Year End Review - A Creative's Annual Report

For many creatives, a year-end review is simply pulling together income and expenses for their tax accountant, but it's important for creative businesses to also have a narrative year-end review that recaps some highlights and lowlights of the year, expresses changes to the business structure or direction, and tells a general story about what the year was like.  For companies with investors, this is considered an annual report, which is made publicly available and expected to have detailed numbers to measure.  However, freelancers and small businesses who do this can make it much more creative or interesting to their audience, and be selective about what they want to include.

I've been able to do a public year-end narrative review on my blog most years that I've been in business, and it's been a great way to look back on previous years to remind myself of the struggles I've overcome as well as how my business has changed over time.  For example, in the first few years of my business, my annual reports reveal how difficult it was to get my workflow and systems under control and how much it was impacting my business and personal life, but if you look at my last few annual reports, you can see how much more freedom and enjoyment I've had now that those problems have been solved.

Some creatives recap their year with a few "Best of 2013" style posts, sharing images from their favorite projects or themes, and while those are good SEO marketing efforts, they don't tell the story of how the business has grown or changed, as well as obstacles that were faced or overcome, which is really the purpose of a year end review.  So, I encourage you to be courageous and put a little more of your business out there.  Clients put more trust in a business that can reflect on its actions, admit mistakes, and demonstrate change over time.

Just for fun, here are a couple of annual reports that break the mold and inspire a different way to recount the year:

MailChimp's "Year by the Numbers" - takes a twist on the traditional annual number reporting by making it graphic and including random items

WarbyParker's "On This Day in History" -puts all the highlights, facts, and figures into a 365 day calendar format that makes discovering info more exploratory than linear

Anne Ruthmann is a lifestyle & wedding photographer in New York, NY. She spent 10 years practicing marketing & management in corporate and non-profit businesses before pursuing her passion for photography as an independent small business. She loves helping others find creative and smart solutions to business problems. Follow her on Twitter to see her daily adventures and thoughts.

How to Protect Your Images From Being Stolen

While there are definite downsides to all of these solutions, here are some things you can do to help protect your work from being stolen on the internet.   Keep in mind the only failsafe way to keep your images from being stolen is to keep your images completely offline but this doesn’t mean that your clients will also abstain from uploading them.

1.  Digimarc.  It’s definitely NOT a cheap solution but it’s the best way to digitally watermark your images to keep track of them online.  The watermark can’t be removed with editing.  Check out their website for the details and pricing information.

2.  Watermarking.  While it’s been proven that watermarking is definitely not fool proof it is a deterrent as it is an extra step to take to make your image their own.  If they are determined, they will persevere but they may move onto another image that is easier to make their own.  The harder your watermark is to remove, the harder it is for them to steal the image.  This also allows a potential client to easily find you if your image is found somewhere that isn’t your website (i.e. Pinterest or Facebook).  Keep in mind that if the watermark is small and in the corner it may be easily cropped out.

3.  Use Flash.  Of course, there are definite downsides to this method, but it is not as easy to steal images from flash websites because you cannot right click and flash based websites are not able to be crawled by Google meaning any images on your website will not make it into Google Images' databank.  Of course you can screen capture but again, it is a deterrent.

4. Don’t Allow Pinterest.  Pinterest is second only to Google Images as a place that thieves find work.  You can opt out of allowing Pinterest to source your webpage but of course, this doesn’t mean that someone won’t still pin an image there.

5.  Register Your Copyright.  For $35 per image or $65 per group (i.e. a wedding or portrait session) you can register your images with the US Government.  This won’t stop people from stealing your image online but if they are stolen you are entitled to higher damages should you chose to pursue it legally.   This comes into play when corporations resort to stealing images, which has begun to become a trend.

Corey Ann is a wedding & lifestyle photographer from North Canton, OH. She is a mix of everything - fashionista, travel nut, deal hound, photo theft evangelist (she runs Photo Stealers) and geek rolled into one. She's had a website online since 1997 and a blog since 1999. When not plotting world domination or her next trip, she can be found reading one of the 100+ books she reads a year. Follow her on Twitter.

Online Photography Courses You Should Know

This is a guest post submitted by Bridger Rodriguez:

Are you interested in taking your interest in photography to the next level? Taking a course in photography is a great way to improve your skill set and knowledge in this form of art. But for some people, the daily commute and classroom-based learning experience are too much to bear. Fortunately nowadays, you can find nearly any course you want to take through the Internet. Online photography courses are accessible for different photographers, from amateurs to professionals. These courses, however, differ in price, curriculum, and requirements, so investigating some courses prior to actually applying is important to ensure that the course fits your personal schedule and needs.

