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Client Galleries and Keeping Clients

Lesson 20 from: Family Photography: Modern Storytelling

Kirsten Lewis

Client Galleries and Keeping Clients

Lesson 20 from: Family Photography: Modern Storytelling

Kirsten Lewis

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Lesson Info

20. Client Galleries and Keeping Clients

Lesson Info

Client Galleries and Keeping Clients

So the thing I love about smuggling now is really customizable to go again with your branding so we're looking at the back end so the clients won't see that top part at all but it's really simple and it's clean and I really like it a lot so um if I have me see if I have a couple of pictures that we could just we're like pretending that we are so say I want to make a new gallery it's so simple first of all it's separated by so find your session proofs so I haven't separated this way really easy for the clients to find I wanted things that air is easy for the clients to manage is possible because a lot of clients aren't very tech savvy. So you know a day in the life sessions we go in there has all my day in the life sessions and then you just click that when they find it they can click on here see they all have their artisan at it and I strategically put the artisan that it first and then the extended gallery and then when they click on this it will prompt them to do a passwords you khun...

password protect it they open it up and then they can go through all their pictures it's really it's just easy it's super easy and they can look at it big go through um for you in the back end, what I love is that you can just easily download the picture that's what that arrow is for get any camera information that you need or change your set up for the clients it's as easy as the by photo the by um tab is right in this corner here and you just taken by the photo or the whole gallery or they can even create a card and for me that was a lifesaver with christmas card because I don't like christmas cards but they have some decent templates so even set up how much you want to make a perp pack and they could design everything depending on what designs you allow them to design with it's just awesome and I don't offer other products so when they hit that there won't be anything comes up but they can just buy this photo so if I buy it if it's me buying on the back end just has this product pricing but you consent the pricing however you want it's very easy for them to find what size they want I only offer g clay and lost er um and you're seeing my pricing so you can see like it's really affordable for us and then they want one if they get a five by seventy thing it tells them that they have to crop it uh when it goes into the cart um then they can check out or go back do you have a lot of people order oh my god I have made ten thousand dollars last year just doing nothing and for a lot of people that's not a lot of money for prints but for me it's like well that's didn't bread it's like awesome like I don't I don't do anything I even have it set up where they have my customized packaging with my thank you no already there and it just cost me like I don't know three or four dollars per order and I have a set amount it won't go out with the pack the custom packaging unless it goes to that amount but like they send all of that for me I don't do anything so is lovely packaging I don't do anything and they also so when I'm making a new one, you can when you have this open you could d'oh a new gallery or this gallery so I could just do it's so easy I do a new gallery actually I'm going to show you the right way hold on first I'm going to create and all I do is I'm going to create a folder first because that's where I'm gonna put the two galleries so you do the folder first wherever it's going to go and then once you go into that folder like once you create the folder then I could I could create another gallery in this folder so you just make the folder first and then you put the galleries in its that's simple and then you can decide if you want to put um I can show you all your security is in here uh password protected um and there's other programs that do this just for me it's like I'm kind of a dumb dumb so this is really easy right right click protected water marking and with my water marking I already have it uploaded so you just slept your watermark um you can even decide what you want to do with social like you could have people leave comments um appearance and I have quick setting so it's really easy for me I just do carol basic don't have toe adjust any of the other ones except for the security the basic information and then there's security on that's it and then it creates it and then you just upload it it's pretty amazing no, I didn't fill in all the basics but that makes sense just kind of like a it's so easy and clean like I just like that it's really easy um okay I'm already here prince through or what lab so you have a choice with smugmug? I think they have easy prints something out a white house custom color in bay four you should be paying me for this, but a lot of advertising for them, but they've been really good to me, so it's, I love them, I've been with them for twelve years I wouldn't b behind the product if I didn't actually use it all the time and I just think it's easy I'm trying to share, especially with newer photographers that it's easy uh, speaking of easy, I'm gonna open up smart albums for a minute so you guys going to ask me this question already? And that is what do you give for products when it comes a day in life sessions and for me, it's pretty much on ly albums like I don't do a lot of other sales it's really just album sales files with the day in the life session or do they purchase the files? We'll talk about all about the day in the life stuff in the next section but yes, the answer is they purchase everything in addition um and I have different pricing for photographers vs other clients. Um so this is the most in my opinion one of the most amazing programs has ever been invented because I hate designing albums like I actually hate it with a passion um but this just makes everything easy it's like no matter what album company you use, they have their dimensions in there I use pro dp I so pro dp eyes in there and prodi p I has gift certificates for you guys have to give you so then prodi pee iet asks what sat and also asks so my um my finding your own voice workbook is a lay flat but it also asks if you're doing the lay fat or if