[00:00:00] PR photographers, you're trying too hard. What if I told you you don't need crazy three light setups, scenes that take forever to style or hours of Photoshop? The truth is your photos don't actually need to be that good. Now let me back up here for just a second. This podcast is going to be about how to run a prod photography company and make money.
I'm teaching you how to actually make a full-time income from product photo. Now, if you don't care about any of that and you're just concerned about the art of photography, then this podcast is not for you. But if you actually want to have paying clients, build a sustainable business, then listen close.
What I'm about to tell you may trigger some photographers, but this is coming from someone who's worked with over 50 companies to transform their social media presence through product photo. If this is your first time here, my name is Chris Pieta. I teach creative business and I run a product photography company.
Welcome to the Creative Biz Launch Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your creative business and scale to six figures, whether you're a photographer, [00:01:00] filmmaker, or designer. You'll find something of value here.
If you look up prop photography on YouTube, the first few results will be these big multiple light setups, 20 minute Photoshop tutorials, 20 step guides on how to get the perfect reflections every single time, and complex styling setups that take days. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit here, but you get the idea.
It's very easy to make proc photography a complicated genre of photo. It seems like the barrier to entry here is super high, and without the right gear, you're gonna fail, and without the right techniques, your photos will suck. This is actually a very common misconception. The truth is that proc photography doesn't have to be all that complicated.
I've been doing this for three years now, and for 95% of my shoots, I just use a single light setup. That's right. Just one single. Go ahead. Check on my portfolio on pta productions.com and tell me that isoc, all I need is just one light for these setups, I've been able to work with 50 plus clients, and all I've been doing is just a single light.
I use one [00:02:00] light and a reflector, and it gets me the best photos every single time. My whole philosophy is to make it as easy as possible for me to do these shoots without sacrificing photo quality. I can use my single light setup with a reflector. And get the photo to be 90% as good as the person who's using that three light setup.
And the truth is, clients never know the difference, and I'm able to deliver my photos twice as fast as the other guy. That means I can work with twice as many clients. Now, I just had a lot of important things here in the last few sentences, so let me unpack them. Number one, my photos are 90% good as the other guy.
Number two, most clients can't tell the difference between a one light setup and a three light setup. Number three, I'm able to deliver photos twice as fast as other people so I can work with twice as many clients. Now I'm gonna dive into each of these categories. I really want to talk more about these three principles.
Okay? So number one, my photos are 90% good as the other. So what most people can't tell my photos aren't perfect, but they are great. [00:03:00] I still do fantastic photography. Maybe my lighting on the right side of a bottle isn't as good as that perfect photo, and that is fine. Maybe occasionally the scene isn't styled perfectly, but still a great scene.
Perfection will cause you to never have a successful business. I read this quote the other day, which I absolutely. It goes like this. Perfection is procrastination masquerading as quality control. I think this applies perfectly in this situation. A lot of people don't want to deal with the client acquisition side of things or the business side of things, so they end up procrastinating by seeking perfection in their photography.
They think that the perfect photo is what's missing from their business success, and the reality is that your photos don't need to be perfect. That's not what's missing from you having a successful business. There are different things that you need to focus on, and yes, occasionally perfect photos are required.
So yes, if you're working with Coca-Cola or Red. Or Apple, [00:04:00] then yes, your stuff needs to be 100% perfect. There's no room for air when you're working with these brands. But I've never worked with these brands. None of my photography friends have worked with these brands, and chances are you haven't either.
So why are you creating Coca-Cola level content for your local coffee shop? My product photography company mainly works with small to medium size e-commerce brands, and they certainly don't need perfect photos. They need great photography. And that's exactly what I deliver. Every single time we hop on prep calls, I create mood boards for them, and we get on the same page prior to the shoot.
Then we shoot content. I send them options to choose from, and they pick their favorites, and then I deliver on my promise. I even offer a 100% money back guarantee with my photos. , and they're not perfect photos, but they are great photos and people don't take me up on that guarantee because they love the content I produce.
So why do these brands choose to work with me over and over and over again, even though I don't send them perfect photos? Because I [00:05:00] understand their needs. I understand that they want content to share on our social media pages and their website so they can build their brand. And whether my photos are perfect or 90% of the way to being perfect, they don't care.