Better Photo
This online photography course provides more than 80 programs assembled in a diversity of classes including basics, digital, composition, and photo editing. Programs last from as short as four weeks to as long as eight weeks. Instruction is given through email or live chat, so there is sizable versatility in participation. You can simply email or talk to them in real-time whenever you have questions or issues in need of addressing. Note that these programs are not rendered for free (betterphoto.com).

NY Institute of Photography
The web-based program is subdivided into three parts - full course in professional photography, Adobe Photoshop, and basics of digital photography. While the program is a costly one, NY Institute of Photography provides an optional classroom-based curriculum plus a web-based program at the same time. These extra materials involve video tutorials, illustrated content, student advising, and audio analysis. The school provides a 21-day money-back guarantee and gives you up to three years to finish the course (nyip.com).

School of Photography
The school imparts 7 web-based programs including Basic, Digital Imaging, Glamour, and Landscape. The first two programs are recommended for amateurs while the other five are good for advanced photographers. Special offers are accessible when taking more than one course at the same time. The school provides a complementary night session through its website (schoolofphotography.com).

The Perfect Picture
The Perfect Picture fragments its programs into 4 groups - beginner/intermediate, intermediate/advanced, making money in photography, and digital darkroom. Students enlisted in the program are given the week's worth of lessons that can be downloaded from a provided link. The student then has 10 days to accomplish the assignment. Completed projects are then uploaded, and a teacher evaluates the work and sends his opinions. Participants enlisted in the coursework also obtain tutorial videos regarding the fundamentals of Photoshop so as not to waste time offering basic pointers to guarantee all students are at equal levels (ppsop.net).

Creative Tech
Creative Tech provides 10-week photography programs a few times annually. The course is, however, restricted to 1,000 students and fills up quite fast. This first-come-first-serve basis allows the teachers to focus on a smaller group of students hence making the learning experience more efficient and effective (creativetechs.com).

Online photography courses are a great alternative to classroom-based ones. They save you time, effort, and money and yield a substantial amount of flexibility.

Bridger Rodriguez writes about the arts, education and more. His most recent work focuses on The Top Online Masters in Education.

Winner! Easy Money + Client Manager

Our winner through random selection is Jen Smith!

Please send an email to hello {at} jennifergrantphoto.com by noon (EST) Wednesday April 24th to claim your prize!

P.S.-Next time we'll use a form to collect entries so we can reward our winners in a more convenient fashion ;-)

How Much Does Each Click Cost?

When I was shooting film, costs felt so much more obvious when I was wasting negatives that I couldn't use, but what about shutter actuations that put wear and tear on the camera?  So, I decided to go and figure out how much each click costs me....

5D MkIII = $3,500 

Actuation Lifeline: 150,000

$3,500.00/150,000= $0.023333 per actuation

That means it's 2¢ for each click of the shutter, whether or not I actually use the image.

When I'm shooting events, my keep rate is somewhere around 20% of what I shoot, which means that it's actually 10¢ to click the shutter 5 times just to get a shot I really like and think is worth keeping.  If I end up with 800 images on a wedding day, that's about $80 of wear and tear on my camera just to show up and click- not even taking into account batteries and flash wear and tear.

Now, since I'm likely to go through 150,000 shutter actuations in one year, let's approach camera costs from a warranty perspective.  Canon provides a limited 1 year warranty on their cameras, but if you purchase a camera plus an add-on Mack Diamond 3 year warranty, you get cleanings, repairs, and replacement if your camera is a lemon.  It seems if you're going to spend a lot on a camera, you want it to last longer than one year, right?

5D MkIII = $3,500

Mack 3 Year Diamond Warranty = $225

$3725/ 3 Years = $1241 per year

So when my equipment is on a diamond 3 year warranty, theoretically I should be able to get 450,000 actuations out of my camera, even if it has to go in for repairs.

I bring this point up because it's often overlooked as an overhead cost that gets factored into pricing.  Whether you do the math from a usage perspective or a warranty perspective, it's good to know how much you need to budget for your equipment each year so that you're able to replace it regularly without being in a pinch.

It's also good to know if it would be more affordable for you just to rent your equipment on an as-needed basis.  I've determined that if you shoot less than 150,000 actuations each year or less than 25 shoots a year, it may actually be more affordable to rent than to buy a new camera each year (assuming you already own a back-up camera).  When you consider it's $133 for a weekend rental of a 5D MkIII, there's only a savings in owning a camera versus renting one if you use it enough to make it worth the cost of replacing it regularly and if your camera outlives its manufacturer's warranty and expected shutter actuations.

Anne Ruthmann is a lifestyle & wedding photographer from Boston, MA. She spent 10 years practicing marketing & management in corporate and non-profit businesses before pursuing her passion for photography in 2004 as an independent small business. She loves helping others find creative and smart solutions to business problems. Follow her on Twitter to see her daily adventures and thoughts.