Here is a pie chart which shows which type of photography businesses is making the most profit and is the most popular , I wasn't surprised when I saw that wedding photographer was the biggest in the chart but it hasn't made me want to do wedding photography as portrait photography isn't far behind on the chart.
Insurance Requirements in the photography industry
When setting up in business, there are a number of potentially unforeseen costs that can crop up. These will obviously vary depending on the nature of the business involved and the work that will be undertaken.However, if you are setting up a photography business you will almost certainly need some sort of business insurance.
Photographer Insurance
Business insurance comes in many different forms; again, the most suitable type for you will depend on your individual business model. However, when running a photography business there are a number of elements that should be considered from the outset.
In the first instance, basic photographer’s insurance is a must. You will need to at least insure your equipment; if this is lost, stolen or damaged, not only will you lose the value of the equipment itself, but your business will no longer be able to function. As such, equipment insurance is something that you must be prepared to pay for.
There are a number of companies offering specialist photographer insurance; reputable commercial insurers will either provide standard packages that will be suitable, or they will be able to tailor insurance to suit you.
You should remember that there will be limits on the value of equipment that they will insure; a standard sum is around £15,000. If you require insurance of a higher value you must be prepared to pay higher premiums. You should also note that some companies will not insure photographers that perform more dangerous disciplines such as underwater photography.
Public Liability InsuranceAside from insuring your equipment, you may also require more specialised business insurance. If your business has any sort of public-facing element, you will require public liability insurance. This type of business insurance protects you from claims made by third parties. These parties might include customers, other members of the public, sub-contractors and so on.A good policy will cover you against claims made by these parties for injury or damage to their property. There are a number of companies offering public liability insurance tailored specifically to photography businesses, many of which will cover you for claims made against you up to a value of £5 million.Depending on the nature of your photography business, there may be a minimum sum for which you must be insured; this will depend on your individual circumstances.
Professional Indemnity InsurancePhotography businesses should also consider professional indemnity insurance. This type of policy will cover you against claims made against your business as a result of a professional dispute. Instances in which professional indemnity insurance might be useful include a portrait session, after which you accidentally erase the images from your storage.
Any compensation claim made against you, or the costs of additional studio time, should be covered by your professional indemnity business insurance. It is important to note, however, that this type of insurance normally comes with a number of significant exclusions; you will not, for example, be covered against loss or corruption of data unless this has occurred as a result of your negligence.As has been mentioned, the types of insurance required by your photography business will depend on your individual business model. You may wish to seek advice from insurers, and you should certainly shop around to make sure that you are getting the best deal.
What Equipment will I need to setup my business Setting up any new business can be a costly prospect. There are numerous overheads that must be accounted for, and unexpected costs inevitably crop up. Photography equipment can be expensive and, if your business requires equipment that you do not already have, your set-up costs may well be sufficient for you to need to seek investment from a third party.
Photography equipment obviously comes in many different forms, and the equipment that your new business requires will depend upon the nature of the work that you are intending to do. Clearly, in order to keep your initial investment to a minimum, you will probably be looking to minimise the amount of new photography equipment that you buy.
However, while cost is obviously a factor, it should be remembered that your equipment is the core of your business. Without it you cannot operate. As such, it makes no sense to buy poor quality photography equipment (or to not buy things at all) if it means that the quality of your work will suffer. The cost might be problematic at the outset but, wherever possible, you should see this as in investment in the future of the new business.
Some items of photography equipment are necessary regardless of the type of work that your business is doing. Obviously, in the first instance you will require a camera of good quality. Digital equipment is highly recommended for professional photographers; while the initial outlay may be higher than for analogue, you will make your money back almost instantly as your developing costs are reduced to nothing. Furthermore, the price of professional digital gear is falling all the time, to the point where it is now possible to buy a camera body of more than adequate quality for around £500.
Lenses and Computers The types of lens that you buy will very much depend on the nature of your business. If you are mainly doing portraiture, for example, then it makes little sense to invest in a long telephoto lens. However, most photographers will find that a 35mm-equivalent digital lens will be put to repeated use. You should invest in a selection of lenses, as you are likely to require different focal lengths for different situations. A 28mm lens and a small to medium telephoto are likely to come in useful.