Nor can they even tell a differe. . Now let's talk about the second point I mentioned here. Most clients can't tell a difference between a great photo and a perfect photo. Let's make something very, very clear here. We're not going to be deceiving our clients. We're not lying to our clients. We're not promising three light setups and showing up with one.
We're promising them great photography, and we can achieve great photography with just one light setups. The truth is, most clients, and honestly most photographers, Can't tell if we use a one light setup or a three light setups. One of my friends on Instagram House House posts these awesome photos on their page and post photos on their Instagram stories where they actually pull their audience and ask them how many lights they used for that setup.
I'm honestly shocked at how scattered the results are. His following is full of amazing photo. [00:06:00] yet a lot of the time, great photographers can't even tell how many lights are used in some of these setups, and I'm not bashing these photographers. I get the answer wrong most of the time as well. It's just hard to tell how many lights certain shoots use and the number of lights only tell a small story.
A terrible photographer with three lights will always get a worse result than an amazing photographer with one light. Your technique is gonna matter a lot. So if professional photographers can barely tell how complex a shoot is, do you think your clients are out there analyzing your photos? No, they're not.
Clients don't care how complex your shoot setups are. They care about final results. I keep saying this over and over again. Clients just care about the results. They care about how the final photos look, not how they were made. What's the point of Prague photography? Let's ask ourselves this. Is it beautiful Prague photos?
Sure. But if we really dig into our clients' needs, it's not just that the actual problem that product photographers solve for clients is this. We help our clients increase sales and build their brand awareness. This [00:07:00] is the whole point of why clients pay us. Clients want some sort of positive roi. They want a positive return on investment.
If your photos can generate themselves, then that's what they care about at the end of the day. And they don't care whether you're using a complex three light setup that takes two hours to set up or a 10 minute setup with a single light that you know works every time. The result is probably gonna be the same here for the client.
Now, all this being said, if you want to do these complex lighting setups because you find them fun and you want to perfect the light hitting the bottle with the perfect fill light, the perfect accent light, et cetera, then you can do that. If it's your passion and you want to make art like this, then yes, please.
But if you complain that your business is suffering or that you can't handle your client load, or you struggle to have a sustainable profit month after month, after month, then you're approaching this whole thing wrong. Yes, there is something to be said about photography as an art form and creative outlet, but this episode is about teaching you the business side of photography.
My whole point here is to help you make [00:08:00] money from this so you can do photography full-time and live a fulfilling life. Now, some of you probably think that you can do both and sure, I bet there are plenty of you that can. But again, if your goal is to do this for a living, there are people like me who prioritize solving a client's needs.
And providing an amazing service, and people like me will beat you in the long run. I'm not trying to put you down, but this is a super competitive landscape that we're in. There are a lot of photographers out there hungry to get clients. This is the reality, and now you're armed with this knowledge, so make the right decision for yourself.
Okay. My third point was that I'm able to deliver photos twice as fast as other people so I can work with twice as many clients. There's two parts to this. Since my photos are easier for me to shoot, I have faster turnaround times. This is such a big selling point for clients. If I have a five day turnaround time.
And my competition has a 10 day turnaround time, and our portfolios are nearly identical. The client's gonna go with me with this situation, and because I have that fast turnaround time, I provide them with a much better [00:09:00] customer experience. So what does a good customer experience actually do? Well, it makes it so they're more likely to work with me again.
They sign on for another project or even a long-term retainer. Their customer experience was so good that they leave me a five star Googler review that I can now publish on my. I'm able to create a great case study from this client. Now, when other clients come to my website, they will see that five star review, and they'll see that case study.
They'll help me lend more and more clients and it doesn't stop there. They tell our friends and their peers about me and how this photographer delivers great photos faster than any other person they've worked with, and I get referrals. I get more clients, and meanwhile the other guy is struggling.
That's a pretty compelling argument if you ask. And that's just the first part of this. Since the photos take me half as long to do, I have more time, I can actually work with twice as many clients now, meaning I can make twice as much money. So even if that other photographer is charging 25 to 50% more than me, I can work with twice as many clients and make way more money in the same [00:10:00] timeframe.
Speed matters, and now you have the facts here. This is all I have today. My name is Chris Pieta. Thank you for listening. If you have an extra 10 seconds today, please rate this on whatever platform you string this episode on. It really helps the show grow and reach more and more people. I'll see you next time.
Okay.
