Made U Look
May 18, 2012
Almost exclusively the Green Room centres on the successful businesses, the people who run them and the strategies they employ to get, and stay, where they are. These are all super-important and you should be learning something from every article but we have absolutely neglected something equally critical from these pages. Something it took me too long and too much effort to realise on my own.Read more...
May 11, 2012
May 7, 2012
Last week I received the following email from bride-to-be Tiffany... Dear Rock n Roll Queen, My name is Tiffany and I've been a quiet reader for a while. Reading your blog has always gotten me excited for my own wedding and I'm happy to say, that after 8 years, me and my fiance are going to get married. It'll definitely be diverse since his parents are Scottish, mine are American and he is Canadian. But, I digress.Read more...
May 4, 2012
Are you pinning? I hope so but if you are thinking, what is she on about now then you need to check out Pinterest. Simply put, it’s an online pinboard for images found around the internet. You can start a board for just about anything but Pinterest has some suggested themes to get you started like Home Decor and DIY & Crafts. Lots of people and businesses are getting on board with Pinterest and it’s not surprising. It may be one of the newest social networking kids on the block but it was the fastest site ever to reach 10 million unique views in one week.Read more...
May 1, 2012
Rock n Roll Bride, a little haven of kick ass weddingness in a cookie-cutter, pastel and often puke-worthy wedding world. You’ve likely all seen this mantra, it sits proudly on the front page of this website and quickly sums up what this place is about, with articles ranging from rainbow petticoats to New York steampunk.Read more...
April 27, 2012
In a previous life I stumbled into a career as a club DJ that took me around the world, saw me open for Oasis at Wembley Stadium and release my own mix CD (if you're interested it's called Thinking Out Loud and you can probably get it in your local charity shop for about 50p!) I loved every minute of it but none of it was really planned. It developed naturally from my love of music. And from me wanting to share music with anybody who'd listen. My passion became my career. And quite a successful one at that.Read more...
April 20, 2012
In today’s competitive market you need to be noticed and, as Photo Professional's editor Terry Hope explains, there are lots of cost effective ways you can exploit that will help put your name out there In today’s competitive market you need to be noticed and these days there are lots of cost effective ways you can exploit that in order to help put your name, and your business, out there. There have probably never, ever been more people out there offering photographic services, and while it’s great that what was once such a closed profession is now so wide open to everyone, it also means that the competition has never been stiffer, and you’re going to have to do something pretty special if you want to stand out from the crowd.Read more...
April 17, 2012
As an emerging photography business it can be hard to spot the times when you'd be better off saying no to potential jobs. It’s amazing some of the offers than can come your way so how do you gauge the times when it's not in your best interests to take something on?Read more...
April 16, 2012
So Roo and I came up with a new blog series idea...she's going undercover. Many wedding blogs who review the places they visit only write about the good stuff - the glittering service, the elegant decor and the impeccable attention to detail...but you know we're not like other wedding blogs. Sure, when the service is good we'll be telling you about it, but similarly when it's shocking, we ain't holding back! And judging by Roo's experience on her first assignment it's going to be a very interesting series indeed!Read more...
April 13, 2012
Before I entered the heady world of the wedding industry I worked for nearly two decades (gulp) as a journalist. I worked as a reporter and then news editor on regional weekly and daily newspapers and also wrote health and beauty features for a glossy magazine – all of which means I have spent a frightening proportion of my life reading press releases. Press releases are a great way of sending information and news about your company, product or service to journalists and bloggers quickly and easily. While it is no substitute for face-to-face meetings, a well-written press release backed up by strong images is a godsend to busy journalists who don’t have time for countless meetings and networking events and can just cut and paste your copy into a last-minute gap on a page. On the other hand, a poorly-written or presented press release can do more damage than good, leaving the recipient tearing their hair out, reaching for the delete button or, in the very worst cases, blacklisting the sender for being rude and stalker-ish (no really…)Read more...
April 9, 2012
I’ve been thinking it over a lot this past week, and I figure that we know each other pretty well by now. There’ve been ups and downs as far as our wedding journey goes – so far – and you’ve been there through it all. I reckon I’m right in saying that you all know what makes me tick, but I realise that I’ve neglected to tell you about some of those who make me tick. In this instance, I am talking of course about my bridesmaids.Read more...
April 6, 2012
Hi, my name is Amma and I would like to confess that sometimes I have green eyes. Yes, I know that biological anomaly that I, as a child of African parents could have emerald green peepers – but I’m talking about professional jealously and how you get over it. As, some of you may or may not know – I still have a day job; as day jobs go mine is not half bad and given the state of female unemployment at present; I certainly know which side my bread is buttered; so I am more than happy to plod along – albeit sometimes sulkily as a 5-9er until I hit my professional tipping point. Now, without getting into the nitty-gritty of it all – I had some personal stuff going on that really meant that despite streaking the sky like a comet when I first began my foray into business. I got forced to slow down, in fact not just slow down – I had to hit the brakes and I experienced a mega slide into a career plateau. Although, work requests and projects were coming in thick and fast, there was no way that I could take it on, and circumstance meant that ‘my stuff’, blogging, and the day became an all encompassing festival of woe.Read more...
