Advice Column - Clients Not Liking Their Photos & How To Show Up On Social Media

This week on Get the Picture?, the photography advice column is back! In this episode, I'm answering more of your questions about showing up consistently on social media, handling unhappy clients who don't love their photos, and navigating some of the trickier parts of running a photography business. From practical tips to honest advice, we're covering the questions that don't always have a straightforward answer. Whether you're trying to grow your business, build confidence, or just want to hear how I'd handle these situations, this episode’s for you!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey you guys, welcome back to another episode of Get the Picture. I'm your host, Tori Elizabeth, and I'm so excited for this episode today. We're doing another advice column episode. I am currently like batching all my videos, and so I don't really have any updates for you guys or anything, but when this episode comes out, I actually will be shooting an elopement in the Tetons the day it comes out. So I'm sure if you go to my story in the next few hours, you'll see behind the scenes, or at least by the end of the day. Um, the Tetons is literally like my happy place, my favorite place, besides the Oregon Coast. There's nowhere else that makes me happier. So yeah, I bet I'm really happy right now. And I'm sure in the next episode, I will update you guys maybe in two episodes. I can't think. Yeah. Well, in one or two episodes, I'll update you guys on both like the anniversary trip my husband and I did, and my Teton elotement. Um, so yeah, stay tuned for those updates. But we're just gonna get right into the advice column submissions. I put another question box in my story, asked you guys for your questions, and you delivered. So let's get right into it. I'm gonna do this first one says, Do you crop your photos in editing for social media or artistically? Um, so I feel like you're asking, do I choose the crop based on the social media like um at dimensions like for posts, or do I just do it based on what I want? I actually don't change the aspect ratio. I always stay in like two to three or four to six, whatever you want to say. Um, I like exactly how it comes out of the camera, I maintain that aspect ratio because when I was cropping before, I think I've done that for a couple years now. Before that, when I was just cropping to whatever size I wanted, it just felt like inconsistent and all over the place. It and like it just felt unprofessional. I don't think there's a problem with someone doing that necessarily, but I don't feel like I've seen a lot of like professional full-time photographers doing that. I just feel like it makes you look a little all over the place. So I do keep a two to three aspect ratio, and then I crop in like yeah, I do crop in a lot, though. I don't know if that was one of your questions. Like I love to crop in on like hands or like eyes, like a kissing photo with their lips, like whatever. I I do crop in quite a bit. I think once I started doing that, I started adding a little bit more creativity to my galleries and realizing that there is a lot of creativity in editing, which I didn't used to incorporate into my work. Um, so if you're someone who hasn't is like afraid to crop and lose quality, like don't worry about it. Like, just just try it. Even if you just just copy the photo at a crop, and then like you've got two photos. So they're not gonna be like, oh, like can I have this one uncropped? Like they have it uncropped. So don't be afraid to try that. But yeah, I do feel like sometimes, and this could be a little controversial, because there was also like by the time this comes out, it would have been like a month ago, but there was a post by someone talking about how like they're done doing content, and like you guys might know the post I'm talking about, but basically, like not bashing on content, but saying that like content isn't for them and like they just want to create, and like I do feel like content influences the way we create, it's just it's inevitable. Like, I do think sometimes we do poses that we think will do well on social media, or we do I don't know, I'm just just thinking out loud. I I can't really think of anything super specific. It's just like we do things nowadays for social media, even weddings are being planned, like for social media, it feels like sometimes. Um, and like we're losing the plot a little bit. But so yeah, I I do feel like sometimes when I'm editing, I do keep social media in mind. I don't I don't think that's a bad thing because I think clients are also like sometimes it's they're most excited to share their stuff to social media too. So I think that's fine. Um as long as it's not like decreasing the quality or like like greatly changing your work. Like, for example, sometimes I will shoot or edit something just a little bit wider because I know that that will look better on Instagram and I like to get those like wide shots with lots of um negative space, but it's typically like uh I'm providing my client with a tighter version, like a more cropped-in version anyway. Um, so it's kind of like an extra thing for me. So I do feel like sometimes I do that for like my grid for photos that I know will look good