Most photographers I know are either over-worked or really happy with their work-life balance. The happy folks all seem to have something in common – they can either edit their work (sessions, weddings, whatever) in a scant few hours and get back to their life or they outsource that work and get it off their plates. One way or the other the happy business owner isn’t responsible for cranking through the finishing of the images.
The business owner also tends to be the driving creative force in the business, so understandably some people have a problem with that person not doing the processing work on their images. I can’t really speak to that, either you are comfortable with it or not. I will say that generally speaking anything can be broken down into a system and mastered. So I would tend to think that processing could be reliably broken down, codified and outsourced to a trained third party – obviously your mileage will vary.
So instead of attacking this issue from the creative side I’m going to address it from the business side. I’ve come to believe that every photography business has 2 primary directives that it needs to execute on to survive in the long term, and it needs to prioritize them in this order:
- Goal #1 – Book new business
- Goal #2 – Execute on existing business
On a business level, if taking care of goal #2 infringes on your ability to do your best to take care of goal #1 you probably ought to consider outsourcing. You definitely have to get your work done, but you can’t get so bogged down in getting your work done that you don’t put everything you’ve got into getting the next job in the door. For idealists this can be a weird concept, after all most people who start a photography business do so to do the work. There is nothing wrong with the work, but the business owner wears a few hats, and the job that you can’t outsource is running the business and driving the value proposition – that’s the primary engine that brings business in the door. Better to outsource everything else than to drop the ball on being the business owner.
Then again, I’m just one guy with an opinion. Let me know what you think in the comments section below.
- trr
P.S. – We’re Livestreaming again tomorrow night. Our previous 2 streams have been quite a hit so please check out Episode 1 with Seshu and Spencer Lum and Episode 2 with Stacy Reeves. Tomorrow night (9/11) at 9:15 EST I’m going to be talking travel weddings, associate programs, and the importance of sticking to your creative guns with Sergio Mottola and Chuck Anerino. You may remember those guys from Episode 3 and Episode 1 of our podcast (respectively). You can tune in to the stream on our Photography Business Youtube Channel tomorrow night and ask questions in the Live Comments section. Or you can leave questions for me, Sergio or Chuck in the comments section below or send them anonymously to [email protected]. Hope to see you guys on the stream, but if you miss it the recording will automatically upload to The …a Man to Fish… channel to watch (or rewatch) later. If you like the streams and want to see more please subscribe to our channel, leave us a “like” rating and share the channel out to photographers you know.
Jerry G outsources to Lavalu. If it’s good enough for him…
I personally cannot imagine outsourcing it. Creative finishing of photographs have been essential part of art of photography since first dark room. There is no such thing like “getting it done in camera”, not even in digital age.
Outsourcing would mean for me that i cannot complete my work and am rated by amount, not by quality or my craft.
I know lot of photographers who hate editing but love shooting, and i understand it, but going that direction would for me accepting defeat in commerce over art.
All above is IMO of course
I do outsource for most of my paid work now. I have a family consisting of three small children…they come first and I cannot spend hours in front of the computer anymore editing.
We’ve tested outsourcing in the past and weren’t happy with the results but we’ve hit a point where we need to try it again. I’ll report back if I find a service that we’re happy with.
- trr
I’ve talked to several photographers and we’ve mentioned trading weddings for weddings in terms of culling. I find my workload is bogged down with the amount of photos I provide my clients. Who really needs 1450 images of themselves? Except outsourcing the culling process seems like such a scary thought. How do you guys feel about this? Objective versus subjective. By the way, Jamie– you’re right— editing by camera serial number has cut my time down by at least 3-4 hours…. granted I’m still 32 hrs/wedding shy of a life.
Joanna— I’m assuming you cull your own?
I started outsourcing my editing recently because I’ve found myself spending way too much on goal#2 and not enough for goal#1. It’s very important to find an editor who understands my style and so far I’ve quite happy with the one working on my images.