Zach Gold

Im in the proces of studying world renown fashion photographer Zach Gold. Zach Gold began his professional photography career soon after graduating with honors from Parsons School of Design. Shortly after he was selected by the New York Art Directors Club as one of the top 100 artists in New York City under 35 years old. He was one of the first artists in the world to successfully blend the subtle complexities of both camera and computer to produce photorealistic digital art. Articles about his groundbreaking work have been featured in Vogue.com, French Photo, Rojo, Photo District News, Creativity, AdWeek, Bild, Profifoto and many others 

I have a passion for digital art and want to combine some of my digital photography with the world of fashion. I would like to emulate some of the style from this photographer and will be creating photography of a similar nature over the coming weeks

I will be photographing some models in the college studio and out and about at different local locations in my local area. The weather is a governing factor at the moment but as the weather warms up in early spring I hope to be phtographing many local models

Shown here are some of the images that have inspired me

A lot of the the images created by this photographer have been manipulated mainly using different layers and textures using the software Photoshop

I have a very good knowledge of textures and blend modes using photoshop and will be using theses techniques to modify my fashion shoot images

Over the next month I will be concentrating on producing some really good fashion photography images to add to my portfolio

I will be trying to introduce some of this kind of style into my own photography

In the studio I will be using mainly a 4 light setup, 1 main 500 watt key light and 3 more additional heads to produce some funky images

I have placed a casting call for models on the model agency website Pure Storm and the response is normally quite good

I find that with fashion photography the lighting rules go straight out of the window,

you can use a variety of different lighting from harsh to soft light styles from Rembrandt to horror and low to high key

I will be using various coloured gels on various lights throughout my shoots which give more interest and added variation to just a plain normal shot

Shown below is some of Zach Gold's work

Business Planning ( Model shoots)

At this moment in time we are lacking some really killer images to be used on our website to promote our wedding photography business. This spring I plan to get out more to some of the more classical locations such as stately homes to photograph some models for fashion type wedding shoots

I have written to a local bridal wedding/boutique to ask if they would like some free photography taking of their models and dresses. This is a very good way of acquiring free models to assist in your photography.With this approach the boutique and the photographer are both gaining something for virtually nothing for very little outlay

I also plan to do some more studio fashion shoots here at the college to enable me to move forward with my knowledge of lighting techniques and studio setups

Local Wedding Boutique

Customer Service

Good customer service is the lifeblood of any business. You can offer promotions and slash prices to bring in as many new customers as you want, but unless you can get some of those customers to come back for repeat business, your business won't be profitable for long

Good customer service is all about bringing customers back and about sending them away happy - happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers

If you're a good salesperson, you can sell anything to anyone once. But it will be your approach to customer service that determines whether or not you’ll ever be able to sell that person anything else. The essence of good customer service is forming a relationship with customers – a relationship that that individual customer feels that he would like to pursue

How do you go about forming such a relationship? By remembering the one true secret of good customer service and acting accordingly; "You will be judged by what you do, not what you say."

Providing good customer service is a simple thing. If you truly want to have good customer service, all you have to do is ensure that your business consistently does the following things.

1) Answer your phone.
Get call forwarding or an answering service.Hire staff if you need to but make sure that someone is picking up the phone when someone calls your business.People who call want to talk to a live person, not a fake recorded message on an answering machine

3) Listen to your customers.
Is there anything more exasperating than telling someone what you want or what your problem is and then discovering that that person hasn't been paying attention and needs to have it explained all again. Let your customer talk and show him that you are listening by making the appropriate responses, such as suggesting how to solve the problem.

4) Deal with complaints.
No one likes hearing complaints, and many of us have developed the attitude "You can't please all the people all the time". Maybe not, but if you give the complaint your attention
you may be able to please this one person this one time - and position your business to reap the benefits of good customer service the next time problems arise

5) Be helpful - even if there's no immediate profit in it.
The other day I popped into a local watch shop because I had lost the small piece that clips the pieces of my watch band together. When I explained the problem, the proprietor said that he thought he might have one lying around. He found it, attached it to my watch band – and charged me nothing! Where do you think I'll go when I need a new watch band or even a new watch? And how many people do you think I've told this story to?