on my grid, that type of thing. But it's never like something I spend a ton of time or effort on. It's just like a little extra thing that I throw in my galleries, kind of for me, and usually my clients love them. Um so yeah, I I just crop keep everything though the same ratio as it comes out of my camera. I feel like it looks more consistent. It's made me a lot happier with my gallery since I've started doing that. So you should try that if you don't already do that. Um I feel like having like 20 different types of like aspect ratios in your gallery, or like some that are not exact like ratios either, is just like frustrating. If someone goes to print things, they have to like figure out cropping their own photos, and it's like you were supposed to do that for them. Um, or like if they go to post, it just makes it so it like cuts off weird parts of photos. So I I don't know if that's exactly what that question was asking or not, but that that's my answer. Um this question I think is a question a lot of people had have. This person said, How do you hold yourself accountable for posting any tips on motivation for it? Um, so I feel like this is one of those things where I struggle a little bit. It's like that's one of those things, like I struggle on giving advice for it because it's like you just have to do it. Like, you quite literally you have to tell yourself, like, this is not optional. This is how I will get more business. Like, do I want to grow or not? Like, I have to show up today. Um, the thing is, like, social media feels overwhelming and it feels like everything has to be perfect and like curated, and I think that's where people start burning out. I don't feel like people burn out because it takes too long to put together an Instagram post. People are burning out because they're making it take too long to put together an Instagram post because they're saying the Instagram post has to be perfect. Um you have to like quite literally, it's not like your photography. It's not like, oh, this has to be perfect, my edit has to be perfect, I need to get rid of all the blemishes, all the blah blah blah blah blah blah. Take out this in the background. It's not like that. It's this is good enough. We're just gonna throw it on Instagram because showing up like 75, I can't speak. 75% of the way there is better than not showing up at all. And there are so many people not showing up at all. So every time I post, I'm like, there's a million people not posting right now. I'm gonna be the one that keeps showing up, I'm gonna be the one that gets ahead. Like, you are competing with people. Like, I know we talk about community over competition, but like it is a competition at the end of the day. You are competing, you're trying to stand out, and so like this is the way to stand out in a saturated market and in a in a world where everyone's on social media and everyone's looking for, you know, whatever sheep or photographer, whatever. The way you stand out is by showing up all the time. Um, you want to be the person that sticks out to people. The only way to do that is by posting all the time. I've talked about that so many times. Um, but yeah, so you really just have to. I feel like if people are not posting consistently, you either are making it too complicated for yourself, you don't think it's as important as it is, or option three, maybe you have kids, and then you have a genuine excuse. But I mean, even then, like you still need to make it happen. Like, if this is what you want, you need to make it happen. But but I do have there's much more grace for people with kids because y'all have it rough. Like, I know you're trying to to wear a million different hats, and I want to have a mom on the podcast soon to talk about kind of what that's like and the reality of that. Um, because I feel like a lot of people would relate to that. But anyway, that's like a whole side thing. Um, so yeah, I I think tips on on motivation for it is I would make it easier. Whatever about it is hard for you, make it easier. If it's like, oh my gosh, like I just hate putting this together. This is so boring for me. Okay, then like how can you make it fun? Like, do you like Starbucks? Like, just say, like, okay, I'm gonna like go to Starbucks, I'm gonna get myself a drink, I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna plan five Instagram posts for this week, or three Instagram posts, like whatever you can do and like make it fun. Um, get yourself like a sweet treat, or say, like, I'm gonna plan out my content for two weeks and then I'm gonna go get a sweet treat, or like whatever. Or if if that's not fun for you, say like, I don't know, you can say, like, let me batch my content for two weeks and schedule it all out, and then I don't have to do anything for two weeks, and then maybe that's your motivation, or maybe your motivation can be like I don't know, you just have to find a way to make it fun, I guess. Like, that's like the biggest way I've been able to show up on social media. Like, I know people go, Oh, how do you show up consistently? I genuinely want to because I genuinely enjoy it. Like, social media is kind of my life, like photography and social media, like this is like what I do is like I shoot and then I share my work on social media, and like my platforms are