A big part of me (the part that doesn’t enjoy sales) tells me just get the year booked and stop spending time on it.
I would love to be done booking weddings and have my summer all planned out.
Busy, but lots of space
I’m already going to France late July early August.
I have most of my weddings in California and perhaps back to Hawaii again.
But while I am planning on doing a lot less weddings this year than the hectic year last year… I still have plenty of spots.
Specially when you compare to the crazy amounts I did last year.
Win-Win
Main Reason: Why give money to random companies I don’t care about for advertising, when I can give it to friends.
So I decided instead of me investing so much time and effort to finding new wedding gigs…
I’d enlist the help of everyone else.
A Win Win… I get help booking jobs and you get money.
The hope is that you feel confident enough in my work to want to refer me.
The thought is to make referral amount big enough amount that no one would easily forget.
So it wouldn’t be one of those things that you’d say “If it happens it happens”
Instead, So that people think about it, and try to make it happen.
Where people would actually pro-actively search. Instead of passively mention. (Active, not passive.)
A Month of March deal
I’m gonna test this out for March.
I know it’s a lot of money to give for a simple referral, but like I said if I can book up the year by the end of march then it’s well worth it.
We’ll see what happens at the end of march, I might continue or I might not.
Your input will determine if I continue doing this… and obviously how motivated people are.
If no one uses it, I’ll stop of course.
Money
I will give $200 cash for a booked wedding (To the referrer)
-OR-
I will give $400 towards a photoshoot or $500 in print products
How do we know who sent who and how they found me?
Well if they found me BECAUSE of you, let them know they themselves will get a $100 discount or $150 towards print products.
Things to keep in mind
Good way to discount your own wedding (by a LOT if you’re the motivated type)
Heck some of your students could probably pay your rent this way.
I’m not a budget photographer anymore, i realize that, I’m very good at what I do… but I’m not for everyone.
I will try to set these people with other photographers who are in their price range.
Maybe as we refer them to other photographers those same photographers will hook you up too. (No Promises)
I travel a LOT… about 60-80% of my weddings are Out of Utah now.
If you have any questions about my services call me, I’ll give you the run down.
Now perhaps it’s time to start thinking of what I’ll do for the April Special.
I reserve the right to change this special at Any time.
On another note the founder of magazine is an amazing person, one of the most talented and intelligent people I’ve ever known, follow him on twitter @bencrowder
What a Wonderful project he has taken on himself to produce. Thanks Ben for your contribution to the arts and the LDS community.
The Interview
They don’t mess around it’s 10 pages including the 20 pictures they used, big and small.
I talked a lot because I had an 8 hour drive from San Diego to Vegas and I had nothing else to do so I talked for like 90 minutes, I wondered how they’d cut it down: Answer… Use most of it
Yes of course I’m happy for the exposure, it’ll be fun.
My favorite part of photography is seeing people happy about my work.
The Way I see it
As we all know I love sharing things I’ve learned, hoping that it helps others or at least speeds up the time it took them.
I think there are a few questions I answered that could help anyone going down the photography road.
So I hope that beyond exposure that YOU learn from things I’ve shared.
I have written a history of how I got into photography already on my site, this article takes a little different spin.
BEST THREE LINES
I’m the type of person who is crazy enough to agree to take on a wedding, never having done one.
How has the gospel influenced your work as a photographer and also as a teacher of photography?
I like to try to do everything in a principled-based approach. I don’t believe in just saying: “It’s good business.” I think that’s a cop-out and it can be very destructive when someone excuses themselves with “I think it’s good business.” Almost all these principles I learned at church, through the interpretation of the scriptures, or from church leaders. Where we learn that the purpose of life is not to get more money but that we’re supposed to help others, we learn the value of real education. It’s not about a piece of paper that says you’re educated. It’s about really gaining light and knowledge, and at the same time, expanding our talents. It teaches us that we shouldn’t hide our talents but we should share them, and that they should be beneficial to other people. We don’t always need to prostitute our skills; we can just share them and give them to other people.
What are your plans for the future?
I see myself doing a lot of education. And I see myself almost completely doing Envision the World project work. And having a family, and you know, enduring to the end, and living happily ever after.
I have several photo projects needing work – and yet have limited funds.
I have many people asking to assist and intern and put on classes and workshops – and yet there is only me.
Stepping up to the plate
I recognize I’m not the best photographer and so my establishment of a school should not be a belief that I am the most qualified.
Merely that I’m the most willing to actually make it happen, the most creative to think it up, and the most crazy to actually try it.
