LifetimeInFocus.com

Yes the Holiday season is here!

2010-11-10T16:24:00.000-08:00

As we have done in past years, LIF has reactivated and/or extended all events posted over the past 12 months for 60 days. An email will be sent out to any email addresses associated with each event letting the recipient know that the event has been reactivated or extended through the holidays at NO CHARGE. History has shown that the next two months is a great time to remind your clients about gifting photographs during the holiday season. This is a marketing opportunity provided by LifetimeInFocus.com to you at no charge. Now is the time to enhance the potential by emailing your clients. You might also consider using our coupon function to offer clients a dollars off coupon, which will further encourage them to revisit their special events.

Hoping you have great sales during the holiday season.

Thanks,

The team at http://www.lifetimeinfocus.com/

Gift Cards!

2010-07-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder how the 'power users' get all those sales? Marketing, Marketing, Marketing!!!

Don't forget to use the marketing tools incorporated in Lifetimeinfocus. Just click on the marketing logo,

Also take advantage of our 'gift cards'. You only pay 30% of the face value of all gift cards! Our most successful photographers use the gift card feature on a regular basis. It is a great way to spur sales!
Just click on the 'gift cards' icon from your photographers admin page.
Here are a few more tips:

Marketing Tips
1)
As soon as you activate your event send out as many notices by email as possible. The stats prove that the sooner you send out the emails, the fresher it is in the guest’s mind, the more likely and sooner they are to order. Keep the excitement going! Use the “Share” link in the gray box above an individual picture to send out your favorite shot or use the “Share this with a friend” function in the gray box area to share the event using the same picture chosen for the event. Either will create an eCard with a picture, inviting the person to view the event. [Important Note: when sending out an eCard invitation on a password protected event the eCard allows viewing the event, bypassing the password, BUT it will not allow a recipient to view a password protected Album within an event.]
2)
Create a word file or a notepad file of email addresses for each event. You can add email address as you get them. Periodically send out new eCards inviting people to view the event. The best times to do this are before Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and at the anniversary date. Remember, LIF keeps images up for a year so you can hit the various holidays.
3)
Put a sign up sheet next to the guest book at the wedding. LIF can supply you with sheets for free just by asking for them.

Lifetime in Focus.com Workshop!

2010-04-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

Winter 2010 Newsletter

2010-03-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

Lifetime In Focus Newsletter
Marketing Tips for 2010

New Marketing Function - Special Portfolio Event Function

You can now create a Special Showcase event, a Portfolio of your work. This event, which looks exactly like every Lifetime In Focus event and is created as if you were creating a normal event, is used to show potential clients examples of your work. It shows up on your personal page and is always the first event, at the top of the listing of your events. (It does not show up on the main event pages, only on your personal page.) Potential clients can easily share this portfolio with friends and family just like a normal LIF event, allowing others to see the quality of your work. As with any event, your email, contact info and website are shared whenever your event is shared and as with a normal LIF event, anytime anyone views the event or shares it with others, that information is stored in the marketing folder in your admin area, easily retrieved by clicking on the marketing icon in that event. As with all LIF events, a Portfolio Event is hosted for free for 90 days and can be extended indefinitely for $8.95 per 12 month period or you can create a new Portfolio Event and host it for free for 90 days. (When you create a new Portfolio Event it cancels out the old Portfolio. You can only have one live Portfolio Event at a time.) However, you can always add and delete images from an existing Portfolio Event keeping it fresh with new images without having to create a new event.

Create your Portfolio Event by checking the Portfolio box when you create your event. Other than clicking the Portfolio box, everything else about creating the event is the same. Upload pictures, create albums, add descriptions, designate album and event icons, send out emails inviting people to view your work. Note: we strongly recommend that you do not password protect this special event. The idea is to make it as accessible as possible and all a password does is add a hurdle to people seeing your work.

Check your event marketing folder periodically to see who has been viewing your event to see if you have any potential clients on whom who you may want to follow up. It's easy to do; you can send out an email from the event from within your admin area or you can use the share function within the live event. Offer an incentive to book with you by creating an LIF dollars-off coupon to send along or make up your own special offer.

