Monday - 13 Feb 06
I just got off MSN with Ead.
The online conversation was one that's very close to my heart - what to do with the future of photography and more importantly, it is something which I have to address myself on, what to do with my life and my business.
Somehow, I feel that I'm lacking in the capabilities to expand upwards to the league of big players but then, Ead's inspiring experience from a recent seminar has influenced me to rethink about my work and how I should drop the fear and go ahead with a more daring approach to this wedding photography business.
The current Singapore market has been a certain mindset of getting everything that's good for a good cheap price - in fact I find that mindset is rather applicable to our Singaporean context.
6 years ago, it's a common mentality that you dun pay more than SGD$1000 for actual day wedding (in fact, at that time, it should be considered an extravagence). Fast forward to today, we have people willing to pay more than 1K for Actual day wedding. Difference - yes but what I want to highlight is the difference of mindset in looking at Actual Day weddings.
Overseas, a typical professional wedding photographer earns at least 3 times more than me. Ead was relating that when he told his rates to some of the photographers in the seminar, they were rather shocked at the amount of hours we have to work, the amount of effort we put into every shot and the amount of money we earn in relative to that - we are simply selling ourselves cheap!
Of coz there's counter arguements of local market mentality, pricing and competition, the address of business volume versus business niche... but I agree with Ead that if all of us create the niche and stablise our pricing, then we may change the market mentality to the next level. Never mind the undercutters and the people who will imitate your style of work; I believe there will be a different market for all.
I will take the next 2 - 3 months to re-work my business plan and re-do my entire website with newer and better portfolio... think it's overdue also that I should take take control and push myself up the ladder.
The future - I want to go regional and best, international. That's my aim coz I wouldn't want to be stuck like this again when I'm in my 40s and wondering how long I'm going to take to be there.
The online conversation was one that's very close to my heart - what to do with the future of photography and more importantly, it is something which I have to address myself on, what to do with my life and my business.
Somehow, I feel that I'm lacking in the capabilities to expand upwards to the league of big players but then, Ead's inspiring experience from a recent seminar has influenced me to rethink about my work and how I should drop the fear and go ahead with a more daring approach to this wedding photography business.
The current Singapore market has been a certain mindset of getting everything that's good for a good cheap price - in fact I find that mindset is rather applicable to our Singaporean context.
6 years ago, it's a common mentality that you dun pay more than SGD$1000 for actual day wedding (in fact, at that time, it should be considered an extravagence). Fast forward to today, we have people willing to pay more than 1K for Actual day wedding. Difference - yes but what I want to highlight is the difference of mindset in looking at Actual Day weddings.
Overseas, a typical professional wedding photographer earns at least 3 times more than me. Ead was relating that when he told his rates to some of the photographers in the seminar, they were rather shocked at the amount of hours we have to work, the amount of effort we put into every shot and the amount of money we earn in relative to that - we are simply selling ourselves cheap!
Of coz there's counter arguements of local market mentality, pricing and competition, the address of business volume versus business niche... but I agree with Ead that if all of us create the niche and stablise our pricing, then we may change the market mentality to the next level. Never mind the undercutters and the people who will imitate your style of work; I believe there will be a different market for all.
I will take the next 2 - 3 months to re-work my business plan and re-do my entire website with newer and better portfolio... think it's overdue also that I should take take control and push myself up the ladder.
The future - I want to go regional and best, international. That's my aim coz I wouldn't want to be stuck like this again when I'm in my 40s and wondering how long I'm going to take to be there.
hear hear bro!. let's start planning!
Posted by
Anonymous |
1:40 PM
All the best!
Posted by
naniecheng |
1:55 PM
Ron, glad to hear your taking all this as food for thought and planning how to move forward.
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:44 PM
thanks Ead, yes, let's work hard at this and change the market for the future.
Thx Nana :)
Hey Paul, thanks for the link and your encouragements :) Really appreciate it alot :)
Posted by
ShutterBug |
3:08 PM
At the risk of being sound like the song on the TV show (which by the way I have not watched!), GO! GO! GO! BRO!
I believe you have the ability to go beyond our borders and if given the opportunity, you can make it global.
So best wishes from me!
Posted by
Visible, Invisible |
5:07 AM
thanks vis/invis :)
Posted by
ShutterBug |
2:37 PM