6) Train your staff (if you have any) to be always helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable.
Do it yourself or hire someone to train them. Talk to them about good customer service and what it is (and isn't) regularly.Good customer servive how to help a customer explains the basics of ensuring positive staff-customer interactions.) Most importantly, give every member of your staff enough information and power to make those small customer-pleasing decisions, so he never has to say, "I don't know, but so-and-so will be back at..."

7) Take the extra step.
For instance, if someone walks into your store and asks you to help them find something, don't just say, "It's in Aisle 3". Lead the customer to the item. Better yet, wait and see if he has questions about it, or further needs. Whatever the extra step may be, if you want to provide good customer service, take it. They may not say so to you, but people notice when people make an extra effort and will tell other people.

8) Throw in something extra.
Whether it's a coupon for a future discount, additional information on how to use the product, or a genuine smile, people love to get more than they thought they were getting. And don’t think that a gesture has to be large to be effective. The local art framer that we use attaches a package of picture hangers to every picture he frames. A small thing, but so appreciated.
If you apply these eight simple rules consistently, your business will become known for its good customer service. And the best part? The irony of good customer service is that over time it will bring in more new customers than promotions and price slashing ever did!

Business Action Plan (Ongoing)

Any business must have an action plan put in place for it to succeed. An action plan is a ducument or record of tasks or actions to be completed or actioned against.This gives a business a focal point of attention which is then monitored to keep a constant check on which helps it to progress and also help it move forward

At this moment in time we are in the process of moving forward with our part time wedding photography business and we have produced an action plan of steps that have been completed and ones that will need to be completed in the near future

We have an ongoing action plan in place which helps us to steer our business forward and to keep an eye on ever changing deveopments in a photography business

Oun plan so far

We have purchased online webspace and setup our own website which is now live and active and earning us money as we speak

We have also bought our own web domain name for our business from an online web hosting company

We have also bought our own email account/package which forwards all of our emails to our domain name and buisness website

Selling yourself or your business is all about first impressions so our website will be the most important element in marketing our product and brand. This will be the centre point of our business and will be the point of focus for marketing and recognition. This is the most essential selling tool of any business

Where are we now? 

We need some more really excellent images to include on our website home page to market ourselves,we have a few good images but really need some better ones to keep us en vogue. Statistics state a bride will make up her mind if she wants to hire your services or not when viewing the first 8 images on your website

The following list is an ongoing action plan of what we need to do in the coming months to move the business forward

1 - Buy Photography insurance for the business.It's paramount that we have this in place to insure against loss,damage and a variety of unforseen circumstances 

2 - Compile terms of business or contracts

3 - Setup a new business bank account bank

4 - Setup a pricing structure for our products

5 - Buy albums,books and samples which will be viewd by our customers

6 - Produce a marketing stategy to help us to keep ahead of our competitors
This is an ongoing and essential part of any business

7 - Produce business cards and marketing media

8 - Organise a new Wedding photo shoot to produce some new images for our website and advertising media

9 - Produce documents,forms and templates for our business

Our action plan is ongoing and we are continually adding actions to the plan as we proceed with our business

Winter in the Peaks

Last Saturday a friend of mine and I ventured out into the peaks to capture the essence of Winter on camera.We set out early in the morning to capture an early morning sunrise

 

We had planned to go up their on numerous occations when it had snowed but we have never had access to a 4 X 4 in the past which is essential in these kind of conditions.

