WPPI is a great place to take the pulse on what’s happening in the world of professional photography, and 2018 illustrated some shifts – here are my takeaways from walking the trade show:
More Services: There was a noticeable increase in vendors offering “services”. This includes hosting, culling, editing and wedding album design. It’s clear that many vendors are marching towards becoming the “one stop shop” for photographers.
Less Printed Products: Sadly, there were less companies showcasing beautiful wedding albums and wall art. This speaks to the increase in wedding and portrait photographers who are part timers, and feel they don’t have the time to invest in the sale of products. In comparison, the majority of professional wedding albums being ordered today (from what we see) are from full time photographers.
Personalized Wedding Albums: What’s hot today in album covers is graphics and imagery. For many brides, searching what others did on Pinterest has become an obsession in the quest for “uniqueness”. As a result we’re seeing some really cool album covers that showcase the personalized wedding albums brides want.
Coolest Thing I Saw: B&H set up 5 fully equipped studio setups that included live models and props so that photographers could shoot, and experiment with different equipment in each studio. Photographers were given prints from the photos they created in the studios!
We Have Become A Global Industry – there were wedding albums for photographers from New Zealand and Portugal, Editing companies from Wales and India, image optimizing tools from Israel, and many great vendors here in the US, many of who serve international markets.
