From day 1 of Module 1 we advise our students to start taking photos, and build their portfolio, but for some it is hard to know where to start and what to do.  

This blog post is a guide to help you start as you mean to go on and getting into good habits of saving and storing your flowery photos will make life so much easier later on. 

My first and most important tip is to invest in some cloud storage - Google storage is very cheap and easy and your can be constantly backing up to it.  What a shame it would be in a few years your computer crashes or your lose your phone and along with it all the fabulous photos you have built up over the years.

How do I start sorting my flower photos?

1. Set up Albums on your laptop firstly in names of colours .... ie Red Flowers / Blue Flowers / White Flowers and so on. 

2. Within these Albums set up sub folders for Occasions - Red Flowers - Wedding Flowers / Birthday Flowers / Event Flowers / Table Flowers / Funeral Flowers and so on.  Do this for all Colour Albums.

3. Choose Your Photos - go through all your photos from your files and re-save and rename these according to the album they will be saved in.  Remember the same photo can be saved in different albums but names differently.  TOP TIP - Only keep your best photos, delete any photos that you would not share or like others to see.

4. Naming your photos - google cannot see images so you need to tell them what is in the image.  The same photo can be named many different ways to suit an occasion

Christmas Bridal Bouquet Of Red Naomi Roses 

Red Wedding Bouquet of Roses 

Valentines Red Rose Bouquet Of Flowers 

Bouquet of Red Roses for a Ruby Wedding Anniversary

50th Birthday Bouquet Of Red Roses 

Simple red Birthday Bouquet 

See how the same photo of the same Bouquet above can be saved in different albums using different names.  Naming these photos is essential to the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation - How Google finds you) 

So this one photo is now saved in a few different albums under RED FLOWERS.

You will now need to do this with all your photos.

Having all your same colour photos in one Head Album make it so easy when you are asked to do mood boards for customers.  

It also refreshes your ideas as to flowers available in those colours and how you used them before.

Once You Have Your Foundation Colour Albums Created, You Can Then Start Creating More Albums 

Wedding Album - Broken down by colour (you have them done already so just copy and paste the album) - Now you can break the album down into  Large Bouquets/ Small Bouquets / Teardrop Bouquets / Buttonholes / floral wands / flower crowns/ floral hoops and so on 

Sympathy Album - Broken down by colour  (you have this done already so just copy and paste the album)  - Now break this album down into Circular Wreaths / Funeral Sprays / crosses / hearts/ Gates of Heaven etc  - however for Sympathy Flowers I would have an album to show them an array of designs, sometimes they don’t know what you can do so its good to show them a mixture in an album.  Then is they like the Gates of Heaven, you can bring up an album of just Gates of Heaven too.

Birthday Flower Album - Again all your flowers are already broken down by colour,  break them down by Flower Arrangements / Posies / Hand tied Bouquets / Grave Flowers for Birthdays 

Keep saving / naming and sorting your flowers in a system that you can easily pull from is someone asks you about what you can do.  This shows your professionalism immediately and reassures our customer she has chosen the right florist

When you do create your own website, you now have a full organised portfolio of flowers that are already names and ready to put up on your site.  (You will thank me at this stage).

On Your Mobile 

As you take photos of installations or designs you have created, add them into albums on your phone, again for ease of access.  Download these onto your laptop / desktop and save accordingly in the relevant albums - remember only save the ones you want to keep.   

Creating albums on your phone makes it so much easier to find a specific photo when you meet that potential client at an event and want to show them a specific piece without them scrolling through all your personal photos too.

• My top tip with mobile is edit and brighten on the phone before you save them to your laptop

Watermarking

So many ask will I or wont I watermark my photos?  Personally, I hate to see a watermark across the centre of a photo; it takes away from the image and puts potential clients off.  If you feel you need to watermark, keep it minimal and at the top or bottom of the image. 

My experience is press and media are less likely to use images that are watermarked resulting in you losing out of potential free PR.

"Someone will copy my image"  Yes there is a good chance of that, but remember everyone has a style and as we work with fresh produce it will impossible for someone to copy from you directly.  If you find another designed using your photo in their advertising, usually an email reminding them that you own the intellectual property in the image and they are welcome to buy the image from you if they wish, usually that is enough for them to remove it.  

"If you want to be original, be ready to be copied" - Coco Chanel

Credit Others

It is okay to use other peoples images as long as you credit them, admit that it is not your own work, link or give details of the original designer.