growing, and like it's genuinely fun to me. And I feel like you can tell that from my account that like I have fun with it, but it didn't always used to be fun for me. And so I feel like you have to find a way to make it fun. Um, if you're bored with your own content, chances are other people are bored with your own content. So, like, literally spice it up. Like, if you're like, I'm sick of doing the same thing over and over again in Reels, like think of something else. Think of like there was this one photographer, oh my gosh, she did the funniest thing. She was like, um, I mean, I thought it was it was cute and creative, but it was kind of funny. It was like day whatever of sharing songs that I think would be great for walking down the aisle as a wedding photographer. And like a bunch of them would blow up. I think she did some that were like funny and they were like a joke, but she like genuinely blew up. It had nothing to do with photography, it was just fun. So, like, I feel like if you're in that spot where you think social media is not fun, like this chick is crazy, she has no idea what she's talking about, like she's literally a lunatic, it's not fun, then like how can you make it fun for yourself? Like, I want you to think of like a fun real idea. Like, here, I'll try to think of one right now. Like, I want you to like maybe you sit down and like if you have a dog, let's say you have a dog and you print out two photos. This I'm just making this up. Maybe I'll do this one. You print out two photos at Walgreens for like 40 cents, whatever, and they're two of your pictures, they're two of like your wedding pictures, and you hold them up to your dog and you say, Which photo should I show the people? And you find a way to like make maybe you hold a treat behind one of them, I don't know, and you get your dog to boop a photo, and then you show the photo and be like, This is the wedding photo, like Sparky chose this photo, now you get to see it and show it. Or I don't know, maybe not a dog, maybe it's your baby. I don't know. I don't know, you don't have to show your kids on the internet. But like, I don't know, I just thought of that. Like, it's just like random, like, honestly, go ask Chat GPT. Like, guys, I know, and if you don't like AI, I'm so sorry, you don't have to do this. But like, I do use ChatGPT and just go to ChatGPT and be like, give me content ideas that that low-key don't make sense for a photographer, but would be like fun. Um, just just like try to come up with something. And I know I'm just like rambling, I'm just trying to come up with ideas because there are so many ways you can make social media fun for yourself. You just have to figure out what works for you. It could be going to get a sweet treat, it could be just getting it out of the way, it could be having your dog pick the photo you share in a reel, it could be I don't know. Like you just have to find a way to make it fun for yourself. So make it fun, that will help you be motivated. We don't like doing things if they're not fun, that's just like the way it is. Um okay, this is kind of in line with that one. So I'm gonna go to this one. This one says, any recommendations for a mom who wants to blow up her work? Um, I love this. I love the enthusiasm. Um, first of all, um I okay, so I think blow up as in, I'm gonna take this as like you want your work to blow up online, like you want to blow up. Um I would say this is actually not about your work. This is about your personality um and your brand. Not about you have to have a specific type of personality for this to work. Um, I actually don't feel like I have the type of personality for this to work. I feel like I have the work ethic for it to work. Um, I don't feel like you have to have a specific type of personality, just so yeah, to get that out there. That's not what I was saying. I'm just saying your personality is what will get you to stand out. Like your brand, like the face behind the brand, the person behind the face, like that is what will get people to know who you are and know and like see your work and have your work be like distinct to them. But it wasn't until I started building a brand and like showing my face and like building a reputation that people started to really, I feel like, notice my work. So I feel like for a lot of people, like there's so many like photographers I'll see with like one to three thousand followers all the time, and I'm like, wow, you have incredible work, like you should have more of a following. But I know it's because they're not showing up, like putting themselves out there and putting their personality out there. You have to be okay to take up space, and you have to be okay to be obnoxious, you have to be okay to show up imperfectly. If you're trying to curate everything, you will never ever ever be able to do content creation. I throw out so much cringy stuff all the time on TikTok. I throw out so much stuff. I had people get mad at me because I didn't I didn't use a mic in one of my videos because I just didn't want to, and I was like, it's better to record it without a mic than with like then not record it at all. And someone like freaked out at me on Instagram for that. And it's like you just have to show up, even if it's not perfect. So if you're not already, what I mean by