Due to some problems, We have decided to hold all of our photography and photographer services offered by City Photography.
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All of the city-photography.co.uk website are now off-line.
While we update the systems, we accidentally deleted all the newer websites for city photography, rather than putting the older websites on-line, we have chosen to not put any on-line until we have redeveloped the new websites fully.
It is a bitter pill to swallow as this time of year is normally our busiest, but with the little to no calls it allows us time for uninterrupted system updates.
A little stuck in development
Posted: November 2, 2010 by Photography in City PhotographyTags: E-mail filtering, Email client, Updates, Websites
Currently All the City Photography websites are off line while we are updating the systems, we have become a little stuck one part of the process which deals with email accounts for our photographer members.
As we are updating the servers, Never have I came across such a loony system for emails.
The start of the issue is that the software packages don’t exist as a single point or solution. This means that:
- user handling is separate (requires 3 software packs)
- incoming mail is separate to holding email,
- transferring incoming to holding is different.
- Scanning (viruses and spam) are all different.
- holding to mail box and then mail box to the user is dealt with with 3 other software programmes.
Of course, this is something a little special as all the 13 bits of software have to be put together and work, which is a little bit of an issue.
We have had the system working, BUT — the system would send spam, so that had to be put to a stop. Then we had an issue with creating user accounts and integrating this across the system.
On the website (member sites) side of things, we have managed to get this all fixed and working as it is simple and easy to do, the email side of the services are currently holding everything up.
Until Such time as we have the Mail systems working correctly all City-photography website will be down.
As you may have read stage one of the new City photography network is coming along well…
When I say well, I mean that it has taken a week and been fraught with issues and teething problems, but finally the master server is up and running and in its first stages of development.
Now that we have a working example to go by, we will be sand box testing the system to ensure that it is working and there are no issues with the base system before its official launch. Testing and developing the new system will take some time and all the applications will be integrated during this time to ensure there are no problems with the systems.
Once the system has been tested, the current websites from City photography will be migrated to the new system and we will be open for business.
More details will come soon about the systems and the infrastructure which will make City Photography one of the most feature packed cost effective solutions for photographers.
Big update to the city network
Posted: October 19, 2010 by Photography in Business, City Photography, photographersTags: Arts and Entertainment, Business, Commercial-Advertising, Photographer, photography
Image via Wikipedia
City photography has been around for just over a year and we have seen some great results from this photography network. With over a year already invested into the Research and development of the websites and marketing all taken as market testing for the photography business, we are now taking city photography one step further. Read the rest of this entry »
Ordering montage canvases
Posted: October 13, 2010 by Photography in ClientsTags: Canvas print, Montage, Ordering, Photo shoots, Photoshop, Print
Every family enjoys the flexibility offered by City Photography photographers, but this flexibility often comes at a cost. it is not a cost in money but simply that we have to educate our clients in the way to design and put things together – or things get a little messy.
In this guide to making Montage images that look good for Canvas printing the issue is more complex that meets the eye as it is all about layout aspects. Read the rest of this entry »
Photographers warned
Posted: October 12, 2010 by Photography in BusinessTags: Associations, City Photography, Photo shoot, photography
Image via Wikipedia
There is a rise in people turning to city photography for their photo shoots after being mislead by the company/ or sole trader offering photo shoots.
Here is one of the more recent emails from a client:
I sorry for the amount of questions as need to know first as have had a setting recently done and was mislead about prices which were far more than i could afford or same with the rest of the family.
This of course is becoming more common place. we have reported on “double take studios” already, there is also “London Studios” who the clients didn’t feel that they could leave, and now this unnamed studio.
When National Photographer reported on the trends in photography in August this year, we have seen a growth in ‘noob’ photographers, a growth rate of 35%+ has been measured. It is not surprising that professional photographers in general have fallen on hard times, and when mixed with the amateur business, which is not business like at all, it comes in with a massive problem for all concerned.
Professional photographers, we will say are experienced in photography and providing a business. However it is now clear, with our conversations with Trading standards that anyone can label themselves a professional photographer legally if they sell one image. There is no regards to if that image is of a marketable quality. Adding to the problems the SWPP and others, allow use of their logo and membership, that may mislead clients into the belief that they are really getting a pro photographer.
These effect rank up to be a condemning framework for photographer and real professional photographers.
