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Your Portfolio Is Losing You Clients (Here's What to Put There Instead)
Business Strategy

Your Portfolio Is Losing You Clients (Here's What to Put There Instead)

The Portfolio That Books Nothing Last year, a photographer came to me for a consult. She had 200 images in her online portfolio. Two hundred. Her website looked like a stock photo library, and she couldn’t figure out why inquiries were slow despite strong technical skills. When I asked her who her ideal client was, she paused for a long time. That pause is the real problem. Most photographers treat their portfolio like a highlight reel of everything they can do.

Why Your Photography Pricing Is Keeping You Broke (And What to Fix First)
Business Strategy

Why Your Photography Pricing Is Keeping You Broke (And What to Fix First)

I grew up watching my parents run a photography studio in the ’90s. They were talented, they were busy, and they were always broke. Not because they lacked clients, not because they lacked skill. Because they charged $150 for a session in 1994 and they were still charging $175 for it in 2008. Every time I asked my mom why she didn’t raise prices, she said the same thing: “I don’t want to scare people away.

Why Your Photography Pricing Is Keeping You Broke (And How to Fix It With Real Numbers)
Business Strategy

Why Your Photography Pricing Is Keeping You Broke (And How to Fix It With Real Numbers)

I grew up watching my parents run a photography studio out of our garage in Hialeah. They were talented. Clients loved them. And they were always, always broke. Not because business was slow — because they charged $150 for sessions in 2008 and were still charging $150 for sessions in 2019. Every time I suggested raising prices, my mom would say, “We don’t want to scare people away.” They weren’t scared of losing clients.

Your Portfolio Is Losing You Clients (Here's the Exact Fix)
Business Strategy

Your Portfolio Is Losing You Clients (Here's the Exact Fix)

The Portfolio That Looked Impressive and Booked Nobody A few years ago, I had 47 images on my studio website. I know it was 47 because I track everything. Open rates, inquiry conversion, average session value, all of it. And for three months, my inquiry form was basically silent. The work was good. I knew it was good. But I was getting maybe two inquiries a month, and neither of them booked.

Why Chinese Camera Phone Makers Are Winning the Mobile Photography Game
News

Why Chinese Camera Phone Makers Are Winning the Mobile Photography Game

The Camera Phone Landscape Is Shifting I’ve been watching the mobile photography market closely, and what I’m seeing is a fundamental power shift. For years, we’ve accepted that Apple, Google, and Samsung held the crown for smartphone camera technology. Their marketing budgets are enormous, their brand recognition unmatched. But here’s what’s actually happening: Chinese manufacturers are producing objectively superior camera phones—and photographers are finally taking notice. This matters to your photography business more than you might think.

Why Most Photography Clients Ghost You After the First Inquiry (And How to Fix It)
Business

Why Most Photography Clients Ghost You After the First Inquiry (And How to Fix It)

I used to lose about 40% of my inquiries between the first email and the signed contract. I know that number because I track everything, and watching it sit there in my spreadsheet month after month was maddening. These were warm leads, people who had already found me, liked my work enough to reach out, and then just… disappeared. It wasn’t a marketing problem. It was a pipeline problem, and I didn’t see it until I mapped out every single touchpoint a potential client experienced from inquiry to booking.

Why Your Photography Instagram Isn't Booking Clients (And the Fix That Took Me 90 Days)
Marketing

Why Your Photography Instagram Isn't Booking Clients (And the Fix That Took Me 90 Days)

I used to post stunning images every single day and wonder why my inquiry form was silent. My work was good. My editing was consistent. My aesthetic was dialed in. But I had confused “performing well on social media” with “marketing my business,” and those two things are not the same thing. The hard truth is that likes do not pay your rent. Saves do not fill your calendar. And follower counts, unless you’re selling a course or a preset pack, are mostly vanity metrics.

The $5,000 Lesson: What a Bad Contract Cost Me and How I Fixed It
Business

The $5,000 Lesson: What a Bad Contract Cost Me and How I Fixed It

The Job That Disappeared Without a Trace A few years into running my studio, I booked what felt like a dream client. Corporate headshots, 22 people, full-day shoot in downtown Miami. The agreement was loose, a back-and-forth email thread with vague language about “final images” and a “reasonable turnaround.” I was excited. I didn’t slow down. Two weeks after the shoot, they disputed the number of edited images included. Then they pushed back on the licensing terms I thought we’d agreed on.

How to Command $2K Day Rates as a Corporate Photographer (Lessons from Drew Forsyth)
Video Tutorials

How to Command $2K Day Rates as a Corporate Photographer (Lessons from Drew Forsyth)

I grew up watching my parents undercharge for their photography work. They were talented, consistent, and completely terrified to raise their prices. By the time they finally did, they had spent years trading their best hours for rates that barely covered their costs. That pattern is what made me obsessive about pricing strategy long before I ever had a studio of my own. So when I came across Drew Forsyth’s conversation on The Portrait System podcast, I stopped what I was doing and took notes.

Why Kodak's Latest Film Expansion Matters for Your Photography Business
News

Why Kodak's Latest Film Expansion Matters for Your Photography Business

Kodak Doubles Down on Film—And It’s Actually Significant When I reviewed Kodak’s recent financial performance, something caught my attention that deserves more conversation in our industry: the company quietly rolled out new large-format film and bulk roll products earlier this year. While the announcement didn’t make headlines everywhere, what it represents is worth examining for anyone running a photography business. A Real Commitment to Analog Let’s be direct: Kodak announcing new products in these categories isn’t just nostalgia marketing.

What Your Photography Business Owes the IRS (And How to Stop Being Surprised by It)
Business & Finance

What Your Photography Business Owes the IRS (And How to Stop Being Surprised by It)

My husband is an accountant. You’d think that would make me bulletproof when it comes to taxes. Instead, what it actually did was force me to confront some uncomfortable math I’d been avoiding for years. One evening he sat me down with my studio’s profit and loss statement and pointed out that my most profitable service wasn’t my signature portrait sessions. It was the add-on prints and albums I’d been half-heartedly upselling.

How Adding Workshops to My Studio Made Me $28,000 in a Slow Quarter
Business Strategy

How Adding Workshops to My Studio Made Me $28,000 in a Slow Quarter

Last February, I had four portrait sessions on the books for the entire month. February in Miami is not the dead season it is in, say, Minnesota, but it was quiet enough that I sat down with my spreadsheets and started asking uncomfortable questions. My studio had strong months and soft months, and I was tired of riding that wave like I had no control over it. That was the month I ran my first paid workshop.