography and composition, before breaking the rules of good lighting, it’s a good idea to know what those rules are. More often than not, you will find that following the rules will result in superior portraits. Topics include:
- Understanding highlights and shadows
- Light ratios
- Soft vs hard light
- Directional lighting
- Facial analysis
- Background choices
- High-key and Low-key
Studio Workflow and Systems
The key to a solid studio workflow is to have systems in place for every part of your business. Everything from first contact from a client, to print delivery, should have it’s own procedure. Systems not only ensure consistency throughout your business, but they are there to help you be efficient with your workflow and to save time. Instead of reinventing the wheel and trying to come up with systems for every part of your business, why not attend our Systems workshop, and benefit from our experience. Topics include:
- Client databases
- First contact
- E-mail signatures
- Follow-ups
- Referrals
- Getting things done applications
- Your work calendar
- Timelines and setting expectations
- Studio policies
- Introduction to studio management software ShootQ
Off-Camera Flash
Our off-camera flash workshop is aimed at simplifying off-camera flash and helping photographers use this advanced technique to create beautiful and dramatic imagery. Topics include:
- Canon and Nikon flashes
- Why use off-camera flash?
- Technical setup for off-camera flash
- Fill flash vs main flash
- Overcoming common problems
- Flash modifiers
Adobe Lightroom
- Why use Lightroom
- How it works
- Lightroom’s integration with Photoshop
- Importing/Exporting
- Shortcuts
- Develop Module Tips & Tricks
- Presets
- Efficiency in Lightroom
- How to speed up your workflow
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