Is your photography business feeling the squeeze from today’s unstable economy? Pat Miller welcomes renowned UK photographer Scott Johnson to reveal how working pros can successfully navigate market uncertainty and keep their businesses thriving, even when bookings slow down.

Episode Highlights 🎤💡:

(09:17) - Focus on What You Can Control

(10:40) - Pivoting to Portraits

(18:20) - Smarter Sales & Payment Plans

Connect with Pat Miller ⬇

LinkedIn | Website

Connect with Scott Johnson ⬇

Website | Facebook | Instagram

I'm Pat Miller, and this is The Professional Photographer Podcast. How's business? How's the economy? How's money? Hmm. Little bit like this. I don't know what word to use for kind of like this. Like. It's not terrible, but it ain't great. Are you feeling that right now? Well, a lot of us are feeling that on today's show, Scott Johnson is going to help us understand how. What do we do about it? Because we can't fix it, but we can fix how we behave inside the economy we're experiencing. So what should we shoot? What should we sell? What should we do with our expenses? How do we get through this? And what does it look like when we start to emerge from it? What might be on the other side? If this is your first go round with economic uncertainty, you might have a few questions. Scott Johnson has seen this movie before, and today, he's going to give us specific advice about a market, how to sell, and what to do so we can get through the situation that we're in. Scott Johnson is standing by. We'll talk to him next. Scott, welcome to the Professional Photographer Podcast. How are you today?

I'm good. It's 8 pm here in the UK, so it's a bit wet, but it's good. I'm loving life. I'm loving life.

Well, you've had a long day, and you're carving out time to talk with us in the industry. I really appreciate you doing it, and if someone hasn't met you yet, catch us up on who you are and what you do.

Yeah. So my name's Scott Johnson. I'm based here in England, if you can probably tell by the accent; I might have given that away just a little bit. So, geography-wise, I'm about 30 miles north of London, and I've been a professional photographer for 23 years. And I know I don't look that old, but trust me, I feel it.

You're being a little bit humble, though. You got to come on, tell us about the award you won. If someone doesn't know.

Yeah. So I may have won the Diamond Award at Imaging USA in Dallas in Texas. It was my first time over and I thought, you know what, I'm going to enter the IPC and just see how I get on. And it made it to the top 32. So it went to the live judging and then it went from the 16 to the 8 to the 4 to the 2 and then the big W. So, yeah, I'm still in shock that I've come across there and won that. But I love the process. I loved all of it out there. And meeting everybody in Imaging USA was just a thrill.

The award winning image was absolutely incredible. If you haven't seen it, you got to Google it up and look at it because the one that won was just incredible. So congratulations on that.

Thank you. And not many people know it's a JPEG capture as well. That's another podcast for you. So, yeah.

Yeah, that's way over my understanding. To me, it was a beautiful image and high five for that.

Thank you.

We're not talking images today, though. We're talking the economy. We're talking about what the environment is like right now to do business in. So what are you observing there in the UK?

Well, here in the UK, we're in a bit of a funny old situation now. Without getting political, we had a change of government 12 months ago, and everyone was like, "Yyay, change of government. It's going to be great." And it was for about eight weeks and then the new government found out the old government has spent all the money, and now we're all paying for it. So it's a little bit weird at the minute.

And with changes like that, that brings market uncertainty. So when the market feels a little squishy, how do you observe clients reacting?

Well, I don't know about the US, but certainly here in the UK with the wedding industry, which is what I'm predominantly known for, which I've been photographing weddings since 2004, we're always a couple of years behind a major financial event. So back in 2008, when the big global financial crisis happened, we didn't really feel it here until 2010 or '11 because everyone in 2008, the weddings were booked, they were paid for. We were good to go, and it was great. But then when it came to people wanting to book 2010-2011 dates, we're like, why is it so quiet? And then you look back and you go, oh, right, okay. And we had a big financial event here in the UK in 2022, and we're living that drop off right now in '25. So anybody that was going to be booking a wedding now in 2025 here in the UK would have booked it late '22, early '23, and gone, "Whoa, my mortgage is now twice as much as what it was this time last year. So maybe we should pay that before we have a wedding.

So do you see them not buying as much or being more tentative to book? I mean, how are they behaving when they feel that way?