This time we had a Land Rover Discovery at our dispossal which enabled us to drive in really trecherous conditions and to visit some of the highest points in the peaks 

 

 

 

It essential to comepnsate with your camera metering as readings taken in bright white snowy conditions give under exposures which result in in grey and under exposed images

 

A camera sees everything as 17% grey and sees bright white snow as a very bright exposure and so under exposes the shot to compensate,this can normally be remidied by

over exposing to bring the shot back to a normal exposure

 

I use a Canon 5D3 and to remedy the under exposure of the metering I compensate by over exposing by 1 and 1/2 stops which brings back the true exposure

 

Some of the shots above are a lttle blurred due to the wind movment while using a long zoom in extreme weather conditions

 

 

I was uing mainly a 70-200 mm L Series F4 zoom lens for alot of these shots but even with IS and USM some of the shots were a little blurred. This was due to a very high wind which was a challenge even at quite high shutter speeds

 

Shown in these two shots which demonstartes the grey effect of the camera underexposing the metering

Selling Tools Zen Folio

I have purchased an online website/hosting product to market my photography and part time wedding photography business. The product I have purchased is produced by a company called Zen Folio, this is an excellent photography website builder and the product is aimed specifically for photographers

This is an award winning photography presenation product that markets and sells your business and and products over the Internet to a collosal audience

Zenfolio is the ultimate destination to present your photos and video clips online. Your online galleries with the web’s best photo viewing experience will keep your visitors' eyes glued to the screen.

Shown below are just some of the features of this product

• Truly unlimited storage for your photos & videos
• Professional layouts with large beautiful images
• Point-and-click customizations; no coding required
• Batch editing and intuitive organization tools
• Slideshows with music
• Flexible access control and image protection tools
• Contact list and visitor tracking
• Integration with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other services
• Fully integrated and customizable photo blog
• 500+ photo products to order

I have paid for a premium package with this company which cost approx £90.00. This package comes complete with easy to use website production software and a host of other business features and selling tools,including blogs and online backup and online galleries

I use the selling tools,which enable me to set up slide shows and present my images where visitors can view,buy and have photographs printed and delevered straight to their doors and all from a few mouse clicks.There is no imput by myself as this process is all fully automatic and the products are dispatched with very fast turnaround times from the print companies

This is a great business feature of Zen Folio which free's up more time for me to consentrate more on producing my images and photography and and not worrying about emailing,sizing, posting images to my clients which is very time cosuming for a business

The package I have bought includes a website which is easy to customize to your own requirements,selling tools,which enables me to setup my images to be bought directly from my website. You set up online galleries that people can brose at their liesure. This I find is a great way to promote and sell off your work and is extremely professional

A built in blog which enables me to publish regular updates of my business and it's interests, this helps me to keep past and potential clients updated and interested in the products I am marketing

The product is the complete package for any photography business and includes everything a photographer needs to market, sell and get your business up and functioning It's very easy to use and very user friendly,I would recommend it to any photographer starting up and setting up a business and website

SWPP Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers

Last Saturday I visited the the SWPP convention held at one of the biggest hotels in London theThe Hilton London Metropole Hotel ...

This is a 3 day photography convention and covers everything that a photographer needs to to help with setting up a business,keep them in touch with new trends,idea's and new quipment.  There are approximately 150 trade stands selling every kind of photographic products on the market.The event also showcases numerous training demonstrations and photography talks and courses on most photographic subjects.

It is important to visit this kind of event whcich enables photographers to keep up to date with trends and changes in the industry

Shown above are just some of the free events that are on offer during the 3 days. I visited 2 of these free demonstrations/courses during the day and picked up a lot of new knowledge,tips and tricks which has helped me gain a better understanding of these subjects

Shown below here was a class on using printed back grounds which produced some really outstanding
results. The backgrounds are printed onto a fabric canvas and are portable and easy to transport. These are great for setting up a realistic mockup of a buildings,walls,landscapes etc and can be used anywhere
in your home,studio,spare bedroom etc and all give very realistic results

This class demonstrated the technique called"Noir blanc" which is basically just one light source,recorded in black and white and in this case using just 1 studio flash

These were the end results using just one 100 watt studio light, the image above shows Kenneth Martin demonstrating the technique's he uses to produce the photography below