Several weeks before your special event expires we will send you an email. You can extend the event from within your admin area, Event Section, for only $8.95 a year. This keeps your special event live and at the top of your list of events on your personal page. it also keeps your listing live on the LIF directory. (Remember.you must have a live event to be visible on the LIF national directory.)

Try it out. It costs you nothing to give it a spin.

New Prints Prices from Boulder Pro Photo.

Are you using LabPrints to order prints online for your studio? Boulder Pro Photo has revised its online automated LabPrints pricing for 2010. Click here to see the pricing schedule for 2010.

LabPrints studio management and online print ordering software is FREE. Want to know more? Click here!

Thank you all who are using LifetimeinFocus.com for their online hosting and print sales. We are committed to producing high quality prints for your clients and providing the best customer service available anywhere. While you are out shooting we are minding the store.

Roy McCutchen,

President, Boulder Pro Photo

www.boulderprophoto.com

Lifetime In Focus

www.lifetimeinfocus.com

Here's some great time saving tips!

2010-02-05T14:39:00.000-08:00

Time Management Tips

You can't earn big money doing small tasks. Business by Design reports that design professionals should concentrate on top dollar duties rather than chump change chores.

Using Lifetime In Focus was designed so you can do just that!

Time Wasted is Income Lost
It's one thing to charge a hefty hourly fee. It's another thing to get it.
You won't get it very often if you waste your time instead on minimum wage work. Like filling print orders. And buying print packaging supplies. And standing in line at the post office.
You're not going to reach your financial goals by licking stamps and stuffing envelopes.
You'll reach them by providing photo services to high end clients, and performing those sales and marketing activities which generate the most income.

You've heard it a million times: Do what you do best, and delegate the rest.

But do you get it?
Not if you spend valuable time reorganizing your files.
Not if you spend hours learning a software program that the 13 year old kid next store could handle for you in 10 minutes.
Not if you use your time placing simple orders or sending out invoices or tracking down missing images or futzing with other things that a good online storefront could do just as well if not better.
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
Think you can't afford to let us handle all this for you?
Think again.
What you can't afford is the time you spend now on routine adminstrative tasks. Pay others to do them. Spend money to make money.
Working longer hours is not the best way for you to increase your income. Managing your time more effectively is.
Don't sweat the small stuff. Hire others to do that for you.

Lifetime In Focus Newsletter Winter 2010

2010-01-25T16:10:00.000-08:00

Marketing Tips for 2010
Photographers – Welcome to a New Year and a New Decade!

The staff here at www.LifetimeInFocus.com hopes you had a wonderful holiday season and wishes everyone the best for the coming new year. While the economy has been less than kind to most of us, LIF did end the year up, with more registered photographers than last year and an increase in overall sales. It appears that many photographers embrace our concept of high quality, personalized service and lower costs to you with our approach of no monthly or annual fees. With our commission-only structure, you never get a bill from Lifetime In Focus.

The photographers that did the best were the ones that actively marketed their events. This certainly should come as no surprise. Here are some of the ways photographers have been marketing using LIF functions:

1. Obtain as many email addresses as possible before you turn the event "ON" for the public. When you turn your event on you will get a box that you can enter email addresses into. Those people will receive an email notice from LIF telling them that the event is ready to view along with a link to take them right into that event. Those addresses will be linked to that event and stored for you, accessible through your admin account.

2. Purchase Gift Certificates for your clients. There are two main ways that LIF gift certificates are being used (maybe you can come up with another great idea). First off, many photographers include prints with their contract. For example a photographer will say, "My contract price for shooting your wedding includes a hundred dollars in online credit towards prints". Then they will purchase a hundred dollar certificate or several smaller denomination certificates adding up to $100 that they email to the bride and groom. Not only does this enhance their contract offer but it encourages online sharing and purchasing of pictures, usually beyond the amount of the gift certificate. The second way photographers use gift certificates is to stimulate sales after the event is posted. Photographers buy a ten dollar certificate and email it as a follow up, which can easily be done from your admin area. Everyone has to spend that $10 and seldom do they stop at $10. The average print order this past year was over $85.