put your face in there and like make a brand is like I'm not talking about fonts and colors and whatever. Like, sure, have a font that you use for all your reels. I do that, but like I don't put that much thought into it. It's like I am the brand. A color does not make a brand, like a photo shoot does not make a brand. You are the brand. And so, like, I mean talking in your videos, talking on your story, your profile photo should be your face. You should post your face every once in a while in your feed. You should post all over your story about what you're doing. That's like so big, is like post about your life. Again, you don't have to post your kids, you don't have to post like whatever, like it can just be about like what you're eating, what you're working on that day. Like, show your like fit check, like whatever. Like, just start showing your face and like talking on your stories, talk in your videos, do funny stuff for the for reels, and like the more you can show you, like that's gonna blow up your work, is people are gonna like you, people get attached to people, not photos. Like, they're gonna get attached to you, and then they'll be like, Oh, and she has really pretty work. And then they might to start to identify you by your work, but that's gonna happen by first knowing you from your face. So you need to like really build like a personality behind your work and behind your brand. Um, this person said, My photos seemed to have so much grain lately, and I don't know why I help. Um, so this is probably a problem with your ISO, which if you don't already know, ISO is the setting, all three settings affect light in the camera, but ISO's the the purpose of ISO is primarily to just bring up the exposure of a photo, make it brighter. Um, and the higher you put your ISO, the more grain and noise you get in your your image, and it's not like a cute grain that we add on like our film style photos, it's like a low quality type of grain, so we don't like that. Um so I would say you're likely putting your ISO too high. There's if you have a DSLR, you can't put your ISO as high. And then I I'm I'm 90% sure for zoom lenses, you see noise earlier as well. Um, and you can't put your ISO as high. So if you have a zoom lens, that's probably why most people have zoom lenses right now. Um, but yeah, you're probably just putting your ISO too high for your camera. So I want you to look, like Google, like what um at what ISO for insert camera do you start saying noise, and it'll tell you like try not to go above this and see if you're going above that. Um if that's not the problem, like I don't know, I'm not sure. I wonder if you're underexposing your photos, because if you underexpose too much when you try to bring up the brightness in Lightroom, even if you're shooting in raw, it will be grainy. Um, so like you don't want to underexpose more than like a couple stops. Like, like if you have to, you could do a little bit more, but then you might have to denoise it. So yeah, try not to underexpose your photo too much. Um yeah, if you don't understand what I'm talking about about ISO and settings, I want you to go to my YouTube. I have like they're like eight-minute long, five-minute long whatever videos explaining camera settings and explaining all this stuff. So if you're a beginner and you don't understand all that, go to my YouTube. It's at Tori Elizabeth Photo, just like my Instagram, just like my TikTok. Um, and yeah, just go watch some of my education videos. I actually have a playlist called Free Photography Education, and it has like over 60 videos. So if there's anyone that needs like a refresher on any of that stuff, go check out that playlist. But um, if you need to save photos that have like a ton of grain on them and they're like looking low quality, go into Lightroom and you're gonna use the AI denoise. Um it actually is great, it like runs in the background now. Mine is sometimes a little glitchy, but um, hopefully the new Lightroom update will fix that. By the time this come out comes out, I should have had the new update and it should be fine. But um yeah, use denoise, just don't put it too high. The higher you put it, it'll start to look like an AI photo. Um, funny, huh? It'll look like an AI photo, it'll look kind of like watercolory in a bad way, just like super weird and unnatural. So just start with it at like 10 or 15 and like see if that fixes it. Like 10, maybe 10, and just see if that gets rid of the grain. Because likely it's not a ton of grain unless you're like cranking your ISO up super high. Um, yeah. And this person said, What's the process? Oh, I didn't see this. How what's the process of creating your content and how did you really get your name out there? Um, it's kind of what I explained for the question about the mom asking how to blow up her work. It's kind of the getting my name out there is getting your face out there. It's I don't feel like people knew me as a brand until they knew my face. Um, I feel like my client calls, people have been so much more comfortable with me talking on like Zoom calls the more um like I put my face out there because it's like they already know what I look like, they already know how I talk, they already know what I sound like because I'm talking on Instagram all the time. And so like I feel like