you're doing the magazine style and then you pick your size so do ten by ten it prompts you I was just you clean I don't want a borders but you can't you have control of all this uh then there's like templates without square for lake frames that you don't want any squares or ten months only with a three two ratio it's your choice or you could do all of them I like all of them I like lots of options but actually I don't know you usually just do one per page but for people that do want that it's available okay and then we're going to start and then you save it save it on my desktop um so it's it's pulling all the library's right now so just take a minute honestly you khun just go download and try smart albums and play with it I'm telling you it is so easy so while oh oh it worked I think I think okay so it's it's easy is this you should be able should be able to drag boobs they go here so it will import the pictures for you import them no he's a really small pictures by the way like I'm just using a sample so you can see um you literally just decide I want three pictures on this page or four and it automatically designs it for you and then if you don't like that design you hit the arrow key and it will show you every option you have what this is like seriously who designs albums? This is genius like this is the smartest thing I've ever like found like literally just go through I don't like that just like that like that what they are I'm not kidding like I hate helping to sign and then maybe I just want one and then maybe I want five maybe I don't like that design maybe I want that suit like seriously what? It's just so easy any technical questions about this product? Like I said for the people in the chat room I believe that daniel's in there right now because he wanted to help answer any questions they had specifically about the program and I know that it's on ly I think it only works with math right now, but windows is coming out very shortly uh they're coming out with a new release it's gonna add a lot more features I don't know what other features you really need but but honestly it's it's I mean it's it's this easy and when your album is done then you just export it and then it's ready to go then you can put it into your rose does he have a guy's? Any questions? I mean it's pretty easy, right? Yeah and daniels and they're already making comments letting people know that it's only mac right now not for peace that's what I thought but they're working on their working on a yeah solution yes, I did the trialled I think it's like a one or two month trial and it was amazing I actually designed my very first album using this and I was like, yeah it's great because I do believe that I don't know I didn't I mean, I just didn't even venture in tow before because headache time you know but this was like, oh my gosh it's passing it's easy, intuitive, fairly intuitive so yeah, really great. Um I just wanted to say as far as keeping client I have one piece of advice and that is care about them if you care about them and you delivered good photos they'll keep coming back but it takes a little bit of thought and energy on your end at least for me I really do become friends with all my clients like a lot at least a lot of them so I think about things like when one of my clients dogs got sick, I knew that he was sick. I just simply put, uh, a little thing on her facebook page from a photo from our session. It was like, hey, I'm thinking about you things, why thinking about you guys? And then after it there they lost their dog. I posted one more photo that I had taken again. This is emphasizing whyyou should include pets in pets are important, too, in their family photos, and all I said was sending love like I care about my clients out, much like I and then the crazy thing was a week later, another one of my clients lost their dog, and so I just made a note toe go right and get a picture from their, um, session and put it on there to let them know I was thinking about them. Um, this is I just wanted to take one minute talk about this family, so I just photographed this family. I haven't even delivered their pictures yet. I was supposed to photograph her birth. This was a situation where she went three weeks early when I was out of the country and I couldn't photograph and we were both bums, but she's, like, you know what let's just do a day in the life assumes the baby comes and so we did and I didn't get a chance to meet her husband because he was at the doctor's when I went to the initial meeting but he was in believe afghanistan and hit a land mine and it took his leg and um part of his hand so he's missing a finger and then another one is really damaged up his leg took his leg and then took out his bicep on him by step on his other arm and he's just got the most positive attitude of anybody I've ever met and he's so active with his kids and he he never let it like stop him like he was in the hospital in d c but he he he wanted out as soon as possible unfortunately and I'm not talking bad about the military at all, but in this situation they won't give him one hundred percent disability but he can't work there anymore so he has to leave and he's on ly getting I believe sixty percent disability, which is not enough to take care of his family and but the photo's meant so much to them that they were investing with me like I couldn't even believe this and I was talking music is there a way we can get a lawyer to like five producing don't even have money for a lawyer he's like I just want to get moved past this and one of the lawyers told them, if you just claim you have ptsd, you'll get a hundred percent and his attitude was I'm not lying like I don't have that like I'm ok, I just missing two fingers and my whole leg. But what the government said was, we gave you a new leg, so you're fine, so I'm giving them their files for free. I'm not even charging them there's, no question, they don't know that I'm doing that, but when I put up their pictures, I'm gonna give him to them for free. So maybe no one agrees with my business advice, but for me, like I'm an artist first, and I'm emotional human, and I connect and in situations like this or if someone loses a dogger, I make decisions that might not be the best for us or my business. But I believe that it will come back to me like I really do, like running a business like this from my heart, I do believe will come back to me in some way. Does that make sense? Okay, there's one and the business on that, um, we'll talk about that, so

