Inside the Photography Business: Cahill Photography
PhotoMerchant: Tell me about yourself and your photography business.
Andrew Cahill: Photography has been my hobby for many years. In 2010, Megan got a camera and she found she really enjoyed photography as well, so we decided to start our own business. We run Cahill Photography, a wedding and portrait photography business.
Megan Cahill: We do the business part time and still have full time day jobs. I run a medical centre, and Andrew is a web designer.
AC: At the moment part time is suiting us really well. Photography is our passion, and something we get to do on the weekends.
In an ideal scenario, it would be great to go full time with photography, but at the moment we’re in quite a good place where we enjoy doing both. It keeps things interesting for us and we really enjoy that time on the weekends.
PM: What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about running a business?
AC: We should do things the way we want to do things.
When we started, we tried to follow the styles of other photographers. A lot of people do it that way. They jump into business and try to take inspiration from other businesses, and we were no different.
It’s hard because you want to develop your own style, but you also feel obliged to follow the trends. A lot of clients are set on certain styles, and you’re forced to follow.
MC: We understand now that we don’t have to follow because people will be drawn to your passion, personality, and style. It was quite restrictive to try to be creative while also trying to fit a mould. We’ve just started to do things our way. Our work is looking great, and we and our clients are happier.
Why do you think your customers like working with you?
MC: We try to be relaxed, and we focus on finding a connection with the client. It might be through a series of questions, or playing games while we’re shooting. We chat during the shoot and to try to encourage a calm, casual mood.
AC: To build relationships with clients before weddings, we encourage couples to do an engagement shoot, but we’ve found that because the concept is new to Australia, it’s hard to sell that to the client.
PM: Is there anything you’ve changed about your business since you started?
AC: We tried our hand at everything ì weddings, family portraits, children’s portraits ì but we found our passion is really photographing couples and weddings. We also like to do modelling shoots.
The biggest thing we’ve changed is our branding. Previously we had a corporate feel to our marketing and branding, and we’ve recently just revised everything to feel more personal.
I went for a more corporate feel originally because of my work as a web designer, but we’ve realised we want more of a soft connection, so we’ve simplified things and made our branding creative and inviting rather than corporate.
It’s had a great effect; people have commented that they love the way we’re presenting ourselves now. I think it’s increased our business.
PM: What’s your biggest source of new business?
AC: We normally market ourselves through the website. We’ve tried some advertisements in local wedding guides, but they weren’t effective at all. Since I come from a marketing background, it helps to know the basic principal of testing and measuring any form of advertising to make sure you get a good return on your investment, and we found that those types of advertisements weren’t working for us.
Most of our business comes directly through the website from Google. We have good search engine optimisation. We were number one for our area which is a benefit of my background as a web designer!
We also have a Facebook page and Twitter account, but they don’t generate much business for us anymore because Facebook has recently changed how it runs its business pages. Your customers need to interact with your page regularly for you to appear on their feed. Before that change, we found that every post we would put up would have a viewing of 200-300 per post, and since Facebook changed how business pages work last year, it’s dropped down to 40 viewings on average, which is disappointing. Our website is our biggest draw card.
MC: We also have Flickr and other websites that we use to upload photos, but those sites mostly attract other photographers.
PM: How do you manage your workflows and calculate the costs of running your business?
AC: We have a big white board on our wall with a checklist of things to do for clients. We keep up with that list rigorously to keep ourselves on track.
I handle all the photo post processing. Normally we back up the photos as soon as we get home, and then throughout the week, after I’m done my day job, I do the post processing. Megan handles the business side, like client emails, phone calls, and that kind of stuff.
It works well because I like post processing, and Megan likes to have a good chat!
Because we work from home, we don’t have high overheads apart from equipment and insurance. We keep a spreadsheet of our costs per week and work that into our pricing.
PM: What do you do to stay competitive with other photographers in your market?
AC: It’s certainly very competitive. Like we said earlier, we started out trying to fit a mould, and we found that wasn’t working. Developing our own style, which is part photojournalistic and part fine art, and posting a lot more personal work created a connection to clients which is quite unique among our competitors.
PM: If you could go back in time and give your younger selves a piece of advice, what would it be?
AC: Don’t doubt yourself.
Do what you want to do, and don’t worry about what else is happening around you. We’ve realised that we can do what we want to do and it’ll draw people in. That’s what makes it so much more enjoyable.
MC: We’ve been a lot happier since the change and we feel like we’re going in the right direction. It allows us to deliver the best possible work to our clients. Now that we’ve made the change it’s so clear that that’s what we should have done originally.
PM: Do you have any tips for new photographers?
MC: Be yourself, and don’t look at other local photographers.
AC: Shoot what you want to shoot, and don’t worry about what’s happening around you. Persistence and hard work will definitely pay off.
PM: What do you think is going to happen in photography in five years’ time?
AC: It’s probably going to get ten times more popular, as it has since digital has come along. It’s such an easy medium to jump into these days, especially since it’s no longer expensive.
I think the crowded market will encourage people to be more creative. Everyone is going to try to be unique and creative to attract new business. It’s going to be very interesting.
In a sense it will be good in that it will encourage creativity, but it will also be a lot harder for business because it will be so much more competitive. You’ll have to think a lot more about the business side to compete.
PM: What do you do in your spare time?
MC: We love travelling to Bali. Next August will be our fourth trip.
AC: I watch a lot of movies ì a lot!
We take a lot of film photography of anything and everything. We’re slowly merging film work into our business as we perfect our skills during the off season.
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Andrew and Megan are a husband and wife team that runs Cahill Photography, a a Hervey Bay, Queensland-based wedding and portrait photography business. |
