Hey, this is Scott of Photography Banzai. I'm gonna be talking to a professional photographer today
about the COVID-19 situation currently, which is March 25th 2020.
We'll be about wedding photography
and this is Christopher Tyson. @CTysonPhotography
You got it man!
You do mostly wedding stuff, right? Yeah, I'm primarily a wedding
photographer. That's by far the lion share of my income. I also do some
commercial work, mainly with hotels and event industry stuff. But by far and what
has been the primary source of my income has been wedding. Specifically and
exclusively for about 11 years now. Awesome, yeah, I went to your.. what was
it like.. a meeting & greet photography wedding photography...?
How to do weddings...
Yeah, a little bit everything. Just trying to.. yeah! See, yeah.
And try.. and try and meet some new people.
And give them the opportunity to kind of get a bit of a taste of what it would be like
being a wedding photographer. It's a tough thing to tell you what it is. It's
more or something just experience. But yeah. Yeah, yeah, I did it once with
someone else. But I also did it once or twice as just like a friend thing. So I
kind of have an idea. But definitely a lot of helpful information that you gave
us for the timeline. That was really interesting. Good!
So let's introduce your
photography a little bit more. So you said the weddings and also the extra stuff.
So with your wedding photography how many do you tend to do per year?
My first few years of shooting weddings...
2009, 10, and 11 I would definitely consider
myself a part-time wedding photographer. In there those years I was right around
that 8 to 12 mark.
And then 2012 I got close to 20 and then 2013 to present...
I think the lowest I've done is 27 and the highest I've done is 38. Wow, that's a
lot. If they end up being spread out over the year. It's not too bad, but it's the
rough ones when it's just literally the summer months and a little bit of fall.
Those are long years, yeah. I could imagine. So with the current situation.
The virus outbreak, is pretty much ever thing canceled at this point?
The cancellations that I've had so far have come from the client end. Not too many of
the cancellations I've experienced have come from like the venue end. The venue
are right now.. are like literally hanging on to the last minute. And I think over
the next few days here we'll probably see a lot of the May ones
get canceled as well, my gut says.
And that's gonna be a venue based one. But it's a weird
limbo to be in. Nobody's ever had a business plan or an idea of what to do
if our industry just gets turned off, like a light switch. And so we're all
just kind of figuring this one out. And feeling this one out. And yeah, I don't
think anybody has any good answers on what exactly is gonna happen.
For everyone watching in Illinois basically we have a stay at home guideline for
the most? Yeah, he said mandate, but then he didn't sign an executive order.
So I... oh okay. Nobody really knows
Like and then, yeah how do private events fall into
that? So it's...
You mentioned with the venues that they're trying to hold on to
whatever they've got. How can they even do that in this situation? Hopes and
prayers? Yeah. Uhh, you know Illinois like our mandate right now is only through
April 7th. Because they're kind of doing things in two weeks blocks at a time. But
when it comes to a wedding you have to pull so many different things
together and guests are traveling from out of town. And coordinating so many
different things with different companies. And just.. you know, you can't
wait until two days before your wedding to call it off. You have to start
planning ahead of time. And the other thing that's taking place is the March
and April brides, and even some of the May ones, who have already rescheduled
are taking a lot of the only few free dates we had later in the year. So if May
all of a sudden is forced to reschedule, and everybody tries and reschedules at
the same time. You just.. you run out of dates and you run out of vendors very
quickly. And nobody has an answer for what to do in that situation.
I can't completely disagree with just trying to keep things as the status quo.
If we can get back to doing things as we normally do, that
would be the easiest solution to this. However, the people who are committing to
reschedule and.. and.. change dates and do stuff right now... They're being able to
choose their dates and choose and have options and stuff. And pretty soon
options won't be on the table, and it will just kind of be a free-for-all if
this does go into May and especially June. Do you mostly do it on weekends, or
do you actually have decent amount of weddings in the weekday period. Well, I have
weddings Friday, Saturday, Sunday all throughout the year.
Not every single one of them by any stretch of the imagination. But here and
there. Last year I had my first just random Tuesday wedding. That wasn't a
reschedule wedding or anything. Just literally a Tuesday. And I had the
feeling that they'll be more Tuesday weddings this year.
Yeah.. Uhm, It just.. it's an
availability and it's an option to where if you still wanted to get married in a
shorter timeframe and not have to regroup and do everything that's
definitely something to consider. So we're entering all kinds of territory of
we've never done this before. So we'll just kind of figure it out on the spot.
What are some of the challenges to a small business currently in this
situation? Anything tied to the wedding industry... The biggest issue we're having
is literally our income was turned off on a light switch. Just literally that.
And, you know, photographers are a little different. A lot of us either work out of
our house or a small studio. I have a studio space, but other companies that
have employees, like a DJ company or a florist company... You know they have the
added issue of not only income for them, but how do they pay their employees? How
long you keep your employees? What is unemployment pay? And then, you know, how
is.. is government going to have the assistance in place for small business?