When photographers charge a sitting fee, or booking fee at cut rates, We all know this would not cover the cost of the shoot and business costs. To the customer, this is a great deal and they bite for the purchase. HOWEVER the Sting in the tail is the print prices.
With prints costing around £1000 (for one) or on average costing £400 for a set, you can see the immediate problems; well anyone with business acumen can. Other problems come for studios and photographer who are struggling to make ends meet, they hard sell to make the money and sell the images at inflated rates in hope of recovering the loses or costs.
While the common low booking fee and extortion for prints has been practised for many years by photographers, it has to end.
The business model currently used by many photographers is doomed to failure. People have budgets, the price will only hold what the market will pay.
By not displaying prices people cannot budget for their photography sessions and prints, Hard selling is going to deal a blow to your businesses word of mouth and make your business unpopular, it only offers a quick fix, but has a overall knock on effect.
Image via Wikipedia
If photographer took the lead from City Photography and national photographer, they could have their eggs in one basket. You can ask any photographer about pricing and they go into panic and then some weird un computable number is reached as to how they price their shoots and their prints, there is little real world thought or common used business practise.
City photographers benefit for the pricing structure and supply of prints through our services, this makes it ideal and cost effective, not to mention that the whole network has been set up to lower photographers overheads and thus make the photography work sustainable.
Real pay – We work on real pay, this mean you get paid for your time and not token payments in the form of booking fees. This means that Print prices can be reduced and customers are more willing to buy more prints. It averages out that the whole system is much better for both the photographer and the client.
Undoing damage
With upfront pricing clients can see and budget for their photo shoots, this makes any hard sales unnecessary and people are happy to recommend city photographers simply because they know they are not getting scammed or Con’s by the photographers.
People are turning to friends with cameras, to take photos, which are lower quality than professional equipment, but are happy that they are not spending hundreds of pounds for a pro tog, we hope to put faith back into the market.
Linked Articles
- You Could be a Professional Photographer When… (blogs.photopreneur.com)
- Photographers Start to Give Up on Copyright Restrictions (blogs.photopreneur.com)
New social photography service for stock photographers
Posted: September 16, 2010 by Photography in City Photography, WebsitesTags: Group, photographers, social, Stock photography, Websites
As everyone by now should know, city photography is owned by National Photographer and national photographer was set up to one-stop shop everything about photography in the UK.
While this is ‘all good’ we were looking at something for our stock photography and commercial photography.. then with a crack of the lightening bolt we put something together…
The new Stock and Social website.. Yeah a bit odd in some respects, but not really….
If Facebook was all about stock photography, buyers who become members would see images in their feeds and when they land on the page they would see new images from all the stock photographers.
People could form photography groups that dealt with particular areas of stock photography and those buyers could look in those groups..
In the groups and forums centred around these ares of photography, buyers could also post requests for certain stock images.
Each of the photographers had their own profile that had an album of images they are selling for stock…all neatly arranged..
I think I made my point here.. Modern people who buy images more than likely use Facebook socially, so how addictive is it? quite! so in the same order of stock photography can work the same way..
Being interactive with the customers who buy stock images, you can see the trends and get information from the horses mouth, see what they are looking for and even get direct requests. Save you time dumping many files on line in hope that one or two are what someone is looking for…
SEO and SEM wise..
We have the main bulk of the website which is social for photographer and buyers, we also have a gallery.. buyers and bots can go through the gallery display the images in countless ways to find just what they are looking for..
The website has two parts to it, the social and the sock, but are closely linked. A search bot can search the images directly from the stock gallery Users who are human can look at the displays on the stock landing page, (its the pre gallery entry page) The page shows slides of all the photographers work in little boxes on one page, if an image catches their eye, they can click on it and go directly to the image.
The two websites work together to provide the platform for interactivity between the images and the users of the website as well as the photographers and the buyers.
PRICE
If I said zero, you would just think I mean that it costs nothing and that we take a commission on your photos each time they are sold.. You would be wrong.. Zero everywhere for everything.. We hope that when you benefit from the using the site that you would make donations to us to keep it running, after all it would make sense..
Its a work in progress too, so we know that once you start using the website it will grow.. Its not Microstock photography either…
Quality images not snaps; Professional not pandemonium.. Payment not pisstake.
Take a hope over to the website, dig out your quality stock images, and get noticed and start selling!
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