It's a bit of both. No, let's be honest. Those that have money are always going to have money. We're not talking that market to the high-end market. I think here in the UK and probably there in the US is unaffected. It's that middle market. The people that are working 9 to 5, Monday to Friday that may be living paycheck to paycheck. They're the ones that are struggling, and when they make a decision, they're a lot more careful. They want to come and see me two, three times. Whereas before, it was a quick phone call, maybe jump on a Zoom call, and it was a done deal. But they want to be making absolutely sure the money they're spending is going in the right place.

Mm. If we were doing Wall Street podcast and we were talking about the financial markets, we may say, oh, well, this economic indicator or when this curve goes this direction, we know that it's gonna be this. But what are the alarm bells for a photographer when it starts to feel and look a little bit different? Is it client count, is it average ticket, is it fewer inquiries? Or is it all of that and more.

Yeah, all of that. I mean, it was about this time last year when 2024 was a good year. We came off '23, strong year. And it got to about end of August, early September. And I looked at my diary for this year in '25, and I thought, huh, okay, something's different now. Something's wrong. The inquiries were almost non-existent. The ghosting was a huge problem. People were just now fishing out, throwing a fishing net, trying to get the cheapest possible price and going with that one, rather than picking someone like myself that charges more than the average photographer. And then you kind of do the math and think, okay, what happened in the last two years? You go, okay, in 2022, this happened, which is now why we're seeing a bit of a change, which is when me as a photographer, right? How are we going to fill that void? How are we going to diversify to what we're known for to try and help, you know, so we eat for real.

We need to talk about ghosting. Just for a second. You've been doing this for a while. Is it me, or is ghosting a relatively new phenomenon? Because I don't remember it being as prevalent as it is right now.

No, I honestly think this is a post-COVID thing. Post-COVID, I think people just, they were so used to doing things, virtually not being able to see people. It's almost a bit faceless when you're emailing somebody. Whereas before you'd come to a bridal fair or a show, you'd come here in a studio and you'd come and see me. But when you're only speaking to someone via email, it's very easy to ignore that person. And I think COVID, or the COVID generation that have come through it and now are getting married, they see it as it's fine. But certainly here in the UK, it's been the last four or five years for sure.

Now we're not doing a podcast about COVID, but looking back, can you imagine that that happened? Like, we lived through that. It just seems like a space sci-fi movie that we all went through that, but it changed everything.

Yeah. I still can't do a Zoom quiz now without getting PTSD. Generally,. I think, you know, it was just, I can't–even doing this now, virtually. I'm like, oh, I know it's 2020 all over again. But yeah, I think the market has definitely changed here in the UKv post-COVID. Financially, you know, consumer confidence, it's coming back. Don't get me wrong, we're nowhere near where we were in 2021 and '22, so it's kind of coming back. But it's got a lot to answer for. I'm not going to lie.

Well, we're feeling it here too, and independent of why it's happening, we really want to do a podcast to talk about, okay, what do we do about it? Because we're not going to change the financial world, but we can change our behavior inside the current financial situation. So if we're waking up today with fewer inquiries, more ghosting, lower-average tickets, help us work through what can we do about it?

Yeah. I said this time last year, I was really scratching my head, Pat, and I was thinking, I don't think I can get through the next 12 months, let alone anything else financially, because there was huge gaps in the market. And going back to the start of the conversation, yeah, you know what? I was very lucky, and I won the Diamond Award, and there's a few bits of glass behind me, but I'm still a working photographer. I'm still hustling day to day just because I have the absolute pleasure honor of speaking at Imaging USA and WPPI, it doesn't mean I'm immune to what's happening at the minute. I think people need to–we're all in the same boat. But through COVID, I learned to only focus on the things that I can control and not worry so much about the things that I can't. And my brain switched this time last year. Right, this is a huge problem. I can't affect the FTSE 100 or the NASDAQ or whatever it is you're working on. What can I do to help me? What can I do to make sure that we get through this? So I pivoted, I diversified, and it's been going really, really well. It's been going really well.

And when you made that choice, you were doing it to feed the family and keep the doors open. But did that come naturally to you? Did you like have to, you know, power your way through that decision because you didn't feel like you needed to do it?

It was the biggest stress I think I ever had, Pat, because I can shoot, and I've shot a thousand weddings. I can do it with my eyes closed. Moving into family studio portraiture is something that I've done just as a, you know, I'll give it a try, and we'll see how we get on with it. But I was no way versed in the marketing, the process, the lighting. Light is light. So you can kind of, you know, buy modifiers and invest in good lights, and have a good understanding of it. But you're dealing with families in a closed space. It was so far out of my comfort zone, you have no idea.

