I need some advice from the pros….

Jonathan R. Walcher

Good evening fellow grinners. I’m on the tail end of a two week break from my day job (I became a dad!) and I’ve been using my spare awake moments to work on my website and my overall pursuit of becoming a pro.

While I’m working on my fine arts/photography degree, I’m also trying to get the business side of things down. My goal right now is to focus on covering events and doing the occasional on-location portrait shot. I plan to use those earnings to purchase studio equipment so that I can eventually get into professional portraits/head shots and freelance humanitarian work. I’m on a 3-5 year, try-to-stay-out-of-debt plan.

After my classes are out in mid-April I’m going to start marketing my skills pretty heavily (I can’t wait to start putting ads on Google...classes come first though…:rolleyes). With that in mind, there are a couple of things that I am hoping someone will be willing to share some input on.

First, I can’t decide on what I want to include in my slide show. My hope is that what people see will give them confidence in my abilities and contact me. Right now I have too many shots and there’s not a central focus. Is this bad? Should I stick to a particular theme? What do you think?

Second, does the site feel professional or cheap or somewhere in between? What is your first impression? Is there in any thing specific that needs attention (aside from my slideshow of course)?

There are a few things that I haven’t gotten to yet. My bio is one of them. I also have more pics to upload in the travel section from recent trips. Aside from that I’m hoping that I’m getting close.

Thank you all in advance for you time…

Jonathan R. Walcher

SloYerRoll

Congradulations new baby daddy!

While I'm not a pro, I do know that most of the questions you are asking are a matter of personal preferance.
There is a great photo business forum here that will help you make educated decisions on the things you are asking.

Umm what website are you talking about? (no links to anything)

Good luck on your endeavor. I genuinely hope you make it.

gmonkeh

You have great layout on your website. I prefer the shades of gray over colors anyday. It gives it a more serious professional look IMO.

Something you might want to look at around your area are churches. I make the most money/referrals/repeat business from doing church directory shoots. Most of them deal with professional studios but start with your own church if you have one, it's a great way to get your name out. And there's a huge opportunity to make some gains from print sales.

Lex

Jonathan R. Walcher wrote:

Good evening fellow grinners. I’m on the tail end of a two week break from my day job (I became a dad!) and I’ve been using my spare awake moments to work on my website and my overall pursuit of becoming a pro.

While I’m working on my fine arts/photography degree, I’m also trying to get the business side of things down. My goal right now is to focus on covering events and doing the occasional on-location portrait shot. I plan to use those earnings to purchase studio equipment so that I can eventually get into professional portraits/head shots and freelance humanitarian work. I’m on a 3-5 year, try-to-stay-out-of-debt plan.

After my classes are out in mid-April I’m going to start marketing my skills pretty heavily (I can’t wait to start putting ads on Google...classes come first though…). With that in mind, there are a couple of things that I am hoping someone will be willing to share some input on.

First, I can’t decide on what I want to include in my slide show. My hope is that what people see will give them confidence in my abilities and contact me. Right now I have too many shots and there’s not a central focus. Is this bad? Should I stick to a particular theme? What do you think?

Second, does the site feel professional or cheap or somewhere in between? What is your first impression? Is there in any thing specific that needs attention (aside from my slideshow of course)?

There are a few things that I haven’t gotten to yet. My bio is one of them. I also have more pics to upload in the travel section from recent trips. Aside from that I’m hoping that I’m getting close.

Thank you all in advance for you time…

Jonathan R. Walcher

Jonathan R. Walcher

SloYerRoll wrote:

Congradulations new baby daddy!

While I'm not a pro, I do know that most of the questions you are asking are a matter of personal preferance.
There is a great photo business forum here that will help you make educated decisions on the things you are asking.

Umm what website are you talking about? (no links to anything)

Good luck on your endeavor. I genuinely hope you make it.

Thank you SloYerRoll! I always forget to include my website....i'm changing my signature to include it.

www.jonathanwphotography.com

Thank you for link...from first looks it appears that it will be a great reference.

Gmonkeh:

Thanks for the tip! I hadn't really thought of that one much. Of course, I've not been to church in a while either...but that's a whole 'nother story in it self.