As a digital photographer you will also require a computer and photo editing software. Photoshop is the industry standard here, and the professional editions are still fairly expensive. However, it is possible to pick up copies of previous versions (for example CS1) comparatively cheaply. Your computer is the core of your operation, and it is therefore worth investing in a machine that will last. In order to efficiently run functions such as batch editing in Photoshop you will require at least 2 gigabytes of RAM and a dual core computer.
Lighting
depending on the nature of your work, you may also require lighting of some sort. If your business is to be based in a studio then you should consider a fixed lighting solution. Some of the best offer automated light movement on rails that are built around the studio, meaning that you don’t have to break down your rig every time you wish to rearrange it. If some of your work is to be carried out on location, you should investigate portable lighting rigs. Companies like Portastudio make perfectly acceptable rigs of this type fairly cheaply.
As can be seen, the total value of your photography equipment is likely to be fairly substantial. As has been mentioned, your equipment is vital to your business and it is therefore important that you take out adequate insurance. Specialist photographers’ insurance is offered by a number of companies, and is investigated in detail elsewhere on this site.
15/03/2011
Cash Flow Management
Lecture Plan Lecture 2 - ‘Monthly Forecasting and Cash Flow Predictions’
Cash Flow Management There are many numerous ways of forecasting your business income and expenditure, but overall it is vital that you develop a system for target setting (for sales) and estimating (with some accuracy) the outgoings of your business – overall the cash flow system can be used for several purposes, some of which are listed below:
• To set weekly or monthly targets for your business • Offer clues as to the business’s opportunity or scope for growth • To monitor the flow of income/expenditure for the business • To assess at which times of the year the business may experience cash flow problems
For this assignment you will need to adjust or customize your own group’s forecast to allow for the ways your business will operate. For example, a public relations photographer will need in estimate higher travel/transportation costs than a studio portrait photographer – idiosyncrasies such as these will need to be visible in you group’s forecast). You will no doubt want to use a spreadsheet application for the presentation of your forecast – Microsoft Excel, Apple iWork and OpenOffice Cal are some of the common spreadsheet applications.
Below are some suggestions to what could be seen in your monthly forecast*:
To include inflows such as:
• Sales (this can be broken down into subsections; such as reprint sales or framing/presentation sales)
• Interest on savings (unlikely for a small business!)
To include outflows such as: • Payments to suppliers • Expenses - rent, rates, insurance, utilities, telephones, etc • Hire purchase and lease payments • Wages • Taxes and National Insurance contributions
• Interest on loans and bank charges, or repayments on bank loans *Remember, you are predicting your businesses income/expenditure for the first 6 months, try to envisage where your busiest times will be and make adjustments to your sales accordingly. For example, it is likely a portrait studio will have it’s biggest number of sales before Christmas, a wedding photographer will have his/her busiest number of sales during the summer months.
Further Instructions: Your group can choose which 6 months of the year you will forecast. For example, if your business specialises in sports photojournalism you may wish to forecast from February to July, where most of the leagues, cups and competitions draw to a close. On the next page there are 3 tasks aimed at developing an initial response to your group’s monthly forecast. If you do not complete these within the timescale of the session please complete at your next appointed team meeting.
TASK 1 (in groups): Make an extensive list of all possible expenditure relevant to your business. Where possible try to group them together in subsections (such as ‘advertising’ or ‘supplies’). This list will form the foundation on which the ‘start-up manager’ can begin forecasting your expenditure – each group member will have their own ideas about costs and you should discuss each area at length to make sure you are creating a detailed, thoughtful description of anticipated outgoings.
My area of research is:
to find a suitable studio place for the business to be , preferably in Preston or Blackburn to find suitable furniture for the studio space - phones , sofas etc.
Studio Spaces I have found so far based in Preston
KING STREET, TOWN CENTRE, BLACKBURN
 
Key features:Ground Floor
Large Retail Area
Small Kitchen Facilities
Store Room
Electric on Separate Meter to Ground FloorLetting informationFurnishing: Not Specified Full description:Crown Estate Agents are delighted to offer for let this ground floor commercial property situated in the town centre, adjacent from Farmfoods. The property briefly comprises of a large ground floor retail area with a rear store room and kitchenette and separate W.C. to the first floor. Ideal for many retail uses.