March 30, 2012
Our baby wasn’t really planned – it was a half assed plan if you will. I knew I wanted babies but I had just left my full time job to run my business and being the household bread winner just keeping things going for my share of the income was as much of a challenge as I wanted. Plus I wanted the success of the business to grow after a long hard year of working two jobs to get it off the ground and watching it flourish as a result. This was supposed to be a wonderful time when after all my hard work, late nights and lack of social life I could really celebrate what I had achieved… you know, with fizzy stuff. Clink clink.Read more...
March 23, 2012
In my opinion, every business lives or dies on the strength of its customer service. To most it means complaining when there are queues at the store, when a check out girl is grumpy, when we wait too long for our order in the restaurant – i.e. the term is mostly pulled out when customer service is lacking. When it works well, it’s like an invisible comfortable blanket that makes you feel good when you think about visiting your favourite bar or when you are ordering an item from an online store that’s always reliable. When Kat asked me to write about customer service, I first started writing a very matter of fact, hypothetical kind of article. But I soon realised that, actually, speaking from personal experience would make my point come across a lot better than any bullet points ever can. So, I hope you’re sitting comfortably, as I’m about to tell you the story of my tattoos…Read more...
March 16, 2012
Today I've asked my buddy Adam from a rival wedding blog (I say this in jest, we love each other really!) to write a guest post about being...well...a man. It's something I've thought about a bit recently, what will Gareth taking a lot more of an active role in our business and all - what is it really like being a man in this so heavily female dominated industry? Not only are weddings often perceived to be 'all about the bride' but most of the people that work in the industry are female too! Obviously this isn't a topic I could really discuss myself with any semblance of authority, so here's where my mate Adam comes in! Over to you fella...Read more...
March 9, 2012
So you want to be a wedding photographer but what is the best way to get started? Second shooting for an already successful photographer is one of the best ways to fast track you in the right direction. You can see how someone else does it, learn on your feet and make industry contacts. But how do you get the gig in the first place and how can you make the best of the opportunity for both you and the main photographer?Read more...
March 7, 2012
After enduring the heartache of finding (and losing) our wedding venue, I’m sure you can appreciate that we felt as though we’d fallen off the horse a bit in terms of planning our wedding; trying to accept something so stressful wasn't easy, and I’m sure that I don’t speak for myself when I say that it made me a little anxious to think about other wedding-related things for fear of tripping up again. However, as with all horses that one might fall off of, it is often said that’s important to get back on again – and we could only do that if we put faith in our planning again.Read more...
February 24, 2012
Nearly 9 months ago Julia Boggio and I had a gorgeous little daughter. I thought that it might slow Julia down a little, but no. She still runs our business at 200 miles an hour. As you may know, Julia and I own one of the fastest growing baby and bridal vintage boudoir photography studios in the UK, Julia looking after the creative side of the business and me looking after the sales. I adore running the sales side of what we do, but admit it: sales is often seen as the scary or evil part of the business or, more often than not, something to avoid because “my clients won’t like being sold to”. Now, the reality of the world is if no one sold anything to anyone, most business wouldn’t exist for very long at all. I had a bit of a head start in sales. As a child I didn’t have pocket money; I had a commission plan. It was stuck to the fridge and re-negotiated on my birthday every year. It helped me understand quite early on that you get out of life what you put in. If I needed that extra boost of pocket money that month, then I had to contribute something quite significant to the household that would entitle me to some extra dosh. So now that I have my own daughter, is this something that I will do with her? Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but the combination of mine and Julia’s genes has created a very feisty little girl indeed. I suspect that if I attempted to negotiate anything with her she’ll look at me like I’m a punter on Dragon’s Den and tell me “You don’t have what it takes, I’m out.” She has me running around in circles already so I thought I’d give you a few lessons in sales according to my 9-month-old daughter.Read more...
February 21, 2012
One of the biggest fears for photographers (and I’m referring to photographers as that’s my reality, feel free to substitute a camera for whatever is your passion) when making the transition into a working professional is the doubt about whether doing something for a living takes the shine out of it. Whether in a few years you will start feeling like a new assignment is just ‘another day in the office’, and that in the end you lose that passion you have for your craft. For me this was one of the biggest psychological challenges to get over when I was thinking about starting my business. I was so protective of my craft, my creative process and my artistic outlet, and I was so afraid of potentially compromising all that I loved about photography if it was to be the provider of my main income. Eventually a switch flipped in my head though, and it seemed like madness to sit in an office doing a job that wasn’t fulfilling, while I could spend all my days with a camera in my hand doing what I love. Making that leap was at the same time scary and overwhelming, but also freeing, like stepping into my true self.Read more...
February 14, 2012
I’m going to start out by saying I'm not here to tell you that this is definitely the right way to get a good work/life balance. However this is the way that I (try to) do it so I wanted to share it with you - who knows, hopefully I can help someone! It’s what works for me at this moment in time and enables me to switch off when I need to and not being all-consumed by my work. It’s really difficult being a freelance photographer. Right I’ve said it. We all know it. We all love it, but lets face it, it can be tough as hell sometimes. I can only imagine it's exactly the same for people in other areas of the wedding industry. We love our jobs so we spend most of the time on our own sat in front of a computer...at any time of day or night. As business owners we often need to work for long hours over the weekend and still be expected to be sat at our computers at 9am on a Monday morning to answer emails.Read more...