people feel like they know you, and then they're like, I could trust this girl to photograph my wedding. Um, so I feel like that's like getting your name out there. The process of creating my content is I am so ADHD with this. I just go from like thing to thing to thing to thing, and I just like do whatever I feel like. But the actual process of creating content now is I have, I mean, I don't know what you want to know by this, so it's kind of hard for me to explain. But like I have my little office, I'll film in here, and a lot of the content I film now is like educational, so it's maybe a little bit different, but I'll film in here, or sometimes I'll film in my kitchen, there's like a blank wall there. I have a tripod and I have a phone mount, and I'll put my phone on there and I will just I'll film it. I'll just film it with the selfie camera. It's probably good enough quality, it's not that deep. Um, sometimes I film with the back camera, I just feel like I like how I look better at the selfie camera, and like honestly, I haven't noticed a difference in how the videos perform. So it's it's really not that deep. Um, but yeah, I just like talk to the camera. Sometimes I have like a little script of what I want to say, but if you're just doing things like, hey, I'm so-and-so, and here's my work, um just set up a little tripod, hold your phone, whatever, just talk to the camera. I would love to see more of you sitting down and actually like talking to the camera for a minute and like putting that on TikTok and just seeing how it does. Um, doing the like hold the phone and set it down when you start talking is like a good hook. Just make sure you're doing something like visually interesting at the beginning. Something like the phone's back here, and then you go, okay, guys, something like that. Like you need something interesting about it to get people to want to, okay, what's she gonna say? Um, so yeah, I like set up tripods and record and just like talk. Usually when I do that, I will record all at once for like an hour. I'll like change shirts, like three or four different shirts or whatever I'm gonna do. Um, and like for example, when I batched my podcast today, I just I did two episodes today, I just changed shirts. I'm in the same pants, same hair. I'm not even trying to hide it. Like Um, so yeah, I will yeah, set up a tripod and record. Um, I'll change outfits, um, change angles. Um yeah, I feel like I always have like this ongoing list of content ideas. So I don't feel like I'm ever struggling to come up with ideas. It's more of just having time to film everything. Um, hang on, my dog is being crazy. Can I? Come on, lay down. No, you can't sit in my lap. You were bad last time. She kept trying to lick me last podcast. Um, can I? Or two podcasts ago, probably. I always get confused when I like am recording and I'm like talking to you from the past, and I'm like, which which week is this coming out? When is this? Am I past or current or I just get confused. Um anyway, yeah. That's like my process for creating content. And that's like yeah, sorry, I'm just getting distracted. I got a text on my phone and I need to like lock in. Um, yeah, anyway, that's my process. I tend to do it spur of the moment, but like if you're if you have kids or like more, like if you have another job, like I get that can be more difficult. Um, so I recommend just having like at least one day a week that where you have like two hours or an hour or whatever set aside to like create your content, make it all at once, make it super easy, and that's more manageable than being like every single day I have to create content. Just be like every Monday I'm gonna create content, like super easy. Um this person said, Why I don't get any compliments from clients once I deliver their photos. Um, so this could be a couple things. Um, obviously, our brains first go to oh, they don't like the photos. Um, and I'm this is totally not meant to be discouraging, but I'm gonna be honest with you. I think maybe they don't like the photos. That is a very real possibility of why they're not saying anything. Um, and it's kind of hard, like it's like, oh man, like I, you know, you want them to like the photos. And so honestly, I I don't know if this is like a hot take, but like I would just ask them. Like, I wouldn't say I do hate the photos, but like if you're if you send out the gallery a a week ago or four days ago or whatever, and they never said anything, just send a text back and be like, hey, did you get the gallery? Do you have any questions for me? Just want to make sure you love your photos. Like, just say it like that. Um, and then they will probably tell you, well, I didn't like this. Can you change this? And then you maybe you work with them a little bit. Um, but like if they didn't respond, and some people just genuinely like some people suck at responding, and that's you know, that's just the way it is. Like, you can't compare your clients to clients you see on social media where they're sending these long texts to photographers. Like, we love to post those on our story because they feel good to get, but not every client is like that, and that's okay. Um, but if you're like consistently not getting responses, I would say that either you should ask them if they have questions or and