S2.E8 – 24 Years of Weddings with Susan Stripling, Canon Explorer of Light

In this episode of f/22, Zach Hodges sits down in Las Vegas with Susan Stripling, a wedding photographer of 24 years who has never had another job. She lives in New York, she is a Canon Explorer of Light and an Adorama ambassador, and she is a grand master at Icon. Ask how she is holding up after 24 years and the answer is caffeine and duct tape.
Susan is blunt about what the accolades actually do. Inside the industry they build relationships and they build a résumé. To a couple choosing a photographer they do nothing, because a prospective client cannot tell an Icon Grand Master from a mom who voted you best photographer in Jersey City.
Much of the conversation is about the business behind the pictures. She runs the studio out of one system, answers every inquiry herself, tracks every referral source, and pulls reports at the end of each year to see where the work came from and where it went. She raises prices in itty-bitty increments, sometimes holding the number and dropping the coverage from ten hours to eight, then waits a couple of bookings to see what it does before moving again. Price yourself too far above your referral sources and the referrals stop.
She is also honest about what wears on her. She gets bored. She gets burnt out. The venue looks the same and the timeline looks the same. What resets her is not a business fix, it is remembering that she has been there a hundred times and her clients have been there once. Her burnout at work tracks her burnout at home, so she goes and fills the rest of her life first.
Her advice for photographers starting out comes in two pieces, and the second one is the part most people skip.
This episode explores
• Why awards build a résumé inside the industry and mean nothing to a prospective client
• Running a wedding business end to end, from the first inquiry to year-end reporting
• Raising prices in itty-bitty increments without pricing yourself out of your referrals
• What changed for photographers starting out now, and why the job takes two skill sets
• A theater background, theatrically motivated light, and the editorial flash resurgence
• Getting bored at a venue you have shot a hundred times, and what actually fixes it
• Why she started scuba diving and refuses to monetize the pictures
Thanks to Harlow Lighting for lighting in this episode.
Follow Susan:
susanstripling.com
Chapters:
00:00 Cold open
00:41 Welcome back to f/22 with Susan Stripling
02:07 Whether the awards actually help her business
03:11 Held together by caffeine and duct tape
04:15 A theater background and nodding to modern style
05:44 Word of mouth then, a marketing monster now
06:27 One system running the whole studio
07:53 Letting go of her own editing
08:41 A complicated relationship with AI
09:28 Moving prices in itty bitty increments
10:49 Getting bored at the venue you have shot 100 times
12:50 It's not personal, it's just business
Big thanks to Harlowe Lights for the lighting of this episode, and Shure Mics for the audio.
Hashtags:
#SusanStripling #WeddingPhotography #WeddingPhotographer #NewYorkPhotographer #PhotographyBusiness #PhotographyPricing #EditorialLighting #F22Series #VSCO