Denis Reggie is THE premier wedding photographer in the world. How premier, well he did Arnold and Maria, as well as 21 other Kennedy Family weddings. Click and watch the video interview with Denis, really interesting, He describes how he works every weekend, often flying to say Belgium for the wedding and then another flight to the party following in the Mediterranean. No doubt the price for all this is in the ‘ if you have to ask…’ category. Interestingly he offers two levels of service, Signature and Company. Signature gets you Denis himself or one of his two assistants. Company gets one of their approved photographers. He is based out of Atlanta given the good airport there.
Now, we offer a major in entrepreneurship. Think about the managerial accounting course involving budgets, target profit, and just in time practices. How would you bring these concepts to bear on being successful in such an enterprise? A criticism of college is that we only train folks to work for someone else, not necessarily. You will also note that he mentions the business side of things. He gets about 360 requests a year.
This might be an interesting assignment. Suppose you had to fly to Belgium, shoot the wedding, then fly to Cannes for the party afterward, and then return home to do the photo processing. What would your budget include, how would you calculate what to charge, what would your target profit be? Most of all, how would you be absolutely positively sure you got and returned with the digital photos, at least digital lets you see what you took.
Imagine what this guy’s rolodex looks like!
Okay maybe we all can’t be the best in the world, what about turning your hobby into a business using the internet, no daily grind, no 8-5, no asking for a raise, just do what you want all day long. Well, Gordon Laing at Camera Labs did just that. Take a look, while a lot of photo mags say they test cameras and lenses, most are really just lightweight shills for the manufacturer to run an ad in the magazine. As you will see, Gordon is the one man Consumer Reports of Camera Testing. I Now think about his business modelo, he apparently does not accept camera advertising but has links to retailers. I mention suppse those retailer supply the cameras and lenses. What do you suppose his budget looks like, how many emplloyees are invovled, what internet capability did it take? I really like the idea that he uses You Tube so I don’t have to down load. Can you think of a service you could provide that would allow you to pursue your hobby while making a living? How would you use Managerial Accounting to help?
Professor Elam 
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