When I mention to people I co-own a web & email hosting company, they usually ask how many customers we have. After I tell them, they are often surprised. “Why would someone pay for email?” they ask. Gmail, Yahoo Mail, MSN Mail, and many more offer it for free. Web hosting, too, is free. Want to post photos? Flickr is free. Want to blog? LiveJournal is one of many free options. Facebook and MySpace are free. With all these free options, how do paid hosting companies stay in business?

The answer is simple: Customers are willing to pay for perceived value. If a user accidentally deletes their email from Gmail, will Gmail restore it from backups? If a user is having problems setting up their iPhone to work with Yahoo Mail, can they get tech support from Yahoo?  These are all example of value provided by paid hosting companies; as long as paid hosting companies continue to provide value to the customer that the free sites don’t, they will continue to thrive. Of course, some customers do not assign much or any value to these items; they will stick with the free sites.

A good analogy is in restaurants. Outback charges $15 for a steak; how does Ruth’s Chris stay in business selling $50 steaks? The answer is obvious — Ruth’s Chris’s customers perceive at least $35 of extra value in the better quality of their steaks and better table service.

One of the hot topics in professional wedding photography is “shoot and burn” photographers. In a recent podcast, David Ziser from Digital Pro Talk discussed the challenges shoot and burn photographers pose to traditional wedding photographers. While shoot-and-burn photographers are not free, they typically charge about 80-90% less than a traditional wedding photographer. Of course, they do a lot less than a traditional photographer; unlike a traditional photographer, who would carefully retouch every image in Lightroom or Photoshop, go over proofs, put together a photo album, and order prints, a shoot and burn photographer typically dumps the photos directly from the camera onto a CD or DVD and lets the couple handle everything else. Also, shoot-and-burn photographers can afford to charge much less because they generally are not trying to make a living in photography; as long as they cover the cost of their (relatively minimal) equipment and make a few extra bucks on top of that they are happy. This undercuts professional photographers who often times can barely make a living at their current prices.

In my opinion, a large part of why shoot and burn photographers are doing well is because many traditional photographers do a lousy job of providing perceived value to their customers. Telling potential customers they should pay ten times as much because “I’ll provide you an album and prints” only works if customers value an album and prints. News flash — many don’t. In my experience, the younger generation views photos as something to share online (on sites like Flickr and Facebook); prints are mostly superfluous. Physical albums take up space, and can only be shared in person. Online albums can be viewed by anyone, anytime, from anywhere. You may say that they will regret not making prints in the future; whether that is or is not the case is irrelevant. Until time travel is invented, their future regrets will not affect their buying patterns today.

For a traditional wedding photographer to continue to be successful, I think they need to do several things:

• They need to understand how the Internet has changed how people view photos. Prints and physical albums are nice, but most people want to share their photos on Facebook and view online albums. Despite the best efforts of Shutterfly and Snapfish, the Internet is not just an easy way to order prints.
• They need to convey the value they provide in terms of image composition, image quality, retouching, and professionalism. A traditional photographer is not better because of the extra end products they produce, but because they produce better pictures. Remember that some people will never perceive any additional value in high-quality photos; they will always go with shoot and burn photographers (at best). They are not a traditional photographer’s target market.
• Do what customers value; don’t bother doing what customers don’t value. If a customer only values digital files, sell a package that only provides digital files. If your customer perceives the value you provide in terms of image quality, they will be willing to pay more than they would to a shoot and burn photographer.
• Accept that the proliferation of digital SLRs has permanently reduced the perceived value of photography. This is the natural progression of technology. Cell phone companies no longer can charge $2/minute for domestic calls, and domain registrars no longer can charge $100/yr per domain. Just because you could make a living as a pro photographer in the past does not mean this will remain a viable full-time occupation in the future. Complaining about technology, commoditization, or competition does not make it go away and just makes the transition harder.
• When marketing themselves and their services, photographers should remember that positioning is important. Are you McDonald’s, Outback or Ruth’s Chris?

Of course, these tips are not limited to photographers. If you own any business, you should always ask yourself what your company’s value proposition is to your customers, and always make sure you charge customers for perceived value, and only for perceived value.

Even though the calendar says it’s mid-November, the weather here in San Jose has been gorgeous — sunny and 78°F — so we decided to meet up with some friends for lunch and an afternoon in the park. Their daughter Erin is extremely kawaii and very photogenic, as long as you have a fast-focusing lens and a high-enough shutter speed; without those photos of her are a blur.

Erin’s dad Ian took his new 50D with a Canon 17-55/2.8 lens, while I brought my Sigma 50-150/2.8.  With basically non-overlapping focal ranges and different shooting styles, we ended up with very different photos.  Here are some of my favorites:

You can see the rest of my photos from the park at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/6577665_ARWyL. You can see Ian’s photos from the park here and here.

This most recent batch of Mai photos is lens-centrenic:

While we were in San Francisco two weeks ago, I felt the urge to take some low-light, no flash photos of Mai and Caroline using my Sigma 30/1.4:

Of course, since I had rented the Canon 24-70/2.8L, I had to make good use of it too:

Shortly after that trip, I got my Sigma 50-150/2.8 back from repair, so I had to take lots of photos of Mai to test it out:

You can see all my recent photos of Mai at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/6299603_WkxXz.

