Are you looking to attract wedding clients and make some extra income?
Good! Because in this video we show you how you set yourself up for success with that
With this usually overlooked step.
♪Intro Music♪
Hey! Jonathan here from Hustleography.com helping you to generate extra income with your photography
by leveraging social media marketing
On this channel, we share tips just like this video and much, much more.
If you're new here, hit the subscribe button and the notification bell.
By the end of this video, you should have a clear understanding of the images
that should go into your portfolio and how you could actually go about making that happen
even if you're just starting out.
The first thing that we're going to talk about is reverse engineering your portfolio.
What that simply means is...
I guess it's not that simple...
Really it is.
What we want to think about when we talk about reverse engineering your portfolio
is what is the end game?
A potential wedding client sees your portfolio and either books you
or contacts you to make a decision on whether to book you or not, through a meeting.
What we want to think about is what do we have to show them for them to actually make that decision
Remember, the picture that they see are the pictures you chose for them to see.
So what we want to do is create that initial portfolio based on proven images
that would make your potential wedding clients want to contact you.
But you have to give them a reason to contact you because there are so many photographers out there.
Why should they contact you?
Why?
When this potential bride goes on your portfolio,
whether it's your website or Instagram wherever it is,
We’re not talking about that as yet
She wants to see an image of a bride posing
A ring shot
A beautiful wedding cake
She wants to see a first dance
Family portraits
That's just to name a few
And this is not set in stone
These are some of the main images that brides and potential brides want to see
So how do you find the best shots?
Now if you already done a wedding or two, you have some content to work with
But if you're just a beginner and just starting out and you want to build this portfolio from scratch,
then that might actually be easier if we're going to be doing this the right way.
We're going to choose the images that we want to actually recreate.
There's no sense in reinventing the wheel.
You could use your own creativity
But it's better to use your own creativity on a proven image already
and make it your own.
Create it in your own light.
Whether it's artificial light or natural light
How to find those top performing images?
Now there's no right or wrong answer...
Well maybe there are a couple wrong answers.
But there's several ways that you could go about this
You can use Google Images, Instagram, Facebook
There are many platforms out there that you can search for images that perform well.
When I say perform well, perform well in terms of a lot of likes, comments, shares
The platform that I use and I suggest that you use as well is Instagram.
You open up Instagram. You use the search feature.
You know the little magnifying glass?
The different types of shots that we mentioned previously, use the hashtags in front of that.
So like, #ringshots, #bridalportrait, #firstdance, #weddingcake
Instagram shows you the related search terms
Use a lot of the other related hashtags as well
And look for the top nine posts in each of those.
You're going to look at the engagement
You're going to look at how those posts perform
If it's Instagram you're using, you want to look at the likes and comments
Comments shows high engagement
What you want to do next is save the images you like,
the images that you're interested in recreating
All we're doing at this point is simply finding top performing images, ok?
There's a save feature in Instagram.
You're just going in each of the top shots, checking out the hashtags,
checking out the images and you're hitting the save button.
When you're finish saving all of the different shots and the different types f shots,
the next thing I did was I created a collection.
simply called it, wedding shots
It's when you go in your profile and you actually see the images that you saved.
And if you created that collection, you open the collection,
you choose add images to collection or add to collection
And all of the images now that you saved previously,
you can add them to that collection so you can have everything in one spot.
Now as I mentioned, this is just one way, you can just go on the internet,
search for images, download them and put them in a folder, whatever works for you.
This is what worked for me
At this stage, the next thing that you should do,
if you're anything like me, you follow a lot of photographer
Right now we're talking about weddings, so look at wedding photographers
Or look the shots of photographers wedding related
You know what I mean!
Save the images that you want to recreate. So we're good so far?
The next tip is to start with what you have
What I did was a Styled Shoot.
I used my wife as the model. She used her wedding dress
I had a list of images, just like I mentioned using Instagram
Images that I wanted to recreate in my own style
Which is what I did. If you want to get that shot with the bouquet,
you could just buy a bouquet.
Or get a bouquet borrowed!
Approach a flowers shop and let them know that you’re doing this styled shoot
and let them know what's in it for them
They can get some professional images that they can use to market themselves
and you get the images for your portfolio so it's a win-win
The next shot is a ring shot.
If you're not married already you can borrow a ring from a friend,
a close friend or a family member ...somebody who trusts you!
A next important part of a wedding is family portraits.
The bride and groom gets to take pictures with their respective families
You can offer family shoots ...to a family!
An important part is the first dance.
Maybe you have some friends who got married
and they didn't have an official photographer for their wedding.
Have them dress up. You're giving them the images.
You can even approach a bridal store and let them know you're doing the shoot
and they can get some images out of this to showcase themselves on social media.
The idea there is really for you to get these images for your portfolio
have a list of all the different types of shots
Shots that you're going to build this initial portfolio with...
how do you go about it?
What do you next?
The things that you have to do, put it in your calendar!
You have a calendar on your phone. Put it in there!
Plan it out properly.
Think about all of the different things that has to be done with each of the different types of shoots.
The people that you have to contact
The things that you have to borrow. The things that you have to maybe buy.
There's a park that you have to go to. Check the weather.
When you figure out everything that needs to be done for each of the shoots,
what you can do is come up with a checklist.
Simply I use Google Keep, so as something gets done, check it off the list,
The reason that I'm stressing to put dates is because you want to do this as soon as possible
so that you can start generating some extra income
I hope that this video was helpful for you.
If you have any additional tips or would like to talk about any of the ones that we mentioned,
Please let us know in the comments below.
I'll see you in the next video!