13 Oct 2004 @ 7:46 PM 
 

Photo Company in the Planning Stage

 

Most of the people that read this and that know me, know I love photography. I’ve had some of my stuff published as editorial shots in the media, and have had a few Pictures of the Day with various website competitions. And all this with consumer (not professional) cameras.

Well I, and a few friends (Chris & J), have been working on getting together as a photographic company to use our skills. The photo company (tentativly to be called Leap Day Photography) will be formed to allow the three of us to earn extra money (of course), but may evolve into a semi-fulltime gig. Initially it will mostly be aimed at the large markets: Event Photography (like weddings, etc).

One of us (J) already has a full set of the needed equipment, since he’s been doing pro-photography for awhile (he’s a media designer by trade and needs images all the time, but has also had his images used as CD covers by real bands and other big time things). The two remaining partners (Chris & I) will have to get pro level equipment. We both like Canon’s, and to be able to mesh with J and each other, we’ll most likely get the new Canon EOS 20D DSLRs. Of course starting at $1500 for just the camera bodies (lenses are extra at this level folks!), we will need some money to get the equipment. The estimate is about $3000-3500 per setup to be able to do this right. (that is a camera body, 2 lenses, an external flash and relay, a battery grip, memory, and assorted minor things).

Luckily I have a possible private loan lined up at a fairly good rate, but this won’t happen for another month (early November), so we’ll see. To repay the loan for the equipment, Chris and My share of any income we get will have to be used for the payments, so we’ll be doing quite a bit of work for essentially nothing in our pockets for awhile. Of course the equipment will be ours though. :D

I’m working out the business plan (so far it’s about 10 pages, without technical mumbo jumbo).

Tags Categories: Personal Junk, Photography Posted By: Brian
Last Edit: 13 Oct 2004 @ 09 44 PM

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Responses to this post » (2 Total)

 
  1. Kord Campbell says:
    10/14/2004 at 8:56 am

    Would you see any benifits to a feature on sites like Zoto that would allow you to post and sell photos, with some type of rights managment? This would look similar to something like istockphoto, but still give you the ability to create content like blog posts, and organize your photos.

  2. Brian Poirier says:
    10/14/2004 at 9:12 am

    Most definatly.

    We have been looking into this sort of thing already for a stock photo distribution company. Also as an avenue to allow the clients to preview the images and order prints.

    There are a few systems out there, and we have looked at quite a few of them.

    Ideally the best set up would include the following:
    1) Easy to remeber URL for the client (like Leapday.zoto.com - which you have set up for your users already), with a place to enter their name/code (like last name) to access their pictures.
    2) Digital watermarking of the photos to prevent screencaps/DLs of the image.
    3) Ability to select & order prints online - with the order info being sent to the photographer for fulfillment (kind of just a web form thing)
    4) Alternatly (at photographers choice) the ability to select and order images online that are fulfilled by a lab. The prices would be set by the photographer, Zoto (or whoever) would collect the fees, pay the lab their wholesale rates, take out a ‘transaction’ fee, and pay the differance to the phtographer. This is available on many systems. Normal transaction fees range from 5-20%.
    (also it is especially important that if this is implemented, only approved photographers - not their clients - can see the pricing structure charged by Zoto).

    There’s probably more, but those are the initial things we are looking at.

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