"Hoops for Hope" Gala

On April 23 I photographed the American Cancer Society "Hoops for Hope" Gala that was held down at the Heinz History Center. This is my second year photographing this event. The idea is to give people a chance to pose in front of some of the historical treasures, and I print out a 4x6 print for them right on the spot. This type of on-site photo work is the main reason I recently purchased a new Epson PictureMate printer. The prints are dry, waterproof, and smudgeproof, and I put them in a small folder for the guests to pick up when they leave. Although I could have printed directly from the memory cards, I opted to use a slightly longer workflow with my laptop. The main reason for doing this was to add a "plate" at the bottom of the image with the name and date of the event. This also made sure the images were backed up on my laptop for safe keeping. After the event I posted the images to a gallery on ExposureManager, so guest had the option of ordering additional prints if they wanted.

Last year we were posing people in front of the old Pittsburgh trolley that is on display. This year, we went with one of the cars from Kennywood's "Racer" rollercoaster. As you can see, folks had quite a bit of fun with that!

Carlow School Basketball

This past Saturday was my first time working for a new client, Carlow School's basketball program. There were six teams to photograph (three boys and three girls), and they wanted team team photos, individual photos, and game photos. They had contacted me because some of the kids had also been in the Dynamo soccer league that I began photographing last year. The parents really liked the idea of being able to do all their ordering online through ExposureManager after the photos had been taken.

The gym was a small older one that reminded me of something out of Hoosiers (that's a compliment, by the way). One of the things that is interesting about this gym is that the balcony where the spectators sit is right up against the court. So if you are at the railing, when the action comes near you, you are literally right on top of it. This gives some really unique angles for some of the game photos. Unfortunately it also meant that I spent a lot of time going up and down steps, which I felt in my legs the next day.

For the indoor individual photos of the players, I used my SB800 (with a diffuser) on my Stroboframe bracket, and the SB600 on a stand to the left and behind the player. The SB600 was set 2 stops lower than the SB800.

Carlow basketball is the first sports shooting this year. I'm anticipating doing a lot of youth sports in 2010. It seems the online ordering approach appeals to local parents who are tired of the usual approach of order envelopes.

A New Year Reminder

Hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year's. Just a friendly reminder to everyone to update any copyright notices you have on your websites and other materials to 2010. If you are an ExposureManager user, there are three areas you need to check:

1. You want to check your backprinting settings ("Sell My Photos" ==> "Overview" ==> "Packaging Slip / Print Settings"). This will appear on the back of all prints (8x12 and smaller) that ExposureManager prints for you.
   
2. Check your watermarks ("Gallery" ==> "Edit Settings" ==> "Protect") in all new galleries. Don't forget that if you need to change the watermark on an existing gallery, you must regnerate that gallery afterwards ("Gallery" ==> "Regenerate Images") and then clear you browser's cache and cookies in order to see the changes.
   
3. Check your custom headers and footers ("Layout" ==> "Custom Header & Footer"). I have a "Copyright 2004-2009..." notice in my footer, and needed to update that to 2010.

Here's to hoping that 2010 is a great year for you and your business.

ExposureManager Tip: My Coupon's not Working!

This time of year, a lot of photographers are using coupons to encourage sales for the holidays. But if you haven't used coupons before, there are some pitfalls you should be aware of:

Coupon not enabled for the gallery: Some photographers seem to think that if they set up a coupon (or any discount, for that matter) in a pricesheet, it is automatically applicable to any gallery using that pricesheet. That isn't the case. You need to go to the gallery selection screen for the coupon and pick the galleries you want the coupon to work for. Make sure you use the "Inherit" box to tag all the subgalleries, and then click on the names of the parent galleries (the ones with the asterisk next to them) to verify that all the subgalleries are tagged the way you want.

Gallery uses a different pricesheet than the coupon: Just because you can select any gallery for the coupon , doesn't mean that the coupon will automatically work when someone orders from that gallery. The gallery also has to use the same pricesheet that contains the coupon. This is necessary because the products in each pricesheet are considered unique. A 4x6 in your "Sports" pricesheet and a 4x6 in your "Wedding" pricesheet are two totally different products, at least as far as ExposureManager is concerned. So a coupon set up to work with one pricesheet's products will not work for the products in another pricesheet. There is a work-around of sorts for this issue: if you do not check any products for the coupon, then the coupon will apply to all products, regardless of which pricesheet they are on.

Coupon set up outside of a pricesheet: This is a variation on the different pricesheet problem. Some long-time ExposureManager customers still have access to the coupon interface from prior to the introduction of pricesheets. They think that they can set up a coupon using that interface and have it apply to all their galleries, even those using pricesheets. This has the same problem as using a different pricesheet: the non-pricesheet products are separate and different from those in the pricesheets, and if specific products are selected for the coupon, it won't work.

Coupon conflicting with other discounts: Only one discount can be applied to any one item in an order. In addition, coupons have the lowest priority, because the coupon code gets entered after the other discounts have been applied. This is a particular problem with volume discounts, which tend to be applied to an entire order. So if you decide to offer a 15% off volume discount for the holidays, your customers will suddenly find that their coupons no longer work.

Multiple coupons with the same code: Some photographers think they can get around the different pricesheet issue by setting up the same coupon code in all of their pricesheets. Their logic is that the coupon code should then work regardless of which gallery and which pricesheet the customer is using. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. When the system finds a matching coupon code, it then checks if it is applicable to the products being ordered. If the coupon doesn't apply, the system doesn't check the rest of the coupon codes to find another match. You should always make your coupon codes unique to avoid a problem.

Expiration date: There's always someone who will be trying to order at 11:55 pm on the last day the coupon is good for. And the coupon isn't going to work for them... When you set the expiration date for a coupon, the coupon expires at 12:01 AM Pacific Time on the expiration date. So if you're on the East Coast, the coupon will be good until 3 AM. That is why ExposureManager recommends setting the expiration date to one day later than the date you advertise to your customers.

Finally, one of the things ExposureManager can't stress enough: TEST YOUR COUPONS AND DISCOUNTS. And not just for a simple, minimum order, case. Try to come up with an extreme example (like a $900 order, or 30 copies of one print) and make sure things work the way you want them to.

EDIT: Added the item about coupons conflicting with other discounts