JW

kapalua

hi Jonathan,
First of all, congratulations on your new baby and budding new career!
I looked at your site. You've got the hard part down - that is, you know how to take great pictures - you also appear to know your way around photoshop. that's a great start.

As far as your questions go, yes, your site needs focus. You need to make a decision on the one or two things you want to make money on. Cut out all of the pictures that don't relate to those business objectives. For example, the picture of the graveyard - a very nice fine art image. But are you trying to launch a fine art photo business? If not, take it off!

Next, your menu bar at the top needs work. The tab you have labeled "portrait" SHOULD take you to a gallery of your best portrait work - in other words, your portfolio. Instead it takes the viewer to a specific private event that is password protected! Those actual events should be under a tab labeled "Client Proofs" or "Client Gallery", something like that.

The most glaring problem, however, is that you don't appear to have a portfolio on your site!! After viewing your slideshow intro, I looked in vain for your portrait portfolio and there wasn't one! The slideshow intro is nice, but it is not a portfolio. you need a section that shows your stuff that is viewer-controlled.

hope that helps. best of luck,

Laurence Kim Photography

urbanaries

kapalua wrote:

The most glaring problem, however, is that you don't appear to have a portfolio on your site!! After viewing your slideshow intro, I looked in vain for your portrait portfolio and there wasn't one! The slideshow intro is nice, but it is not a portfolio. you need a section that shows your stuff that is viewer-controlled.

saurora

agree Your work is great...but I didn't see much in portraiture!!! Are you sure this is what you want to do? I agree with others that you will need to zero in and I should know because my photography has been all over the place this past year. I finally realized what I really wanted to do was capture people, not birds, flowers, etc. So I am contacting everyone I can think of and trying to get some sittings to start a decent gallery....and to gain more experience!

Jonathan R. Walcher

Wow!
Wow gals and guys, I'm humbled by the support you've given me!

It's strange you know...sometimes when I'm not quite sure about what direction I should head next....all it takes is bouncing the ideas off someone else and the muddy water gets cleared up! You've all certainly done that for me and I'm grateful.

@saurora: I’m absolutely positive about doing portraiture. People are my passion…I made the same discovery as you described this same time last year. With that said, it just so happens that a class assignment that I’m currently working on is portraits. I’ve got to shoot 4 to 6 rolls by the 26th (I’m in the darkroom right now, digital isn’t allowed for a grade) I’m going to take both cameras (A1 & 20D) and try to get as many as I can with the 20D.

Regarding my website, Kapalua….those are fantastic, specific, easily doable suggestions!

Given all of the great advice that you all have given me this what I’m thinking I should do (I’m posting these mostly for my own sake:D):

• Shoot 2, possibly 3 portrait sessions by Feb 27 (when my assignment is due.)
• Take the best portrait shots that I have a create a Portrait portfolio
• Create Event and Travel portfolios, move my best shots there.
• Trim my Slideshow to 4, possibly 5, shots of my best portrait and event work.
• Create a separate tab for Client Proofs, move all client galleries to this new section.

Once I’ve accomplished the above…I’ll touch base with you all to see if this little grasshopper has learned anything.

If anyone is still reading at this point …..I have one last thought. David duChemin is one of my photography heros. Work like his is like poring gasoline on my passion for photography. Somehow I want to incorporate his sort of work into the other things that I love do shoot. My first thought was to create another tab labeled “Outreach” or “Humanitarian” and put together a portfolio (Nicaragua) with a brief explanation of what I do. What do you guys and gals think?


That’s all for now….I want to hold my son!

Thanks so much for your time!

Jonathan R. Walcher

GeorgeT

Jonathan,
I would call that tab Photojournalism. You seem to have a great eye for telling a story. Think of your galleries as something that someone would buy. Look at work from successful photogs and others in your area. How do you stack up? Who would buy your work and what is your market? Who are your referrals? I still haven't figured that one out. (Yea, to some extent) But for me it is still a paying hobby.
Good luck,
George

joshhuntnm

When you did a church directory, did you just put pics on smugmug, or what?

~Jan~

Your website is nice and clean. Did I read correctly that for the sitting fee the client will get all of the original files on CD?

mercphoto

~Jan~ wrote:

Your website is nice and clean. Did I read correctly that for the sitting fee the client will get all of the original files on CD?

That's my take as well. Does your business model work and sustain itself if all you get are sitting fees?