Urban Exchange Theatre Street Preston ,PR1 8BQ
Property type:RetailSub type:Shop-frontStatus:ExistingYear built:1980 Building size:12,211 sq ft Smallest space:740 sq ftLargest space:740 sq ftTotal space:740 sq ftRent:£10,000pa
Space available:
I have decided to look on the ikea website for cheap yert quirky furnishing for our business.We will need: sofas/seating area phones desks ornaments(plants/mirrors) drinks machine folders
Task2(in groups)
Discuss, and then write down, the months of the year where you believe you should be at your busiest.If your business is diverse (such as weddings and portraits) include both summer and Christmas as peak times for high sales. This list can be used to accurately show the ‘peaks and troughs’ of your businesses financial year (well, 6 months)
As a group we have decided to do the business from the months june to December as we will have good weather for weddings and there are several events between them months.
Holidays and events from june to dec are:
June Trooping the Colours Wimbledon Tennis Tournament July Swan Upping August Notting Hill Carnival September Harvest Festival October 31st Halloween November 5th Bonfire Night 11th Remembrance Day 30th St Andrew's Day (Scotland's National Day) December Advent 25th Christmas 26th Boxing Day
TASK 3 (in groups)Discuss, calculate and then agree a set of common fees for your services. The results of this task must be tailored to your business’s specialism and to your range of services. Try not to be too detailed as it could become harder to predict sales if your services are very diverse. At the least you should agree and set a half-day rate, a day rate, and expenses appropriate to your business specialism. These figures will also be used to accurately predict your ‘inflow’ forecast.
At the moment we have all said that we can realistically put £2.500 of our savings into the business which will pay for the rent of £10.000 we are yet to decide on a budget for everything else.
After researching names of other photography businesses we found out that Icon is already taken by a lot of other businesses and so we have decided to name our business QUARTZ , Im really happy with this name as its Quirky and different and also relates to us all.
Wednesday 16th March 2011
Group 4
Josh Worthington - Resources
Lauren Joyner – Business start up
Jess Somerville - Accounting
Grace Lee – Design and advertising - didn't attend
Lj-we have basically been researching all are expenses Grace
Jw- and the design thing is next week
Lj- so I think we should all go off and independently research a bit of out expenses and then each share what we have.
Jw- well I can do the resources , like cameras lights etc.
Js-I will research the money side of it , insurance, interest rates and loans.
Lj- so if grace researches advertising and the costs of that and also different editing softwares.
Gl- so like different types of software?
Lj-yeah and I will look at the studio spaces and everything that we will need in it , such as furniture and electronic devices.
Jw-will we have to have a look at kitchen/staff rooms? because we will need to look at bills also.
Lj-Yeah jess will do that with the other costs of things .
Js-we have task 2 and 3 as well to do
Jw- yeah we need to look at that
Js- well we decided that the months we will be open is june to dec as their are plenty events to do like halloween and christmas.
Gl- how do you spell the name again?
Js- QUARTZ
Lj- so we decided that we would have two photographers, one receptionist and one editor but we would all swap round so that we all get a chance to do everything.
Js- just thinking we would have to have some sort of transport for the events
Lj - we could have two small vans
Jw- business cards could be good as well.
Js- I need to research delivery notes as well and design one.We need to think about opening times as well
Jw- well will we be open at weekends?
Lj- we could do half day on saturday
Jw- It will be busier on weekends though wont it?
Js- yeah we will have to discuss opening times again, I think we should sell small things in the shop as well to make extra cash when its quiet.
Jw- are we gonna do passport photos because I don't think that would work.
Gl- isn't that classed as a portrait though? its extra money anyway.
Lj- is there anything else anyone wants to bring up?
Jw- will we have an assistant?
Lj - we would get work experience students in to help out , means we will save money.
March 22nd 2011
Forms and Templates
Having an effective system for capturing and archiving your invoices , estimates and release forms is vital if your business is to seem professional. todays workshop is aimed at your group decided on how your forms will be designed and what the content of those forms will be.You should aim to complete the following forms before the unit 03 assignment deadline:
- estimate form
-invoice form
-license to use form
-model release agreement
Task 1
Analyse the design and content of the forms provided as examples. determine which aspects of each form should be removed to make them more suitable for your business needs. Consider some of the following:
- the inclusion of your logo and its placement
-the language used and whether its appropriate of your potential clients
-layouts and positions and complexity (appropriate)
Conclusion -
Task 2(in groups):
Following on from task 1,you should now make recommendations to the account manager based on your findings.the accounting manager should be able to design the form, at least as a rough draft, for their part in the assignment on these conclusions.