3. Use the email marketing function in your admin area to send follow up messages. Even people that don't purchase have to sign the guest book to view an event. All guest book sign-ins are saved so you can see who has been viewing or even invited to view the pictures as any emails set out for sharing are recorded and saved for you. Just click on the marketing icon in the event section of your admin area.

4. Encourage your clients to post their event on Facebook or Myspace. We have made that easy by having a direct link to Facebook and Myspace in each event.

5. Encourage clients to use the Share function in each event to invite friends and relatives to view their special event.

More Marketing Tips

1. Use passwords sparingly if ever on events. Only password-protect an event if the client expresses a concern. We often get requests from guests that have not been given a password or have forgotten a password. These requests have to be forwarded to the photographer as we cannot give out a password. Everyone has to sign in with their email address, but whenever possible, we have found it is best to try and keep events open to the public.

2. Use your page on the directory. Keep you website URL and contact info up to date. If they can't contact you easily they won't contact you at all. Use your Bio to sell yourself.

3. If you have a website, put a link to LIF on it. In your admin area under "My Account", there is a "Homepage Link Code" section where you will see two pieces of html script that you can copy and place on your website. One script is for a text only link and the other includes the LIF graphic logo. Either one will take visitors from your web site directly to your personal page on LIF with your events listed.

4. COMING SOON: NEW SERVICE! Make a clearly labeled Sample Event and keep it running on your personal page. This gives people an event to see your work. Also, people still have to sign in to view so you get a lead every time someone views your sample event. (If you happen to use passwords for most of your events, this is one you definitely should not use a password on.) Update this Sample event periodically and use the marketing email function in your admin area to invite people back to see your new work.

Hopefully, these tips will help you make more sales in 2010. Lifetime In Focus relies on you making sales to stay in business. Our commission-only approach only works if you are making money, too. Obviously there are many photographers who appreciate our approach of keeping costs down by having a simple, clean site, focused on marketing, showing off your work and making sales for you. We don't have a huge marketing budget, either, so you won't see us at WPPI or other trade shows this year; they just plain cost too much, and guess who ultimately pays the bill for that marketing; you do! You can help us keep our and your marketing costs down by using the LIF marketing tools, which really cost you only time, and by telling your friends about Lifetime In Focus. Active photographers are our lifeblood. We need you to make this work.

Thanks for a great year in 2009 and once again, best wishes for a super great 2010.

Roy McCutchen,
President, Boulder Pro Photo
www.boulderprophoto.com

Lifetime In Focus
www.lifetimeinfocus.com

Senior Portrait Show

2009-09-09T10:58:00.001-07:00

Our first Senior Portrait Group Show is now up at Boulder Pro Photo. We invited clients to submit their best senior portraits for the show then we printed, mounted and hung the images in the front of the shop. We also posted the images and photographer information on our facebook page and invited Boulder Valley high school students to come in and get a coupon for free wallet prints.

The shop looks great with all the senior portraits. Seven local photographers have their work up along with marketing materials. Make sure you take a look next time you are in town!

Be on the lookout in the next few weeks for an announcement about our first wedding photography show.

Too soon to talk about Christmas?

2009-09-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

Photo: Bree Bailey

The weeks leading up to the Christmas holiday are very busy at Lifetime in Focus and Boulder Pro Photo with people ordering holiday photo gifts. The week before Thanksgiving (approximately November 14th, 2009) we will reactivate all events on Lifetime in Focus for free. They will stay on until the beginning of the new year. The holidays are a great time to remind clients to purchase prints to share with their family so be sure to utilize the marketing tools on your dashboard to contact clients.

*However, if you have events on LIF that you do not want reactivated, please spend some time deleting them.

Stay tuned for more holiday marketing ideas in the coming weeks!