So how long did it take you to feel comfortable working that intimately with a subject?

I'm still not that comfortable, Pat. I'm joking. No, it's certainly, I would say a good six to seven weeks of getting people in before I felt–as a wedding photographer, you have a rhythm, you have a flow, and you know that you have certain markers that you need to hit. So, you know, I'm having a good day because I've done this, and this will follow on to that. And it took me a long while to get a routine. I think photography and running a business is like raising a child. The sooner you get into a routine, with financial practices, working practices, the easier it all becomes. And I think that was the biggest learning curve for me, was learning a brand new routine. I'm 23 years in the business. I'm 45, and I'm stuck in my ways. I like the way I do things, so trying to do things differently was very hard to try to get my head around at the start. But I knew that if I didn't do it, we were going to be in big trouble.

And you had to introduce yourself to a new audience, or at least people you had worked with before who were now using you for a different reason. Was it natural for you to explain yourself as a wedding photographer now doing portraits? Did that go smoothly to explain to the audience that I do pictures too?

Yeah. So initially, we marketed to all of my past brides. So again, 20 years in the business, 20 years of shooting for myself, 23 professional. There was a big back catalog, so people had already bought into me and my brand. And before I would get inquiries for a portrait. But again now, I just don't do that, go and see somebody else. And then I think how mad that was. I'm sending money to other people. So initially, we did go quite hard on the former clients to get those guys back in because they knew me. And it's only now we're really branching out, and I'm meeting people that have never met me before. And because we're sharing it, we're hitting the social channels really hard. And having good advocates for what we do and having former clients advocate for us is a massive thing. And it's relying on that and relying on Google reviews, Facebook reviews, you know, people doing shout outs. And it's been brilliant, honestly, and I'm enjoying it more. But people were saying to me, well, are you stopping weddings? I'm like, no, I'm not stopping weddings. I just don't want to shoot as many anymore because I'm speaking to you now and it is hammering down with rain outside now here in the UK and I'm in a nice, cozy, warm studio and I can still shoot and I can work. Can you imagine a wedding on a day like this now? It's not fun.

No. So economic uncertainty is happening. The first thing we can do is kind of switch up and pivot what we're providing and what we're shooting. We also need to change up our marketing and client engagement. So as you made that choice, you mentioned social media. What specifically are you doing to introduce yourself as a portrait photographer and build that side of the business?

So the first thing I did was I got a new Instagram account. So we went from the Edge Pics, which is my wedding account, to the Edge Portraits. So again, the same branding, the same logo with a different background. So people knew it was me, but like, oh, what's that? So you kind of, you're tweaking people's curiosity by associating the brand logo with something that's just a little bit different. And then, I mean, reels are massive at the minute. I mean, if you're just posting a single image on Instagram, it's going nowhere. You've got to be visual, you've got to be doing behind the scenes, you've got to be doing so much more, which again is a little bit out of my comfort zone to become more relevant because people want to see me in action working. They just don't want to see the one hero shot anymore.

Have you taken to social naturally? Do you enjoy doing it?

I've been on social media from about 2008, so pretty early days in Facebook. I love and hate social media. If I could come off social media tomorrow, I would. I think it has its place. But also, it does a lot of bad stuff as well. But from a business point of view, especially from us as an image maker, it's essential because if you're not on social media now, you're not anywhere. I don't remember the last time I looked at something and went, I'm going to go on their website. Because you don't, you just go on Instagram or you go on to TikTok or you go onto Facebook and that's generally the first port of call now. So if you're not on it, it's almost career suicide.

Okay, so you started a new account, that makes sense. What about ads? Did you have to fire up ads for the new version of the brand?

Yeah, and we still tie into the wedding brand because that's where my Facebook account is. It's the wedding side of things. But now, we market very heavily across Instagram and Facebook. We have a very healthy budget that we throw at it, but we get a lot of traction. An average ad campaign now, doing the quick math, is probably $600 or $700 per month. That's getting almost 60,000 or 70,000 impressions across social for a month. So we're casting a very, very wide net, but we're casting it geographically because I don't want people that are coming 200 miles down for a portrait. I want people within a 60 mile radius that are actually going to commit and turn up. So it's about how you do it and cast a wide net, but don't be silly about it. And it's little things as well because I don't know if you realize that there's a bit on Facebook when you advertise. If you come and visit me now, Pat, here in Essex in England, and you log into your Facebook and you don't target Facebook properly, it will market to you in the USA because you've tagged yourself in here in Essex. So it's about turning certain filters off as well.