Not sure what the name is, so for now it’s either Jarvie U or jDigital U – I’m open to input
I have grand ambitions how this project/school/opportunity canhelp everyone
Help each student become great photo editors and great photographers
Help with my work on my photography
Help with the ATP and ETW projects
Build a community that exercizes pay it forward learning
Build a community that actively seeks new, exciting and creative learning experiences
Build a school experience that actively promotes the students and a community that promotes eachother.
Build a community that can point to an achievement that garners respect and attracts attention for the members of the community.
Build a community of photographers who believe excellence of craft before deception, who improve their craft and respect for their clients and therefore improve the name and the art of photography.
It can also help other photographers and of course people looking for photographers.
It’s more than an internship becuase it includes
Classes
Field Trips
Photo Trips
Assisting experiences (with many photographers)
Reviews, critiques, QA
And many more benefits
Yet it is still somewhat an internship
Because student-interns still come and assist in the office learning first hand Photo Editing and Photo workflow and also emphasize in another area of their choice.
Apparently I like to see how far I can stretch myself.
Previous instances of going big.
Doing long wedding day shoots … up to 14hrs once.
Doing shoots I’ve never done before is always a fun challenge and stretch.
Going to a new location is a fun stretch I’ve done so many times it’s not that stretchy anymore.
Like when I shot 60,000 pictures in 3 months and drove 12,000 miles while I was in europe.
Or when I had like 8 weddings in a couple weeks in several different states and drove almost 5k miles with several plane flights all during the Christmas season equaling an insane amount of pictures.
Or when I did 2 weddings in one day at 2 different locations
Or when I did 3 weddings in one day (only one reception)
Or when i did 32 shoots for the 2nd annual charity shoot
And at the same time bought and used for the first time studio equipment the day before all these shoots.
I find myself often almost caught by the tide of the popular ideas.
I used to say certain things… that I want to be able to say again with 100% certainty.
With the new wave of business centric thought in photography…
I don’t want to get caught up and forget the things that helped me get to where I am.
That’s not to say I don’t appreciate philosophizing about the business of photography
I watched a presentation by a very successful photographer David Jay but he also stressed.
“If you truly make your business about helping other people you’ll always have alot of work”
I would like to be another witness to that statement.
Things I used to say and stances I used to keep…
Which I re-affirm to keep
I used to say with 100% assurance the following:
“I make my wedding photography and wedding packages the way I would want it, if I were getting married”
I’m gonna make sure this is still the case…
I will fight the fad to make packages it in such a way to make the most money possible and be tricky and suck the unknowledgeable in.
Yes i suppose this could be a blatant affront to those charging low amounts for their photography but walking away with a grip of cash in the end because they charge for everything.
I don’t want to be salesman and I’m lucky enough my business is going well enough I don’t have to be. I don’t want to have to sell and up-sell and squeeze every last drop out of their wallets.
Don’t charge by hour -
I could go off about the trickery in marketing the whole by hour costs seems to be. But I do understand it’s benefits in some cases.
I’ve seen the scenario cause problems in too many cases… well I should say I’ve heard to many horror stories.
I wouldn’t want an hourly person at my wedding… so therefore I’m not gonna be that person.
Another good reason is since everyone else charges hourly in Utah (and many other states) it sets me apart
Don’t push people into buying more -
I don’t like being sold something I wasn’t really after. I’m susceptible to doing it… I’m a spend thrift and am often a sucker…
but it feels so dirty afterwards I feel like they took advantage of me. I don’t want to be that person someone looks back at and says I love the product but in a way I kinda feel like I got tooken advantage of.
we are taking pre-bookings for those that participated in my survey last week.
And my interns have a days head-start to invite their friends to the shoots for the days they’re in charge of.
There should be plenty of spots available up to 60 canyon spots and more than enough Studio time.
I will help with scheduling but I am not in charge of scheduling.
If you send the email it will get to the right place… maybe even doing a comment on the post will work… but no guarantee.
To double check you are official make sure your name is on the online calender.
The schedule is now set
Every day mon-friday 10am-1:30pm = Studio shoots in North Lehi
CANYONS = Fall Colors
Monday 3-7pm = Little Cottonwood canyon
White pine trailhead parking lot – it’s 5.5 miles into the canyon -.5 miles before snowbird
Hard to believe this is the 3rd year of my yearly tradition of shooting pictures for FREE
But I’m excited to do it again and have some new changes to spice it up a ton!
I’m going back to my roots like the first year and doing a Fall Colors theme.
Last year I did a week long of studio shoots and I’ll also offer that during the week as well.
