Tuesday 15 May 2012

Videographers make weddings feel their under CCTV

Videographers make weddings feel their under CCTV
"Photographer Verses Videographer, Terminator verses Predator"

Whilst the client will rename nameless for obvious reasons my last wedding photography job
was a fuc#ing nightmare.

Why do brides book photographers & videographers? Do they like cock fighting?


Videographers like the proverbial German  placing his towel on the best pool chair have an inherent desire to slap there Darlek  esque tripods in key positions. Note i say positions plural. My last wedding at Crayke Church North Yorkshire was a classic example. The Videographers  pulled up with a camera crew arsenal big enough to cover an U2 concert and without asking placed three tripods in the church, two at the front & one slap bang in the middle of the  aisle.

When this happens you feel like paparazzi, no longer the official photographer,
desperately fighting for an angle and trying  not to trip over anything, the photography plan you had in your head disappears and is  replaced with fantasy images of you walking up to bride and saying - "Unless you get these student film making gimps out of this Chuch I'm outta here"

But until i get the Hugo Bernard phone call I guess its tough titty, I’ll have to put up 
with the feeling a wedding is under CCTV surveillance every time the videographers rock up with enough tripods to keep the holy ghost  out of  the church.

Friday 6 January 2012

Royal nightmare - how i blew my biggest photography job ever :-(

Last night i had a genuine wedding photography nightmare and heres what happened.I was booked to be Prince William and Kates wedding photographer but everthing that
could go wrong went wrong, my subconscious dredged up all the worst things that could
happen and it felt so real.

It started with me arriving late and I didnt know what room it was in. When i
eventually found the ceremony room the vows were in full swing. Entering the room i
then found myself standing in the wrong place, and was politely asked to move by Kate
herself.

When i did get in the right position I'd forgot my camera and pretended with my
fingers making a frame effect, the royals are dumb yeah everyone knows that. I
realised the chardade of pretending i had my camera wouldnt hold up forevever so i
crept out of the ceremony room and back to the camera bag, grabbing my camera I knew i
could claw it back but when i mounted the flash it feel apart in my fingers.
When i finally got back into the cermony room it was empty, Kate & Prince William were
allready outside on the balcony, i'd blown the biggest wedding photography gig ever
:-(

Mercifully i woke up at 5AM this morning with a real feeling of anxiety which has taken half a
day to disappear.

Freud I need help.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

"Google pay per click is no good for wedding photographers"

When you set yourself up as a wedding photographer you need business and you can easily get seduced setting up Google pay per click ads as a silver bullet to your sales woes. But be warned. Your Google ads will get clicked on by your competitors wanting to screw you over, SEO agencies wanting to mange your ads and curiosity clicks from irrelevant sites if your dumb enough not to switch off the Google Adwords content network.

My advice is dont bother, understand how to capture traffic organically by getting your head around Googles  Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide and apply it.

The net is full of SEO experts explaining why there are more SEO gurus per square mile than window cleaners. And dont bother with an off the shelf solution like Mr Site or any other "tie you in find out later waist of time products". Why? They wont support SEO requirements as detailed in the Googles search Engine Optimization Guide.

No doubt some SEO "guru" (Probably aged 12 and thinks all problems can be solved via an app) will reply to this post giving the predictable diatribe that google ads offer positive ROI with clear call to action signals on the landing page blah blah blah. Heard it all before, shut up, just SHUT UP!!!

Google pay per click ads are no good for sole trading wedding photographers but if your not convinced give it a go and help the Google gravy train run faster in Mountain View, California.