It's just.. there's a lot of unknowns to the point that it's really difficult in
something that we don't have clear direction. And I would say that's not
really anybody's fault. This is just something that nobody's experienced
before. Again, nobody had a business model and plan in place for when the entire
world gets shut down. Nobody did! The biggest thing that it's also going to
affect is the timing of it. For us, coming out of our slow season. March, April.. we
generally don't have a lot of our strong savings built up and in play. And
especially now, because the way we've always done it is, okay, we look at our
calendar. We budget. We say: April, May, June... we have this many weddings. This many
events. This is our cash flow. This is when it'll come in. This will apply. And
we budget accordingly to that. And that's we've done it every year. And right when
that cash flow is supposed to ramp up is right when the light switch was switched.
And so nobody's in a good spot, right now. Because we budgeted accordingly to what was
gonna happen. And that's.. that's my toughest thing that I personally
experienced is budgeting and planning for a cash flow to come in, and then just
not have it come in. There's a really good chance that I'll be able to sort
out most of it without taking a huge financial los,s as far as actual weddings
themselves. But that doesn't help me pay my rent, you know? And my mortgage in
seven days. You know, that that's the tough part. Yeah.
I know that previously when I
was at your event you talked about doing a little bit of additional photography
the different type with the hotels... That's been my saving grace through this.
Towards the end of last year late fall-ish I had opportunity kind of
develop working with Hilton and some other properties all across the United
States and photographing them and documenting. You know I talked to my fiance about you
know disappearing for two and three days at a time and traveling. And having a
one-year-old, and how that'd work. Coming out of that conversation we're like... Hey
we're entering a slower year. This is an opportunity we have. Let's make it
work. And so we made it work. And, you know, so there's many a time
I'd fly it on the Mississippi and then I'd fly directly over to Washington or I
fly directly to South Carolina. And then come home. And then try and do everything
else. And then be a dad. And then have a sick kid. And stuff and the saving
grace I have with that. Is anytime you deal with any in the corporate world no
payments come quickly. So a lot of my payments that I've had take sometimes
almost 90 days to get to me. So I actually have a backlog of payments and
profit coming in that's gonna help me dramatically in this spot. Kind of luck.
You know, it wasn't planned to be that, but it's definitely gonna be
one of my saving graces that this off-season, you know, we made the
commitment we were gonna work. Rather than just kind of relax. Worked out great!
I'm not gonna argue with it.
Does this kind of give you motivation to potentially
branch out a little bit more in the future with your photography, or is there
like no time once the wedding start?
Yes and no... Uhm, no Hotel wants their photos of a
the property taken on a weekend. They're always packed. So these are only taking
place Monday through Thursday. And so the question is.. can I be efficient enough
when I'm on the road as far as editing and keeping my business in play? And
meetings and stuff, and still do this. You know, I definitely probably won't turn
down a lot of opportunities. But they'll definitely be some weeks in there where I'll
probably black them out and say, hey, I love you guys. But I just I can't travel
right now I need to take care of this first. So I.. the my... the way I am
operating my business is weddings come first. Weddings have their pick of my
time, and then if I can fill something else in I'll fill something else in, and uhm
maybe even push something in there that isn't an easy fill, but I'll kind of
smash it in. But that goes kind of with everything that I've done from day one.
Like, I generally don't turn down the opportunity to explore.. to taste.. and
especially when you can make money doing it. Yeah. Why would you tap the
brakes on that? You never know what's gonna happen, or the opportunity that
it's gonna lead into. So just go experience it. The worst thing that can
happen is if you do a first short period of time and you're like: Hey this just
isn't for me, or my timings not right. And then you get out of it. But there's
nothing wrong with trying it out. And I tried it out, and it's been a huge huge
win for us. Let's just assume that this situation changes by June. Okay. At that
point, do you want to kind of speculate what's gonna happen with the wedding
situation? Let me ask you this. June 1 or the end of June? Because that is going to be
a very critical month, I think, for all of us. I think a lot of us in the industry...
We can weather May, and I think a good chunk of us have already budgeted in a
way that we don't think that May weddings are gonna happen. June's gonna be the one
where... If this gets pushed into June, or let's just
say they ease recommendations. And they allow, like, the smaller gatherings.
Weddings are probably going to be one of the last things they like officially say
and allow. Hey let's bring, you know, 300 people together. And serve food. And be
around for eight to ten hours. And have a lot of elderly and high-risk people at
it... That's true. It probably will be one of the last things they rubber stamp and
say: Hey you're good to go on. So it's not inconceivable that a good chunk of
businesses could be moving back to normal by the beginning of June, but
weddings are still kind of in a weird limbo. Or almost in a way like bootlegged
where, you know, you kind of have them off the grid. Or a different way than, you
know, over.. it yeah... semi-legal, yeah
Food is gonna be a big one. They've been very
Clear about restaurants in Illinois. All restaurants that serve food
to somebody who comes in and sits is not open, period. So now does a wedding
reception count as that? And that's where like we get into this this weird area
they don't know. So I would say, if if we can start doing weddings again June 1, uhh...
It'll be a very painful year. Nobody's really gonna grow. Nobody's going to have
like a big giant huge win of the year. But all of us will survive I think.
I don't think there'll be too much long-term damage. Ahh, June's gonna be the big one.
