Light Blue user case study - James Davidson

Posted on Monday 31 May 2010

Award-winning photographer James Davidson, Light Blue fan since June 2009, explains how Light Blue has helped him keep track of his business.

What sort of photography do you specialise in, and how did you get into it in the first place?

I've been a photographer since my Dad lent me his SLR for my 16th birthday - it was all looking so promising up until that moment, then I was hooked and everything changed! I've always found it a pretty magical process and a fantastic way for someone who has no 'artistic' skills to express themselves artistically.

I've always photographed people. I did my degree in documentary photography and after that spent a few years assisting fashion, advertising and portrait photographers. It was a natural progression into shooting weddings as they have all the elements of story-telling, fashion and portraiture all wrapped up in a fun and exciting day. I've been shooting weddings for about eight years now, and also shoot children's portraits, mainly because children are about the same mental age as me!

What sort of business do you run, and how does Light Blue fit in?

My business has evolved over the years from shooting a lot of fashion and advertising, to corporate and commercial work and I've settled where I'm happiest with weddings and portraits. At the moment I shoot about 40 weddings and about 60 portraits every year.

What were you using before you found Light Blue?

I tried another studio management system before but struggled with it as it was aimed more at a large-ish portrait studio rather than a sole-trader / wedding photographer. It also went out of date very quickly. I moved on to just using spreadsheets which is fine as long as you have time to keep up with them - I also used Outlook to manage dates/times and Quickbooks to do invoicing.

I saw that Filemaker could create relationship databases so I put together a very simple system which relied on my programming skills (negligible) and being able to update the system as things progressed. Then I came across Light Blue, and gave up writing FileMaker from then on!

What do you use Light Blue for?

Essentially, Light Blue is my way of recording where I am with my business, what I've been up to and what's planned for the future. I know very quickly where I am with particular jobs and particular clients - not only does this smooth my workflow considerably but it makes me look so much more professional rather than what I used to do which was scrabbling around various spreadsheets. Client and job information goes in once and is very quickly connected to quotes or price lists I've sent them, along with any conversations about discounts, the job, and so on. I can also very easily sets up a sequence of reminders throughout the enquiry and equally throughout the job.

What's your favourite feature in Light Blue?

On a day-to-day business level, the best feature for me is the workflows. I create a set of standard workflows for the date of a shoot and it sets up a series of reminders as to everything that needs to be done relating to that shoot, from organising the details for the day to post-processing and delivering the final images. As the year gets busier, it's easy to let the less obvious things slip - but not with Light Blue. As I've gone on, I've also added more reminders to each workflow which helps keep me in touch with my clients, making sure they are getting everything they need and that I can offer them everything I can - and that, in turn, helps improve sales!

On a simple value level, the highest return for me has been the reminders to chase up enquiries. I used to get so overwhelmed with work that I completely forgot to chase up enquiries; having the reminders within Light Blue means I never forget now - I've booked at least three weddings this year alone because of this one simple feature. It's obvious stuff, but these kind of things can easily fall through the cracks when you are a sole trader, spinning many plates.

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