Task 3(in groups):
Read and then discuss the terms and conditions supplied in the resources attached to this paper- try to agree which , if any , of the terms and condition are appropriate to your business needs.
1.Business name - Quartz photograph
2. Business logo
Rationale
The main purpose of our business is to capture someone’s special moment or personalities in a series of images. Our aim is to photograph portraits and events to a high standard from the months June to December. We have decided to have our business run through them certain months as there are many events such as the Wimbledon tennis tournament in June, the swan upping in July, notting hill carnival in august, harvest festival in September, Halloween in October, Christmas and boxing day in December. In order to travel to each event we are going to purchase a second hand van for our transport.
We will need all four staff for each event, two to photograph the events and two to help organize and setup the equipment. We have decided in order to make the roles fair each week that we will swap roles when doing events and when in the studio itself.
We will be relying on are own finances to cover the rent of our building for the first year but we are planning on taking out a £25000 business loan which we will hopefully be able to pay back within the three years. I understand that we will be in dept at the start of our business, which can be seen as a problem, but we feel confident enough that our business will make enough profits within three years to take that risk.To add to profits when the custom is down we are going to sell: photo frames, Digital photo frames, key-rings and rolls of film for customers to add to their previous purchases.
Our business will be located in central Lancashire Preston, we decided on this location because there will be a lot of passing trade from people who are already out shopping. In order to promote and advertise our business we are going to design our own billboards and wear them around Preston town centre days before opening the business. To cut costs and help promote our business to a younger generation
we have all decided to welcome students to use our business for their work experience projects at school, colleges and universities.
List of professional Bodies what will be able to support us with our business
What exactly are professional bodies and how do they work?
Professional bodies in the UK take a variety of forms in terms of their make up and constitution. However their main objective tends to be to promote and support those involved in their particular field. Some organisations have formal recognition responsibilities e.g. to provide Chartered Status. Some are regulatory bodies and can therefore organise their own qualifications and even have legal jurisdiction over those practicing their craft e.g. the British Medial Association can strike off Doctors who have brought their profession into disrepute.
However most work on a more simple basis i.e. aim to promote their occupational area to others and those within their own professions and to provide a suitable forum to discuss issues.
Those already involved in a particular career will naturally find a relevant organisation extremely useful. Those looking at career change, professional development via CPD methods or just looking at developing career planning objectives for the future will also find such a resource invaluable.
How can professional bodies help you?
There are a number of different services that can be provided by such organisations. Many will vary in what they offer but help with recruitment in the shape of jobs & vacancies, careers advice, professional qualification business news and information on events are just a few.Membership is offered by nearly all professional bodies. Other services such as short courses and other qualifications, training, publications and research are some of the others offered.
ADVERTISING ASSOCIATION
"We are the only organisation that represents all sides of the advertising and promotion industry in the UK - advertisers, agencies and the media."
CONTACT DETAILS
7th Floor North,
Artillery House,
11-19 Artillery Row,
London,
SW1P 1RT
EMAIL: aa@adassoc.org.uk
TELEPHONE: 020 7340 1100
The Advertising Association provides the following services:
Membership
Publications
News
Events
The Association for Conference and Events"Established in 1971, The Association is the broadest membership organisation in the meetings industry. ACE is unique in that it acts as a forum and information centre for members involved in all facets of the industry."CONTACT DETAILS Riverside House
High Street
Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire
PE29 3SG EMAIL: See website
TELEPHONE: +44 (0)1480 457595
The Association for Conference and Events provides the following services:
Membership
Education
AwardsNewsEventsResearch
British Institute of Professional Photography"The British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP) is the qualifying body for professional photographers in the UK . We qualify, train and support photographers
across all types of photography - from architectural to advertising photography."CONTACT DETAILS 1 Prebendal Court
Oxford Road
Aylesbury
Bucks HP19 8EY
The British Institute of Professional Photography provides the following services: Membership Education Awards News Events Directory
The Chartered Institute of Marketing"Wherever you are in your career, we can help you develop the latest skills, get industry-relevant qualifications, learn more about marketing and join the world's biggest community of professional marketers. "CONTACT DETAILS Moor Hall,
Cookham,
Maidenhead,
Berkshire ,
SL6 9QH
The Chartered Institute of Marketing provides the following services: Membership Education
Awards
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