About Us
Faith West Photography, conveniently located across from City Hall, has been producing award-winning, corporate event and portrait photography in Philadelphia, New Jersey, Delaware, and surrounding areas for over 17 years.
Recent Activity
I photographed the wedding for the son of actor Bill Murray. Bill missed picking up an Emmy that night to be at the wedding I was photographing! I was hired because I'm on the recommended vendor list at the Hyatt at the Bellevue, the Philadelphia hotel where the reception took place. I didn't...
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I photographed the wedding for the son of actor Bill Murray. Bill missed picking up an Emmy that night to be at the wedding I was photographing! I was hired because I'm on the recommended vendor list at the Hyatt at the Bellevue, the Philadelphia hotel where the reception took place. I didn't know the dad was "The" Bill Murray until I showed up at the rehearsal dinner the night before the event and the guy giving the toast was hilarious. I was photographing people's reactions, turned around, and there he was. I checked the schedule in my pocket just to make sure "groom's name - Luke Murray; dad's name - Bill"
In the wedding business, Instagram is king, but also a double-edged sword. It's free, but the "lady Guinevere-flower child" bridal memes on there are so persistent that photographers set up fake weddings to shoot, since real clients don't have the budget, or sometimes the desire, to replicate the...
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In the wedding business, Instagram is king, but also a double-edged sword. It's free, but the "lady Guinevere-flower child" bridal memes on there are so persistent that photographers set up fake weddings to shoot, since real clients don't have the budget, or sometimes the desire, to replicate the popular meme at real weddings. If a photographer successfully replicates the meme, this build the studios' brand on Instagram. Setting up fake wedding scenes to shoot for Instagram is a lot of work for the photographer, either pulling favors or paying money, plus the photographers' time. It's questionable whether the investment is worth it, since it's similar in cost to old-fashioned marketing. Some photographers are going back to tried-and-true marketing, such as networking and placing sample books in catering halls, since the Instagram memes are so widespread that it actually confuses the customer, who is unsure which photographer is the best when they all look the same on Instagram. Pinterest used to work well for the bridal demographic, but less so now. It's more of an awareness tool, but doesn't result in actual leads like it used to.
Hi~ Many of the problems of marketing a wedding photography business stem from the fact that it's a once-in-a-lifetime (and never again, since 2nd marriages are usually much smaller) purchase. Because it's once-in-a-lifetime, people may not know who to turn to through their word of mouth circles...
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Hi~ Many of the problems of marketing a wedding photography business stem from the fact that it's a once-in-a-lifetime (and never again, since 2nd marriages are usually much smaller) purchase. Because it's once-in-a-lifetime, people may not know who to turn to through their word of mouth circles if no one they know has gotten married recently. So your SEO is more important than an average small business. Get a google blogger blog and link it to your website. Not because anyone looks at the blog in the days of Facebook and Instagram, but because google bots look at google "blogger" blogs and favor its content since it's a google product. When you post photos there, be sure to hit "properties" and then insert a heading (what the photo is about) and alt-text (the most common search term you think users would look for when searching for a business like yours.) (Pro tip: make your images 1050 pixels on the long edge, use x-large for the horizontals and original size for the verticals, and they'll appear the same width in the blog.) The google bots will place higher preference on photos if they "know" what they are about, and will put them high in google searches. Pinterest is only good if you have watermarked your images, because otherwise it's a sea of images that no one knows where they came from. I find fewer brides look at Pinterest and FB than they used to (millenials are fickle since they are young,) and now the big platform is Instagram. The upside of Insta is that it's free, but the tremendous downside is that only one wedding meme (the whitish, washed-out, film-like, "romantic" look,) gets a lot of likes. If you shoot real weddings (meaning you don't put together model shoots, but rely on real people for your marketing images,) or if you prefer vivid color, no matter how good your images are, they just won't get a ton of likes on this platform where, for whatever reason-of-the-moment, the 'white' look is all the rage. (I'm a liberal and kind of have a bad suspicion that is subconsciously has to do with our current political moment, but I digress.) So unless you want to arrange model shoots at least 4x a year, I would try to get some traction on Instagram using a cheaper, more organic feeling following-building service like archie.co (ignore their homepage's message that says that instagram has asked them to go out of business and just hit "log on") but don't put too much energy into it. Instead, a good idea (since you're spending a lot of time posting your images to social media anyway) is to go one extra step and make a little $10 5"x7" book on Vistaprint for every wedding you shoot and mail that to the venue where the person got married. The problem with most photographers is that they want to showcase their best images. Caterers end up not using those books because they want to showcase their food and how beautiful their venue is. Instead, make a boring-ish book of a handful of your best photos, but mostly photos of food (discipline yourself to stand at the kitchen door and shoot the cocktail plates as they come out for at least 5 minutes, plus some poor guests' entree that you will shoot over their shoulder,) and be sure to get really nice shots of the room before guests arrive (tip: shut off your flash and use a video light to light those!) The venues will appreciate that the book shows what they want to show to their potential clients. One last thing- try to use attractive brides. I've tried being bold (as I said, I'm a free thinker) by using unconventional body types in my sample books, but I'm sorry to say I've learned it doesn't work. Weddings are highly emotionally charged, and aspirational. Even if a woman has an unconventional body type herself, she prefers to think she looks like the traditionally beautiful woman and would rather see that in your sample books, as a general rule. Sigh.