After years of threatening abortion providers, boycotting companies that provide domestic partner benefits, protesting children’s shows with imagined subversive content (Teletubbies), disrupting military funerals, and proclaiming the wrath of God against anyone who votes contrary to their beliefs, why are some conservative Christian groups so surprised and offended when same-sex-marriage proponents start using the same techniques against the biggest Prop 8 supporters? Especially when Prop 8 stripped many of them of some of their civil rights? (And please don’t claim that Prop 8 wasn’t about removing a right from a class of people; before Prop 8 passed they could get married; now they can’t. If that isn’t the removal of a right, what is?)

Today Caroline and I attended Handspring’s 10 Year Reunion party in Palo Alto. We had a great time, but as usual there were several glitches.

When we originally made plans to go, Caroline’s parents were going to be in town this week. That made finding a babysitter easy — leave Mai with grandparents. When Caroline’s parents had to cancel their trip (due to health reasons) at the last moment, we had to scramble to find a babysitter. Fortunately, the second friend we asked was available and willing to watch Mai during the party.  New plan: Caroline would drop Mai off at 5:30pm with the friend babysitting, pick me up at work at 6pm, and we’d get to the party by 6:15pm. 

In reality, Mai got hungry at 5:15pm, so Mai didn’t get dropped off until 5:45pm, and then because of major traffic issues Caroline didn’t get to TiVo until 6:30pm. Because of the same major traffic issues and having to find parking we didn’t get to the party until after 7pm.

Once at the party we had a great time. The venue was loud and crowded, but it was great catching up with old friends, some of which I hadn’t seen in years. Several people, including my old manager from when I worked in IT, flew in from out-of-state. My entire old IT Ops department was there; we had a fun time chatting about what’s been happening in our lives recently. The list of current employers of ex-Handspring’ers read like a who’s-who of Silicon Valley, with companies like Sony-Ericsson, Intuit, and Sharpcast.

Of course, I had my camera, so I took as many pictures as I could. I was happy I took my 17-50 lens, as I needed that 17mm wide-angle a lot in the crowded rooms. The photos are not too bad, but could have been better if I had more practice using a flash in this type of setting; I was expected it to be similar to a convention, but because of the crowding and different ambiant lighting it was very different. I was once again reminded that I still have a lot to learn about how to take photos that are anywhere near pro quality.

In all the noise and excitement, I failed to notice the time, and couldn’t hear or feel the alarm I had set on my Treo. We only realized how late it was when our friend who was babysitting called about 30 minutes after Mai’s scheduled pickup to see where we where. We hurriedly left, drove back to TiVo to pick up Caroline’s car (the one with the car seat). Then I drove to our friend’s house and picked up Mai about an hour later than we had promised, apologizing profusely for the lateness.

Now, I’m finally getting some dinner and letting my voice recover from screaming for two hours while the last of the photos upload.

You can see all the photos I took at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/6550394_aopX5.

A relative of mine from Israel was in Sacramento late last week for a business trip. Since his flight back wasn’t until Saturday night, we set up plans to meet in San Francisco and spend Saturday sightseeing. I rented a lens from BorrowLenses (24-70 f/2.8L), and was looking forward to a fun weekend of photography.

As Saturday approached, things were not looking so great. Caroline was sick on Thursday, and just as she started feeling better I caught the same virus and was sick Thursday night and Friday. In addition, the weather forecast was predicting non-stop rain all weekend; our first real rainstorm of the season.

By Friday night I was starting to feel better, so we drove up to our hotel in Burlingame (the San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency) and had a nice dinner at one of the hotel restaurants. Mai was a bit fussier than normal, but we didn’t think that much of it at the time.

Friday night Mai was inconsolable all night. She woke up crying about once every two hours, and needed an hour of comforting each time to get her back to sleep. Apparently she’s now a lot more frightened of sleeping in strange places than during our last trip in June. Also, we didn’t realize how attached she is to one of her nighttime toys, and forgot to bring it with us.

We groggily got up the next morning and drove to the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove around but didn’t get out for long because the forecasters had been right; the rain was pouring down. Next, we drove down to Union Square. The rain was getting lighter, so we walked around and ate lunch. By the time we finished it was raining heavily again, and we were soaked by the time we got back to the car. We drove around the city a bit more before heading back to the hotel so that my relative could get his stuff and head to the airport.

I took about five outdoor pictures that day. Ugh.

The second night in the hotel Mai slept for six hours continuously, so we were feeling somewhat better. Even better, the rain was gone! We ate breakfast in Burlingame, and then drove back to the Golden Gate Bridge. The weather was perfect for walking around and taking pictures, especially as the fog started to clear. I was especially happy because I was able to practice using my external flash as a fill flash in sunlight. After that, we drove back to Lombard street, and hiked down and back up its most famous section. By then it was getting dark, so we headed home and immediately went to bed.

You can see more photos from the weekend at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/6478159_aaGwk.