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Family Portraits Quick Tips
Sponsor Discount Codes
Gear Guide
Family Session - HD
Newborn Session - HD

Ratings and Reviews

kjburnett
 

I cannot recommend Kirsten's course highly enough. I've tuned in to a couple of CreativeLive courses on photographing families and children, and they were both very "studio"-centric. A lot of posing, a lot of gear, etc. I don't have a studio and a lot of gear, I don't desire to, I'm uninspired by the outcomes, and I tuned out pretty quickly. I love capturing people, especially kids and families, in their moments. I love a great candid. I love "documentary photography" (as I learned to call it from this course). And loving and creating photos that tell a story or capture a genuine moment is exactly what this course taught us to do, and did a fantastic job of doing. A few things I loved about Kirsten from the get go: she is not pretentious, but intelligent and genuine; she as a person and her photography are inspiring; she knows how to teach - technical without being 'technical', knows how to explain her process, draws on her mistakes so we can all learn from them (and our own - and this is a HUGE element of teaching most people lack!), all the while packing in an enormous amount of information that could improve anyone's photography. is very accessible in her explanations and her language; she is honest: a good teacher will be critical because again, if she's not (and if we're not open to it) how will we ever learn? Although I felt sometimes her language was a bit harsh or her assessments "right or wrong" where more nuanced language could be merited - my one critique. really seemed to be teaching first and foremost to have people learn and be excellent photographers, and to enjoy the gifts photography can offer (personally and productively), which made it so much more appealing to be "in the room". Best of all, I had an awakening that I am allowed to be myself in my photography. As much as I love candids, I get caught up in the expectation to take posed pics, for those I'm taking the photos for more than for myself. No more. It makes me impatient and disappointed with the outcomes. I'm going to cultivate what I love. I also finished each day inspired to take and process photos - visiting my nieces, bringing my camera everywhere. During the class I kept going into lightroom to look at my pics while she was teaching, to compare my past photos to what she was teaching. It was such a wonderful learning experience. Thank you Kirsten for being true to yourself, going out on a limb in your approach, and sharing all of this with us!

Kathleen Petersen
 

I started out in photojournalism, but it was a long time ago. Back in the 70s, I would play with the little ones, in their backyards, or at their breakfast tables, to get lots of beautiful, real images. Then, over the years, with the need to earn income, and then later, the need to compete, I got side tracked. I still did photojournalistic images of my kids, and eventually, their kids, but clients were wanting specific things. I called it the line-them-up-and-shoot-them style of family photography. The creative soul within was always longing for the more natural, more real images, and I have always been able to sneak them in to any session. But my business was mostly about everything else. I shot some weddings early on, to pay my dues and my rent. But discovered that I much preferred being a second shooter and capturing the candid moments and the details. As I am now a grandmother, I have been making changes gradually in my business to get back to my roots. Taking this class has been life-changing for me. I was making these tiny little baby steps, as if I was afraid that I would fall out of favor with my current and future clients. The competition is huge here in socal, so how could I dare step away from the white shirts and khakis? I dare. I am about to completely revamp my business model to return to where I started from. I plan to march to the beat of my own drummer. It really does make one happy to follow one's passions and to be true to one's self. I don't even care if I lose any clients. I want to provide for people something that is so essential. Real images that will nail down the memories forever as they interact and love each other. This is so important. At first, I wasn't sure if I would like Kirsten. But by the end of the three days, I loved her as if she were my best friend from forever ago. I love her for her personality, the things she taught us, and her great example. Best class I have ever taken at Creative Live, and that is saying something! Thank you!

Jo Benoy
 

The great thing about photography is that it can be all things to all people: a hobby, an art form, a profession. As long as I can remember, cameras and pictures have been important to me - for different reasons in different seasons. I have never been particularly interested in formal photos, and I thought my preference for "catching moments" in a style three or four notches above a snapshot made me seem like some sort of slackard. Enter Kirsten Lewis. In three days, she explained, modeled and taught the sort of shooting that I've loved for as long as I can remember. She mirrors my philosophy that good photographs aren't necessarily pretty, and that if a picture is compelling or evocative, it's a good one. Lewis is not only a gifted photographer but a clear and cogent teacher, which is always a welcome combination, and as strong as her tangible skills are her confidence and dedication to her own style and voice. I've watched and bought several CreativeLive courses, but I have enjoyed none more than this one: ever since watching it, my brain has been spinning and my shutter finger has been itchy. I loved, loved, loved this workshop.

Student Work

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