Wedding photography workshop

[sebmour]

Hi,

I am presently building a Wedding photography workshop. It will last 2 days.

I would like your opinion on which subject should we discuss. Here is my basic plan.
What should I had? What would you like to know about if you were attending?

Thank you for your time.

Wedding photography workshop.

Duration: 2 days

Subjects:

Market
Marketing
Equipment
Lighting
Concepts
Portfolio
Pricing
Shooting

[sebmour]

write your question on my blog for a chance to win a free ticket to the workshop!

http://sebmour.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/help-me-out/

[jonwhite]

Why do you feel qualified to teach a workshop ?

I only ask as it seems to be a common practice these days that a photographer starts up their business and then after a year and having shot a dozen weddings they feel qualified to teach others.

If they have gone from nothing to international megastar of photography or they are doing something radically different to others then maybe they have some great secrets to share but if they are creating great images and competing for business along with everyone else then I am intrigued to know exactly what they will be teaching.

My personal views is that If I were looking to attend a workshop that covered the topics that you have mentioned above I would be looking for it to be taught by one of the industry leaders or great recent success stories that were doing really well rather than someone fairly new to the business.

For people new to the business I think a workshop geared towards a particular strength of theirs would be more sensible, pick what you do better than everyone else and teach that.

[tim]

I agree with Jon. Rather than doing that you might be better off improving your website, I went to see what your photos are like but after 30 seconds i'd seen three images so I gave up. Don't make people wait 10 seconds between images, or whatever it is. You'll be losing bookings because of your website.

Until you have a fantastic portfolio that people can actually see why do you think people will go to your workshop?

You have to define the level you're aiming at, and what you know best that you can share. I only go to workshops with the best of the best, like the Yervant one I went to recently.

[cjcastan]

Originally Posted by tim

, like the Yervant one I went to recently.

how is yervant's workshop? I've taken the Ghionis and Schembri 5 days. How long was the yervant workshop, how much and was it worth it?

thanks in advance.

[tim]

Originally Posted by cjcastan

how is yervant's workshop? I've taken the Ghionis and Schembri 5 days. How long was the yervant workshop, how much and was it worth it?

thanks in advance.

Two days, A$1100, and yes it was worth it. With time off my day job and flights to Australia it ended up costing more like $3000, kindof expensive but if nothing else it helped motivate me as well as the things I learned It was more about business and processing than photography, but I picked up a few tips about photography as well.

Strange thing is he had a model, a girl, but for weddings it'd have sense to have a guy and a girl. The model he hired turned out to be a total bitch too, guess it's just the luck of the draw with agencies.

[sebmour]

Thank you all for your input.

I have been shooting for 2 years and I have done over 40 weddings with 5 out of my own country.
Why do I want to do a workshop? because I like to help people and I get a lot of questions in my market!

I understand your criticism but you think only Dennis Reggie or Jasmine star can teach you something...

TIM: My clients hire me for me and not for my website! I have no issue getting work and I still do not know whom I am competing against! We might have different marketing views!

[tim]

Do you want to do a general "intro to weddings" type workshop, or teach more advanced stuff? Because with that list you have you'll have about two hours for each topic.

I think your website should be to get people to call you, to hire you. I'm not sure yours does that.

[sebmour]

Tim: thank you for your input as I am always listening but don't worry. I get my maximum 15 weddings a years that I now shoot!

I am looking for information to know which one will actually be included in the workshop. I do not think that when you actually are advance in shooting weddings that you will follow workshops about it! I do not want to talk about all of these subjects that's why I was asking for input instead of competence doubting.

I have been to Dennis Reggie, Vincent Laforet, Tyler Stableford workshops and more. I have learned but today I would not go to them since what I have learn form there is useful but very little ad an effect on my photography career since the marketing aspect are totally different.

Thank you all and please answer the question :P

[tim]

What you teach depends who you're targeting, you haven't told us that yet.

[jonwhite]

Originally Posted by sebmour

I understand your criticism but you think only Dennis Reggie or Jasmine star can teach you something...

Not at all, the point I was making was that you were intending to cover subjects that you possibly weren't best skilled to cover and that if you really wanted to teach something then maybe at this point you should be looking at what your strongest area of this business is and holding a workshop just for that rather than trying to cover everything.

As an example I don't think your website or blog are particularly strong and the portfolio video that you created whilst a nice concept and the video itself was well done I thought the physical portfolio you showed (not the images) was poor and wouldn't be something I would show to clients after being in business for a couple years. Show clients what they will end up with as a finished product, sell them the idea of their own images in a beautiful album rather than a collection of decent shots in a plastic covered portfolio folder. So for that reason I wouldn't be inclined to listen to you speak about marketing or portfolios.

Maybe your aiming your course at people who aren't yet in wedding photography in which case you may be able to pitch yourself to them as an industry leader but I think for people that are already active in this market you will struggle to sell them a course covering those subjects.

You have nice images and I think it would be easier for you to sell a course for new photographers wishing to build their portfolios if you hired a couple of models.

[amfoto1]

Some other topics or subtopics you might want to include:

Negotiating.
Documents, contracts, legalities, copyright, model releases.
Meeting and dealing with clients, before, during and after.
Organization.
Archiving.
Sales before, during and after the fact.

[sebmour]

Thank you Jonwhite for your input. Thats what I was looking for.

I do not offer albums so I do no show it :P My images are all given on a External Hard drive. I'll have a photographer Rep (well known in my area) to talk about portfolio and marketing tool!

That's why I want to know the subject. I will not be the lone talker here :P I have very important friends in the marketing and photography world

Models will be present for the shoot aspect of it. I'll even have a future couple play that role. Is that enough real life?

amfoto1

Thank you very much. I had thought about talking about negotiations but I don't negotiate ( I am pretty much set in stone) and also it's different for every couple. Contrat is a great idea. I had not thought about that one.

[tim]

Based on what i've seen you can't teach to much other than n00bs. I think you'd probably be best off doing an introductory type session. Until people can find images on your website that make them think "Wow! I wish I could do that" that's about the only type of person you'll get coming along based on what you've told us so far.

[sebmour]

TIM:
You are not my clientele.
I am asking you, if you went to a workshop, what would be the most interesting topic for you?

I could be childish and reply about your criticism about my work but...I won't!

Have a great day or night whatever it his at the other side of the planet.

To others:

Thank you for reply to the thread, you help is greatly appreciated. I have asked my fellow lawyer to help me write the law side of it since I do understand it but He said he would love to participate and help with his personal input. Pretty cool having great friends. I'll get a crew to film this and make it available for web users...