TWiP Talks 27: Event Photography with Randy dela Fuente

[smart_track_player url=”http://media.blubrry.com/thisweekinphoto/p/content.blubrry.com/thisweekinphoto/TWiP_Talks_27_Randy_dela_Fuente.mp3″ color=”6a1915″ title=”Event Photography with Randy dela Fuente” artist=”TWiP Talks” ]In this interview I sit down with Randy dela Fuente, the Founder and CEO of Snapizzi – a company focused on helping photographers with their High Volume Photography (HVP) businesses. This is also known as event photography.

We discuss the stigma within the greater photography industry around event photography, and the fact that some even say it's “not art”. Randy challenges this notion, then goes on to explain how he and his team work like a “well-oiled machine” on picture day to efficiently shoot thousands of professional quality portraits — sometimes within hours. The artistic part of it all comes in when the photographer is challenged to create a salable image, with only minutes of camera time with a given subject. Art — under pressure!

Then the obvious question becomes one of revenue. How much money can you make in this business? Especially given the high amount of stress, and of course the resultant business logistics of processing and selling thousands of images. After getting some experience, a good beginning wedding photographer might be able to command $3,000 to shoot a wedding. With a volume photography business, one account might yield 100 customers, each spending around $30.

Both scenarios generate $3,000 — but would you rather convince brides to spend $3000, on your first wedding, or have multiple customers spend $30?

Snapizzi is a service that helps event photographers streamline the process by adding a high degree of automation to photo day. Having spent 25 years as a high volume event photographer, Randy's leveraged his industry knowledge and experience to build Snapizzi into a product he hopes will ease the business lives of many event photographers.