New Shows up at Boulder Pro Photo

2009-07-15T15:29:00.001-07:00

For July, we have 2 new shows up:

Everything is not Enough: Student work from Roddy MacInnes' Intro to Photography class summer 2009.

Colorado Wildflowers Holga images from Rachael Thompson
Both shows will be up until mid August when we take them down to install our first annual senior portrait group show. If you would like to be considered for a show at Boulder Pro Photo, please contact me: rachael@boulderprophoto.com

Skin Retouching Using Smart Filters

2009-07-14T11:21:00.001-07:00

I found this video on Mark Johnson's website. He has many valuable resources on his site but I thought this one would be of particular interest to portrait shooters.

Photoshop Workbench 185: Speedy and Realistic Skin Retouching Using Smart Filters

Posted using ShareThis

Senior Portrait Show Call for Entry

2009-07-14T10:37:00.001-07:00

Image by Misha Photography

Senior Portrait Group Show 2009 Call for Entry

Boulder Pro Photo is pleased to announce our first annual Senior Portrait group show. Local photographers are invited to submit 1 to 2 of their best senior portrait shots to Boulder Pro Photo for inclusion in our first annual Senior Portrait group show. Boulder Pro Photo will take care of the printing, mounting, hanging and advertising. You get exposure, potential new clients and coupons for free prints to use or share with your clients.

Important Dates:

Images on display at BPP August 17, 2009 to September 11, 2009
Images due to BPP by August 12 at 11 AM via Lab Prints (or delivery for film customers ONLY)

Photographer Requirements:

12 x 18 image (sized and ready to print, lab color correction will be performed where needed for best possible print)
Must be a senior portrait or single portrait (collages of one senior are certainly welcome)
Must be submitted via Lab Prints. Please write SENIOR SHOW in comments section of order. (Film shooters may bring negative into the lab)
Images will be accepted until Wednesday August 11, 2009 at 11 AM
Each image submission is $25 which covers the cost of printing and mounting.
Photographers are encouraged to provide BPP with promotional materials to be made available to visitors
BPP reserves the right not to show submitted work due to quality or space concerns. Photographers whose work is not shown will not be charged.

Benefits for the photographer:

Photographs and photographer's promotional materials will be shown in Boulder Pro Photo's store for one month
All participating photographers will be given 8 coupons to use or share with their clients that entitle bearer to a free sheet of 8 wallets when they buy one sheet of 8 at BPP
Boulder Pro Photo will advertise the show in local media and online
Photographers will be given their mounted 12 x 18 prints at the conclusion of the show

Please direct your questions to rachael@boulderprophoto.com

Wedding Inspiration

2009-07-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

Calumet Photographic's latest issue of Timeframes is dedicated to photographers' best wedding shots.

Do you look at Flickr image pools to get inspiration? Flickr is a great, if at times overwhelming, source to see what other photographers are doing. Just a quick image search on the tag "wedding" will bring up millions of images. Do you use Flickr to seek new clients or check out the competition?

And what about that mistress of taste and style, Martha Stewart? Martha Stewart Weddings is always full of the latest trends and clean, sophisticated images from real weddings. Also interesting to look at is The Bride's Guide: Ideas from the Editors of Martha Stewart Weddings. On this lively blog you'll find the bride's take on trends, planning and memory keeping.

Where do you get new ideas for shooting weddings?

Image by Lulu.Re

July Special!

2009-07-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

Got vacation pictures?

This July bring in or send in your digital camera media and get $.15 4 x 6 glossy prints. You can walk in with media cards, cds, dvds or usb drives. Or mail us your cd and we will mail back your prints.

The Details:

jpg or tiff files, sRGB/8 bit color
Minimum order of 40 prints
4 x 6 prints on glossy paper only for this offer. No mixed sizes or paper surfaces.

Our address: Boulder Pro Photo, 1644 Conestoga St Ste 3, Boulder CO 80301

You can call us at 303-318-4155 with any questions.

