116: Shutter Circle – Community Over Competition & Top Tips for New Photographers

Shutter Circle is the place where camera creatives grow their business, learn their craft, and find their people. Nik, Luke and Kieran joined forces to help combat the gatekeeping within the wedding industry. This is aimed at mainly beginners that want to find their feet within weddings, and so Shutter Circle was born. They want to create a community where people can ask questions in safe environment as well as creating job opportunities through their second shooter job board (coming soon!).

Studio Ninja. I’ve had almost a 60% uplift in bookings since incorporating Studio Ninja into my workflow at a wedding fair. I have my computer there, I’ve also got a QR code linked to a specific contact form., so if I can’t speak to clients, they can scan it and it takes them through and it starts off the workflow.

It sends them some galleries, it sends them some information., but if they actually are talking to me, I will ask, do you want me to send you a quote? So right there and then they have got all the information they want. They’ve got the contract, they’ve got the questionnaire, they’ve got some galleries that are emailed to them as well via the, the workflow. And so by the time they’ve even got to the next stand, I’ve sent all the information. And I found that what I used to do previously was I’ll email you all that stuff tomorrow. And someone else had already got in there. And so now when I’m sending it straight into stand for me, it’s putting me at the top of the list of information because I’ve already got it out there. And it sorry to say, but it makes you look a bit more professional as well that you’ve got this system. People always comment, wow, what’s this? This looks great. And I end up also chatting to clients who are like, wow, this is this is really like pro.

My my biggest tip is literally just like no dangly hands. Like they need to be doing something. And honestly, like so I, I do pose people and they feel so much more relaxed with that little bit of guidance., so yeah, don’t. So advice to newbies is don’t be afraid to do what you want to do. If you see people talking about being a documentary photographer, don’t feel like you have to follow that trend if it doesn’t speak to you. If you want to pose couples, there will be couples that that like that, like that style

So this kind of links back to what we said before about showing what you want to shoot. And it’s building that network of people that you trust and you really like working with and like when you. So some of us might not do, but I know I do. I send out a questionnaire and on that questionnaire. At the bottom is ‘who are your suppliers?’ You know, you have florist dresses and I do a little happy dance every now and again when it’s a supplier that I know that I love working with. And I wouldn’t have had that if I hadn’t have met them previously.

So don’t be afraid to introduce yourself. Sharing is absolutely caring. They’ll probably rave about you on Instagram that you’ve got these gorgeous photos from this wedding.