It is the time of the year when all wedding photographers are either worn out or almost ‘zombified’ while trying their utmost to edit the weddings photos so that it will be in time for each couple to share them with their loved ones during the Chinese New Year visits. It seems like an universal deadline even for those sets which has deadlines after this coming festive season. No we are not complaining, in fact, it is a happy problem to deal with as we know there are couples out there who appreciate our work and philosophy in wedding photography.
As we have ‘closed shop’ for our editing work and delivering the pictures to their destined hands, it is time for us to reflect upon the past year….
Since about a year ago, we started Top Photography. It was like pressing the ‘reset button’ for our wedding photography career from our past 7-8 years in our past company. With the tough decision to drop an already established branding, we start anew with Top Photography and felt the challenges faced by the new photographers who try to make it in this challenging market. At some point, we felt like newbies again. That we realised may not be all bad exactly as we were forced to re-evaluate our photography and business directions.
In the past months, we come to conclusion that 2 is better than 1. We have been trying to find the right people who can do a good job as our second photographers and we are happy that we have found the right people now (at least that is what we think). This let us be able to capture much more unscripted moments from different perspectives at the same time. It does mean that we have to raise our prices (we kept it nominal) for this extra efforts though. Some couples may not see the difference from our portfolios but on the ground, we know that much extra has been captured with a good second shooter around. It is really worth it.
On the pre-wedding and bridal photography side, we have also tried to encourage our couples to think beyond having nice, dramatic and eye popping pictures of themselves. We took steps back to go for simpler images of them and at the same time, tell their love stories in their pictures. We felt that many think the simpler images as less impressive portfolios, but back in the hearts and minds of the couple and ours, we know these are the images we want to hold the memories of that chapter of their lives.
Philanthropy is In also in our hearts though not within our might financially. We believe in giving and making lives a little better for others. Though we are unable to give much financially, we have used our craft to bring joy and happiness to a couple of worthy charitable activities over the past year. Most significant ones we have done is for children with special needs where their families had hardly thought of having proper family portraits. We made it come true for them and also opened our eyes to see their lives which are often less open to public.
In this coming year, other than furthering our efforts to gain a little more branding traction and awareness in our photography principles, we will also like to find more ways to offer value with collaborations with the essential service providers. We are also looking to find more time for education to widen our perspectives in photography.
We hope you will be part of our journey as much as we hope to be part of yours in this coming year.
We cannot end this without thanking our friends, couples turned friends, families as well as mentors who offered advise for the unwavering support and help through the past years. Our passion in photography continues to burn while in this challenging market because of each and everyone of you. THANK YOU!
And yes, we would like to wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year, bestest of health and joy to you and your loved ones!
Regards
TOP Photography Team
info@topphotography.com.sg
www.topphotography.com.sg www.facebook.com/topphotographysg