So here’s the deal for those who don’t know.
I do quick shoots all week long for FREE … which for no financial gain on my part.
My way of saying thanks to my friends. Thus the charitable part.
The Charity
But last year I started a new tradition of taking donations which were given to a charitable organization.
The organization will be FFHE (Family to Family Humanitarian Expeditions)
It does a lot of great work in Mexico for families in need and also affects the lives of those that go on the expeditions
I also end up donating a week to shoot for this organization in Mexico.
Here’s some pics from the expedition from last year.
i will note that some of the cost will go towards some equipment needed for the shoots
Survey
In any case… this post is to announce that the event will be held from Oct 5th to the 10th
We are not scheduling quite yet but you can help to give us get that together.
The theme is FALL COLORS + Studio
Which canyon would you prefer (we’ll do all of them just need to see demand)
Provo (Sundance) Canyon
American Fork Canyon
Little Cottonwood Canyon
Big Cottonwood Canyon
Other Canyon
Studio
Which Day
Monday through Saturday
What time
10-2 (Studio) or 3-7 (Canyon)
Minimum donation
I’ve found over the years that those paying nothing do not seem to appreciate the offer
Plus it goes to a good cause.
So would everyone be willing to donate a minimum of $30
This is not only a charity for a good cause this is a charity for YOU so I don’t want to exclude those that can’t.
So the questions are is $30 acceptable and secondly what would a short shoot be worth Donating for you?
FAQ
I will do another post when i get a few minutes and announce how to sign up for a shoot spot.
They will fill up fast and I will let those doing the survey get first choice
Send survey to accounts@jarviedigital.com or just respond here.
I will also post pictures of previous years.
One quick note is that I won’t be doing any wedding shoots for Free and the time periods will be somewhat limited to fit everyone in.
Last years many people showed up to do family shoots, roommate pictures, individual shoots, model pictures,
BE Creative!! I wan’t this to be fun… it’s your chance to do shoots you wouldn’t have done if you had to pay $500 to get done.
So this is part of the story of my jump into Photography as a career.
A big part of that was this couple.
I had no intentions to doing paid jobs.
I had bought the D70 with no intentions of making money.
Megan asked if I’d do their engagements… I looked at it as something fun to do.
If they didn’t turn out I told them (and we both understood) that a Real photographer could easily do them.
I can’t even remember which picture they originally chose on this shoot.
The photo shoot was in March of 2005 if I remember right.
Below was the result… above is picture i just re-edited yesterday. (A treat for the couple)
(Above) – In fact this is better than the original edit… i think I edited the above one a year ago.
Would be interesting to see all 3 versions I’ve edited.
The first editing program i had 5 years ago was photoshop elements
(ABOVE) – As you can see I’ve re-edited a bunch from the shoot.
Like i have my whole career I’ve always taken TONS of pictures.
THEN OTHERS CAME ALONG
Their wedding was 4 years ago. Wow how the time passes.
When other friends found out and saw what I had done for this couple they started to jump on the band wagon.
I had some natural ability, i was easy to get along with.
But probably the most exciting thing was that I cost almost nothing… haha
$300-400 i think was the first couple weddings. (I offered to do the wedding for this couple for free of course)
I stayed under $1000 for a while
EDITING
Looking back my way of interacting with the clients hasn’t changed too much.
I think it started off great since I took pictures of so many people I was very comfortable with first.
I was able to continue that for the years down the line. As I just learned to make the subjects my friends while I took the pictures… so i could goof off and have fun and connect with them.
I don’t think I would have even considered the picture below years ago…
But the re-edited one above looks rather fun edited.
Looks almost as if I had just taken this picture.
I’m also glad I had a great looking couple to start off with… i think that made things easier.
I didn’t feel pressured to come up with tons of ideas. They knew it was my first time… they approached me!
Dang JPGs are so much harder to edit… this took a while because on JPGs the colors are so closely connected… you can’t seem to edit the contrast and blacks without screwing up the colors.
I’m still not completely satisfied with the tones but am liking the trees in the background.
TO THE WHITE FAMILY
Megan if you’re reading this, the originals of these new ones are online if you’d like to save them and have them.
Also I’ll be doing another Charity Shoot this fall… you’re invited… it’s on me!
OTHER OLD JOBS
I bet it would be interesting to go through and edit the pictures from my old jobs!
Probably a little fun…. but in the end I’m sure I don’t have the time.
There’s a business prospect in there somewhere… haha
WHAT DOES IT SAY
What should I think that many of the brides I’ve taken pictures of have actually turned to pursuing photography as a profession or at least a involved hobby.