like tell them, hey, I want to make sure you love your photos, or like after working with them, you know, they get their photos, they post them, they move on. Maybe send them like a link to a Google form. And the link is like it's anonymous, it doesn't save their emails and just say, Hey, I would I'm trying to grow and like improve. I would love your feedback on working with me on how you think I can improve it in the future. Um maybe offer them like a discount toward a future session if they do that, like 10% off. I don't know, whatever. Just but like see if you can get like basically what I'm saying is like either ask or like send a form or something, like try to get feedback because like if you're doing something wrong or there's something people are consistently not liking, like you need to figure out what that is, but you and you can guess, but like you need to ask people to figure out what it is that um like you need to improve on. But also at the same time, like sometimes people just don't respond and sometimes it's not you, so you can't like read into it that much, but I would say if it's happening happening super consistently, yeah. I also just I like I used to not always like text my clients when I would send out the gallery. Sometimes I would send out a like send out the link over email, and I find like no one really would respond. People will respond if you text them, like, oh my gosh, just send out your gallery. Like so they'll kind of match your energy. Like if you're excited to send out the gallery and you text them, they'll probably text you back. So it might be kind of like your energy too. Like, if you just email them and don't say a word, they're probably not gonna go out of their way to text you, but they'll like return a text, probably. That's kind of what I've noticed. Um, okay, let me see. All right, we just have one more question. Sorry, a lot of these are about social media. I know you guys like talking about social media though, because a lot of you are um that's like the thing I get questions about the most. And you guys told me the social media episodes are your favorite. So um, this last question said, What is a good foundation for social media? I'm gonna be honest with you, I have no idea what you mean by this, but um, what I think of when I think of foundation is like what should be like the I don't know like what you want your account to be, like what's like the core part of your account. I feel like if you're a wedding photographer and that's what you're trying to do, or actually, I know this person I'm pretty sure doesn't do weddings yet. So I'll just say general photography. If you're just trying to be a photographer, it should be like in my opinion, like I don't know, 50 to 60 percent your work, 40 to 50 percent you. Um, so I don't mean like that 50% is just you doing whatever, it should be you talking about your work, showing your work, whatever. But like I feel like at least 50% of your account should have your face. I don't know if that's like answering your question, but I feel like your account should be a good mix of you and your wedding photography and like your philosophy and stuff. Um, I feel like that should be like the foundation of your account, and you need to might need to sit down and figure out like what is that? What do I want my work to look like? What do I want to photograph if you're a beginner and you don't have like a niche yet? You need to kind of like write down and figure out what you want to do so that your account has a clear message. Because if you're doing bird photography and senior photography, and then you shot a wedding and then you did a car, like it people are gonna be confused. Um, and not to say you can't be a jack of all trades, but like if you want to be what do they say, like jack of all trades, master of none. I I think that's the saying. I'm not sure. Tell me if I'm wrong on YouTube, but um yeah, like so if you're confused on what you're doing or your account looks confusing, clients are gonna be confused. So you want it to be like um obvious when you go on your page what you do and like why and that you like it and all those things. So, yeah, that is the foundation of a good account, in my opinion, is like something with a clear message, but also it's well-rounded, but not confusing. So, like, enough of you, enough of your work, make it combined like cohesively, but like not not a bunch of extra stuff, and there shouldn't be 20 different types of work, it should be like like very direct and like clear what you do. So, I think I just did that entire thing in one take, you guys. Oh my gosh, I'm so happy. I didn't do any cuts. Watch, I'm gonna mess it up now. I'll have to do a cut at the end, but oh my gosh, I'm so excited about that. I tried to do that a couple episodes ago, and I ended up having to do a cut because I can't remember why. But anyway, thank you guys so much for listening to this week's episode. I'm so excited for next week. I'm so excited to share about my elopement in the Tetons, and I'm sure it was beautiful. And yeah, rate and review the podcast. Um, I'd love if you leave a comment on YouTube, like seriously, it would mean the world. And yeah, I don't know, follow all the places TikTok, Instagram, whatever. And I hope you guys have a great rest of your day. Bye.