And how long does it take to get proficient at that? Because I've seen people start running ads, they don't work the way that they should because they don't know anything yet. And it is a slog to become proficient. So in your experience, how long did it take you to know that you were driving it correctly?

I would say it took a good three or four campaigns, so to three or four months worth of tweaks. So the first one we just kind of threw it out there and we see how we got on and then you thought, oh, okay, that didn't work. So we get tighter and tighter and tighter with it. And then now it's just, we're pretty slick now. We're pretty slick with it.

So we pivoted the business. We got more serious about social media with this version of the brand. And I would imagine you'd have to make some changes with your in-person sales. So how are you adjusting in-person sales to this economic climate?

Well, before–I'm going to be honest–we didn't do in person sales. We did everything remotely because it was weddings. So we were sending a wedding gallery out. We would design the wedding album. We used Fundy software. So we would send the proof of link out, and they would sit and view it. They wouldn't actually come back into the studio until they would pick the color choices for the book. Whereas now, we do the portrait session. I book the viewing appointment in when the session is finished because they're here and they can't escape. I lock the doors, but not really. So I book the viewing appointment in at the end of the session and say, right, when are you free in a couple of weeks to get come back in. I'll turn the laptop around very quickly, and you can see we have a big screen up on there. So they come, and they come and view on a projector. We have surround sound that codes and we sell. And I just had a lady come in here that spent 2,000 bucks on a session that we did. So, you know, the system works. You just have to trust the system. You're not going to get that kind of sale every single day. You have to kind of work to the average sale. Don't work to the big sale. What is your average? That's what you need to work towards. And the big ones are going to come in, the small ones will be there. But as long as your average is progressively going up, that's what you work towards.

The tough thing about the economic climate is that people still want the book, people still want the matted framed print, they still want what they want. But the finances and the situation that they're in is different than it used to be. So how might you help them get what they want without having to put $2,000 down straight away?

So we offer payment plans. I mean, here in the UK, you can offer an informal payment plan over three months. So we can spread the cost at three months. Anything more than that, and it has to go through an official channel, through a bank or a lender and a credit check and things like that. But an informal three-month payment plan is fine. We don't deliver the products until that is completed. So, you know, nothing goes to print until they've paid. But again, I think because they're just spending the money, my average sales is about 700 bucks on average per session, which is pretty good, especially given the climate at the minute. But because they're just spending the money on that, there isn't a wedding dress, a venue to feed 300 people. We're finding that we can tailor our sale. To us, it's a good sale, it's a big sale, but to them, it's a smaller overall spend. Rather than 50, 60, $70,000 on a wedding, they're spending 10% of that on a session. So we're finding that's really helped as well.

Have you found them purchasing anything individually different? They used to buy this type of product, but now they're gravitating towards this type of product. Does anything come to mind?

Yeah, you know what? In the 23 years I've been a professional photographer, I can count on one hand the amount of wall art I've sold from a wedding. And now everything that comes in from a portrait point of view is wall art.

Wow. Okay, so we talked about selling, we talked about ads, we talked about pivoting. It's not just the money that we bring in; it's also the money that we put out. How might you be changing up your expense control so you retain more of your money month over month?

Yeah, that's a really big thing. And again, without going back to it, COVID was a good thing where I had time to sit down and go, right, let's do an inventory of the bank account. I've gone, oh wow. I had two subscriptions for the same thing. So it was just going through and just ironing out the cracks and filling it all in. And it was going through and just saying, do I need this anymore? Am I using this anymore? If the answer is no, my wife is ruthless when it comes to clothes. If I haven't worn something in six months, it's gone, it's out, it's in a charity bag. You have to do the same thing with your finances. If you're paying for a subscription that you haven't used in six months, why are you paying for it? If you're in a contract for a year, then go on and cancel it, and you run up to that 12 months anyway. But if you're not using it, get rid of it. I mean, you can save thousands of dollars a year on cutting back the $6.99 a month just by going through and having an inventory and doing it that way. Because you'd be surprised the amount of stuff you're spending. Who's got YouTube Premium here? It's like 12 bucks. 12 bucks a month. I don't mind clicking skip. Get rid of it.

Yeah. You know, while we're on the subject, something that I tell all of the small business owners that I work with. If you're buying a product that's powered by AI, never buy the annual ever, because six months from now, there will be three or four other things that are doing what that one product does, and you'll regret buying the annual.