Because then.. you.. at that point you've
already pushed, you know, March.. April.. May.. Brides later into the year or also into
2021. If you start have to do June as well too... ehhh.
We're gonna run on availability. The other thing to think out is if you're a
2021 bride who's thinking about getting married, or you just got engaged. A lot of
your prime dates are gonna disappear very very quickly from the rescheduling
as well. By shutting us down for only a small period of time can greatly affect
how literally the next 18 months of these weddings are gonna pan out and how
they're gonna work out.
Yeah. scheduling, I can imagine, trying to push three months
into: June, July, August, ...
Hopefully you can manage that like physically and being
capable of it. Yeah, it's it's the physical portion of
it. It's the backlog of editing. It's the time sitting in front of the computer.
Yeah. It's gonna be scheduling the emails. Scheduling the meetings. If you're a
whole wedding venue. It's going to be having the amount of staff that you need
to do it. Because a lot of the wedding venues rely just on the weekend only
staff. So a lot of the people have regular jobs. So if we start doing those
Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday weddings... Where are you gonna get the staff to do this?
There's so many pieces to it when you start digging into it that, you know, in...
All the the DJ's, or even some photographers who will rent gear. There's only
enough gear. Oh! To rent.. rental to go around too So. That's true.
Yeah. In May.. June's it's gonna be...
It's gonna be very telling. And some people are gonna be squeezed pretty hard.
And it's not fun to see. And it's not fun to know. But to think that every single
one of us as wedding vendors had a great savings account. And we planned
ahead and we budgeted for having our industry turned off for multiple months...
I don't think that's a fair thing to put on all of us. But the end result is is
that we have to pay bills, you know. Yeah. That...
Coming sooner than later. Yeah, ha.
Do you always have a second photographers? Or is that kind of part of your
option for a wedding couple? It's included in my initial... Like when
somebody says how much do you charge for a wedding? The initial price that I talk
about always includes a second photographer. Okay. So do you think you
would find it challenging if it is pushed back to find so many people to
help you out? I'd say you probably across all the wedding's that are like of an
average to decent budget in size. 80 to 85% of them have two shooters. And then...
Let's just say a really busy area time frame in our Northern Illinois Rockford
area. Let's just say we have ten weddings going on per day. Where.. That need a
second shooter. If all of a sudden all these things get compressed and we're
now to 15 weddings that happened on a Saturday that means we need 15 second
shooters. Yeah. And some of these people who are second shooting now have
their lead wedding on their own because people are running out of dates
and stuff gets passed off. So that will be a pain point and
that's gonna be another scramble. Because there's only so many of them. The photographer
forums you'll probably see us three days before a wedding begging for a
second shooter and.. and stuff. And I.. That's one of those things of like having that
second shooter development and training is getting in front of that as well too. It
wasn't planned on at that time of you know happening like that. But it's
another one of those things we have a list of people that we can start
developing and pooling and preparing for it. I know I have a friend in the floral
industry and they've already had to push so many dates to later in the year. And
she's already looking at these dates like... Oh my gosh... And she went to her
employees and just like: get ready! Like. Okay. We're... get ready to work... I just no answer
to it other than that, yeah. Is there anything else so you can think of?
I would like to give.. like.. if anything I could give like a word of encouragement
to like some of my fellow people within the industry. And that, like.. This is an
ebb and flow. This is a very painful season, but it is just a season. It's
something that, you know, just as summer moves through a season winters gonna
move through a season. And there will come a time when we're on the other side.
You know, and get ready to ramp up. And I'm... my greatest thing that I'm doing for
my business and what I would encourage all of us other vendors is to take this
time to get better. And to hone those things. To develop skill sets. To put,
you know, policies and practices in place that once spring does happen. You're
ready to put that gas pedal down and go. Because it's it's gonna get chaotic very
very quickly. As much as, I like... Definitely two days ago I had a day
where I was just like, you know I'm just kind of done with everything. And I'm not
gonna do anything of value. And I'm just gonna probably get fat on the couch for
a day. And I just gave up on the day. No problem in admitting it at all. You know,
but if we do that for a week and two weeks... and three weeks right now while this
downtime is... All the sudden spring's gonna get here and we're not gonna be ready.
So just take advantage of this time and do the things that you've been wanting
to do, as far as making your business better. And also making yourself better
as a person. And get ready because once we make it to the other side it's
it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be chaotic. It's gonna be busy, but there's gonna be
a lot of opportunities out there for us to grow very very very quickly. Yeah I
learned that it is a very physical job as well. So maybe some actual training
would help. Start jogging! Like.. I.. downloaded the.. couch to.. "The couch to 5k" app.
I'm gonna start running here. Because I... What great better way to social
distance than just a run away from people? Haha, Oh yeah. Sure.
Thanks for your time. Again, ahh...
@CTysonPhotography on Instagram and the website, so CTysonPhotography.com
You got it! Okay. Awesome. I really appreciate it.
Yeah. Thank you!
Okay so I'm just gonna start off. If you make a mistake or anything just pause
and then redo it. I'm going to edit this for sure, so.
Now what part do I freestyle rap?
Ha, Whenever you feel like it!