What are photography clients buying?
If you keep the answer in mind, you can ward off feelings of insecurity and truly connect with the subjects of your photos, says Marnie Clagett, M.Photog.Cr., CPP, on the “Professional Photographer” podcast episode “The Emotional Power Behind Your Camera Lens.”
Clients are buying an emotion. “They’re buying how they feel about that person [in the image],” says Clagett, a family and high school senior portrait photographer based in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. “They’re buying a moment in time. … They’re buying a legacy.”
What clients are less concerned about is whether your images win awards or are recognized for technical excellence, she adds. Emotion trumps all. “We put a lot of pressure on ourselves that our clients are not putting on us,” Clagett explains, adding that, for example, when the average consumer looks at an image of a baby on social media, they are not offering critiques of lighting or posing. They’re feeling. “What they care about are the people in that photo. That’s what matters. What matters is the emotion, the people that we love. That’s what our clients care about way, way, way more than some kind of technical excellence.”
Do the best work you can for your subjects, she tells podcast host Pat Miller, “but we have to keep in mind that that’s not why our clients are purchasing something.”
Clagett shares the example of a photo she took almost by accident, of a little girl with her back to the camera, looking up a path at her older brother far away. “Technically, it is not a great photo,” she says. “But [their] mom saw that and it took her breath away, and she started to cry. She [said] her little girl looks up to her big brother like you wouldn’t believe. And this photo captures their relationship perfectly.”
Clagett says she keeps a large print of that photo in her bathroom “to remind myself that sometimes you just have to go with your gut and do the thing that kind of makes you happy in the moment. And sometimes it means the most to our clients.”
That mindset keeps fear at bay when you’re trying to be creative and grow your business, Clagett says. “Fear gets us every single time,” she says: fear of rejection, fear of potential customers balking at our prices, fear that we’re not as good as another photographer, and fear that business will dry up. “If we don’t watch ourselves and keep an eye on it, it could absolutely be paralyzing.”
Instead, think about how freeing it could be to try something new and, instead of seeing it as a failure if it doesn’t work, seeing it as a learning opportunity. For example, maybe a marketing campaign didn’t garner expected results or a customer didn’t make the purchase you thought they would. “We can stop and look at [the situation] and say, ‘Where in the process did I go wrong and what can I tweak so that next time, it doesn’t happen?’” Clagett says.
While emotion is key when it comes to creating powerful images, to run a successful business means reliance on facts, she explains. After all, if a client takes issue with the price of a session or a product, it likely means they simply cannot afford it, not that you’re not “good enough” to be priced a certain way. Factually, you need to earn a certain amount to run your business, and that’s OK, she adds.
“To ourselves, we can say, ‘You know what? I’m not going to discount here because if I do, it’s bad for my bottom line,’” she says. “I’m not going to be able to make what I need to make so that I could feed my family.”
For Clagett, each photo session is priceless. She works to evoke the most emotion from her clients by talking to them about who will be in the images. For example, she might ask a parent what they love most about their child. Then, “we take the things they say and we speak it back to them during the session,” she explains. It might be, “There’s that sweet boy you were telling me about that you love so much,” or “There’s that confidence you were telling me about!” Mirroring the love and pride that the families have for each other within the photography process imbues each image with those same feelings, she adds, getting emotional herself.
Photographers should remember their own value and worth, especially when they start thinking they’re not as skilled or talented as others. Imposter syndrome is common, Clagett says, and destructive. “We have to stop ourselves, recognize that we’re having those kinds of thoughts, recognize that that’s a common thing, that we all do it, and then shut it down,” she advises. “I know that sounds like, ‘Well, that’s not always easy to do.’ But sometimes, it’s kind of that easy.”
Reminding yourself of your factual financial goals will help, especially if you set business goals for the year, for the month, and even each week, Clagett says. She tracks her numbers constantly so as not to spiral, and keeps her eyes on the wins. She also reads scripture each morning and every evening, and writes down three things that day she is grateful for. Some days are harder than others, she notes. “Sometimes, when it’s been a bad day, [I write down] ‘I have a bed to sleep in and a roof over my head,’” she says. “Sometimes … you’ve got to dig a little, but it’s amazing how that rewires your brain.”
You can use comparison in a positive way as well, according to Clagett. Think of someone you admire—a photographer or not—and what you can learn from that person’s experiences rather than be envious of them.
“It’s such a beautiful way to look at it, to be able to say, ‘I can look at someone else’s achievements and I can celebrate those.’ And I can say, ‘Holy moly, look at what you are doing,’” she says. “And it doesn’t hurt me at all, right? It doesn’t hurt me at all to support other people … to support the other photographers in my community, the people you could say are my competitors. The only thing that does is help all of us.”
Melanie Lasoff Levs is director of publications.