Yeah, always do it monthly. And if I have to sign up for one thing and it says, oh, you get it cheaper now for 12 months, I'm like, yeah, you know what? But I might be done with it in two. So I'll take the hit on the couple of months subscription and then cancel it on a month to month basis rather than being tied in for a year because that can get ridiculous as well. Your expenditure can go way up with that if you're not careful.

Yeah, definitely. All right, let's have some optimism. In your experience, what are the signs that things might be starting to turn around? What should we be watching for?

I mean here in the UK now, we're just about to come out of that of the three-year cycle from the financial event to where we are today. So I'm expecting now wedding fairs or wedding shows to be a lot busier. I have one in a couple of weeks. So I've just invested, and I've got more brochures, I've got more wall art to go on the back because I want to be showing what I'm selling. And if I can sell wall art from portraits, why can't I do it for weddings? So I've just got some new sample frames coming. I've invested heavily into making the stand and the booth look good because they're buying into me. But they want to see this brand and go, wow, we like this. I want this guy to do the wedding. And what we're hearing now in the UK especially, is that the wedding fairs that are happening now, the footfall is increased, the average spend is going up. People are buying things that they wouldn't have necessarily done two years ago. So the non-essentials, like we have a thing here called the Toastmaster. So a guy in a big red jacket that just walks around looks important, like he works for the King. So they were really in trouble a couple of years ago. There's a spike in that now here. So if people are spending money on the small things, you better believe they're going to spend it on the big things again.

And one of the things I like to pay attention to, and I'm curious if you do as well, is the seasonality of the business that we're comparing a November over a November, rather than this time this year against some random other period that there's something to learn about month over month. Do you track that?

I used to track it. And now, where, you know, the seasons are changing, we're shooting weddings here in the UK right into December. We don't really have an off season anymore, so you can kind of work on it on a yearly basis now. And don't get me wrong, when January's quiet, I'm glad of it because it's been a good year, and if a couple of weddings come in, then great. But I try, and I look at the number financially rather than the amount of jobs that I've done. Because eventually, we all want to be in a position where we can charge more money and shoot fewer weddings. So if you're doing, let's say, 50 weddings this year, but only doing 35 next year, but earning the same amount, that's all good.

And you shared that you've been doing this for a while. Let's end with this question. You've seen these ups and downs. It feels like we're in a down right now. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, isn't there?

Oh, we had the crash in 2008, so we felt it in 2010. My years, 2012, right through till end of 2019 were the best years I've ever had in business. So if you can–everyone can ride this bottom out–trust me. It's like surfing. You miss that, you crash out, you get the next wave, and you ride that as long as you can and you do as well as you can. And we were in 2018-2019, man, we were killing it. I'm not going to lie, I'm not bragging. But we were doing really, really well and we were set up for a record year, and then what happened, happened. But coming out of 2010, I was all doom and gloom and I've got positivity now that I didn't have two years ago because I know doing the maths, doing the cycle, this is–we're going to come out of it and the tough business owners that have got through it, you are about to reap the rewards. I trust you, trust me.

It's been great to learn from you today. And a little birdie from PPA mentioned to me that maybe there's some more education coming from you through PPA. Can you give us a preview what's going on?

Yeah, I've just literally wrapped on doing some tutorial videos for the PPA. So we've got six videos coming out, we've got bite sized videos, we've got full length longer form videos about how to make a wedding industry more profitable, how to maybe what to do and just me being me; it's just, you know, just me being me, just trying to give, you know, I've taken a lot out of this industry in the last 20 odd years. It's time I start giving back and I'm really happy to be giving back to the people of the PPA. So, watch this space.

You being you, sign me up for that. Scott, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it, man.

It's been a real pleasure. Thanks, Pat.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of The Professional Photographer podcast. Do us a favor before you leave. Could you like and comment on the episode and, of course, hit subscribe. But those comments are really, really great because that will let us and Scott know what he shared that will actually help you with your photography business. And speaking of helping your business, if you're not yet a member of Professional Photographers of America, you're missing out. PPA offers incredible resources like equipment, insurance, top-notch education, and a supportive community of photographers ready to help you succeed. It's perfect for photographers who are serious about growing their business in a sustainable and profitable way. At PPA, you belong here. Discover more about membership at ppa.com. That's ppa.com. I'm Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners Community and the publisher of the Fridays Off Newsletter. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. We'll see you right here next time. Take care.