I think it’s pretty fun.
MORE HISTORY
I hope to write a few more posts reviewing the past… i think it’s fun.
Was it helpful?
Any questions about the first couple jobs or that part of the history.
Many know the rest of the story of how I started getting into photography… I’ll get to that. When things around JarvieDigital start to slow down.
Written on August 28, 2009 Posted in news, reviews
What Am I Introducing
So we’re not really introducing video to cameras,
But we are itroducing video to this blog.
And I am introducing the D300s
Since now I own a camera that does video it makes it so easy to record video, upload to smugmug and imbed that video here on this blog.
My disclaimers are:
This is the first video on my blog, my first video I’ve recorded for a blog. So I did several takes because I wasn’t about to spend the time to edit and splice stuff.
But I still made verbal mistakes and since I only have owned the camera for a few hours I still don’t have a handle on the focusing.
I also did hand hold it…
So basically don’t get too after me about the quality of filming.
But I do aim and can promise I will get much better.
D300s
Rundown on new notable features.
Video
7 frames per second without grip
faster access to live view – 2 button clicks to start recording
on camera mic and plug in for external mic
better d-lighting
quite mode – means take a picture without much noise. (forgot to mention on video)
dual CF and SD slots
Better latch for memory card slots
the cool center button I love (like introduced on D700)
If you want me to talk about anything else… I might be persuaded to make a few more videos.
This blog also happens to be a test of the amazing video features of SmugMug – the place where I happen to put all of my pictures.
I searched for a while to figure out how to embed video into this blog (it being my first time) there were ANY good resources I could easily find online (we know how a mess the internet is)
So I’ll quickly say I grabbed the embed into web code from smugmug much as one would get the embed link for a picture.
You must keep in mind this is code and not a URL or link… so you switch over to HTML on your wordpress editor and drop it into its place.
This suposes you know how to do a lot of what i just explained. But for me that’s exactly what I was hoping to find out that took me 20 minutes to figure out on my own because there were no good sources.
Shameless plug: Who wants to buy a used D300 (or even a much less expensive D200)
A “why not” attempt to create the coolest photography house in Utah.
UPDATE: The owner sold the house 2 days before I was to move in… can’t blame him I suppose… it was a great rental price but way overpriced to buy, so good for him if he was able to sell it.
But now I’m looking for a new place… and if possible even another option for another PHOTO HOUSE
So I ran across this house for lease and went to look at it and take some pictures.
It was perfect!
But a little bit too spendy for just me and my lonely self.
So…. I had an idea
Planning
I’ve been talking with the owner about leasing it and then renting out the other 4 bedrooms.
He’s down… now I just need to see the interest for renters.
The Idea
The coolest photog house and hangout in Utah
A place for photographers to live, eat, breath photography
As a place to live or as a place to have an office/studio
Indoor studios, outdoor locations, rooms to rent, office space, place to live and have photo related events
To live in the house it would probably need to be single folk like myself.
WHERE
It is a very secluded house that happens to be very near Everything
2.0 miles from American Fork/Lehi shopping area on state st.
Including countless restaurants, Walmart, Costco, you name it!
All are under 2.5 miles away
2.2 miles from freeway on-ramp to I-15
12 miles to Salt Lake county (Draper, Bangerter hwy)
13.3 miles to University ave in Orem
30 miles to downtown SLC
Very close to tons of photographic locations in Utah county.
(The house comes with a list of all of these locations… haha )
The best indoor lighting possible
There are 20ft+ vaulted ceilings with a wall of big windows
Both of the bottom rows have a built in diffuser because of the style of shades.
And we can set up another room as a dark studio for when it’s not night.
The plan is to set up a seperate Blog for this monthly competition.
To highlight pictures and have guest contributors talk about how they reached certain results.
When I get a couple moderators for said blog helping out and assigning other photographers to get that done I’ll do the wordpress install and get that Blog going.
But for now I’ll use my blog to show the winners of each picture.
I will do drawings for the 2 at large spots later today right after my mid-morning photoshoot.
If all goes to plan let’s say 3pm on the jarvieDigital page I’ll announce it … kinda live.
Other spots will be announced shortly after.
How I figured it out.
Well I spent about 3hrs figuring out the rush of points that hit right before midnight.
I checked and double checked and added points.
I did this all while never viewing the total points for any of these individuals.
Because some of these points are somewhat subjective and I didn’t want where they were to affect how I gave them.
When I had checked and double checked all I could sanely check and re-check.
I was done and the spreadsheet stated who it was.
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