Portraits and Spaces

2009-07-01T09:13:00.000-07:00

For the past month, Boulder Pro Photo has been hosting an exhibition of Professor Roddy MacInnes' students' work from a class at the University of Denver. Of the 5 students, only one was majoring in photography. One of the great things about the work is that the students used a variety of mediums from Holga to digital SLR to film and digital capture. We like seeing young people experiementing with and learning photography! And the work is really lovely too. The show is up until the end of today, so stop by and see it in the shop.

In July, we will be hosting another student show from Roddy's students and our own Rachael Thompson will be showing her recent work. If you would like to be considered for a show at Boulder Pro Photo, please email rachael at boulderprophoto.com with a link to your work.

Photoshop Tip: Setting up an action to batch resize

2009-06-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

After a long day shooting a wedding or special event, the last thing you want to do is spend hours resizing all those photos before you upload them to LIF. But, resizing pictures will speed your upload so you can start making print sales. If you are using Lightroom, you are probably already familiar with all the great tools to help automate tasks but for those of you still using Photoshop for these kinds of tasks, there are still ways to speed up your work flow. Here is a step by step guide to creating an batch resize action in Photoshop.

The details:

Final file size for upload: 4 x 6 inches at 400 dpi
Color space: sRGB
File names with only letters and number (NO symbols or spaces)
No duplicate file names

The action set up: (I am using Photoshop CS4 for this tutorial, HOWEVER, CS4 has it's own time saving process that I will cover next week.)

Open a file that is typical for your originals. That is, files that come straight from your camera or scans straight from your film that have not already been resized.
Open the actions palette (Window>Actions)
Click New Action button (its the little piece of paper next to the trash can at the bottom right of the palette.)
Name your action "LIF Resize." Leave the Set: Default Actions but you may change the other options if you wish. Then, click record.
Go to Image>Image Size and set image size.
Now, click on the square stop button on the bottom left of the actions palette. This stops the action and saves it.

To use the action, you will open files, click the name of the action in the actions palette and click the triangle play button. A few notes: If you have your camera set to auto rotate your images, you will have to make one action for horizontal images and a different one for vertical images OR turn off the auto rotate feature. You may also choose to add other steps to this action like a global color correction or color space conversion.

Now, the next step is where we will really get automating!

Batch Automating

In Photoshop, go to File>Automate>Batch. Choose your LIF Resize action from the menu. Then, select the folder that contains the images you want to resize. Choose a destination folder for the resized images. I suggest making a "resized" folder in the main folder.
Under file naming options, you can choose to add letters or numbers or both to the resized files. Choose the options that will help you remain organized. I like adding a letter or number because it helps differentiate original files from resized files.
Click OK and sit back. You should stay with your computer in case there are errors but the entire process will take much less time than manually changing each file.
Upload your event to LIF, make it public and watch the sales add up!

What is your favorite time saving file management trick?

Increasing Picture sales via an Online Storefront

2008-09-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

LifetimeInFocus.com was created to help professional wedding, portrait and event photographs expand their sales using an online storefront model. So, how do you make money selling pictures online?

First, there are many different types of pictures you can sell online. As a professional you may be shooting weddings, portraits, school pictures, bar mitzvahs to quinceanera parties, sporting events to family reunions. The general term for this kind of photography is Event Photography. When selling event photography online it's best to have an e-commerce online storefront set up. This way you can easily direct clients to view, share and purchase pictures from the event without having to engage in face to face sales with every potential buyer. Further, by your clients using the sharing function you may reach clients far beyond those that were at the event.

The easiest way to setup a storefront online is to use one of the companies that already offer e-commerce solutions for online posting of wedding, portrait or special event photography. Sometimes referred to as online proofing or event pictures online or just event photography or event photos, companies like Boulder Pro Photo in Boulder, Colorado, do a great job for you. They have invested huge sums to develop e-commerce solutions for online selling of event, portrait and wedding photographs. Boulder Pro Photo's online solution is called www.LifetimeInFocus.com Boulder Pro Photo is a full service digital photo lab and it maintains the infastructure; handles the e-commerce; prints and fulfills your orders, freeing you to concentrate on your photography.