Fran Ortiz, Arcadina Ambassador and renowned wedding photographer

Today we want to introduce you to Fran Ortiz, Ambassador of Arcadina, a fantastic photographer and a better person. Fran is a wedding, lifestyle and communion photographer in Granada who has had photography in his veins since he was just a child.

If you want to know how he started out, why he is so successful in the talks he gives and, above all, how he turns his great passion into his profession, don’t miss the interview with Fran Ortiz, Arcadina Ambassador. Don’t miss the interview with Fran Ortiz, Ambassador of Arcadina.

Discover what Fran Ortiz, Ambassador of Arcadina, is like.

Who is Fran Ortiz, Ambassador of Arcadina?

Fran Ortiz, Ambassador of Arcadina is also a professional photographer who specialises in wedding, portrait and event photography. He has also given photography workshops all over Spain and is going to be a speaker at the upcoming Kinafoto tour that in 2024 will tour 8 cities in Spain. I would like to take this opportunity to say that we are sponsors of this event. You are one of the 3 speakers on this tour and in 2022 you received the award for best wedding photographer of the year from Martino Buzzi’s photographic collective Fotógrafos de boda.net, with whom we are also very good friends.

Best Wedding Photographer Award 2022

We met Fran 2 years ago when he was awarded the prize for best wedding photographer. What do you remember about that day?

“The truth is that I don’t remember much, I had tonsillitis that day, but that night was decisive for me, not only because of the award, but also because I realised how much I value the photos and the video. Between being ill and nervous, the only memories I have are of the photos and the video. For me they were a bombshell”.

You yourself experienced how photography and video can immortalise memories.

“Yes, especially with the audio, I can feel when Martino said: photographer of the year Fran Ortiz… From that 2022, it has been very decisive because now I value family photos and things that before, it’s not that I didn’t value them but when you suffer them you see them in a different way.

It’s like organising a wedding, until you plan your own you don’t really understand the nerves of the bride and groom. Because no matter how much you are able to empathise with your clients, until you experience it yourself, you are not really aware of it”.

Fran Ortiz, Ambassador of Arcadina

As a first, as of today Fran becomes an Arcadina Ambassador. How does it feel?

“I think it was very organic because I was already working with you. Whenever I prepare a training course I always wrote to you to tell you that I was going to talk about you, what can we offer to people, and I think it was very organic.

The truth is that yes, the other day I proposed you to be an ambassador, but you were already an ambassador. You talk about us in your speeches, you comment on the web, etc. Photographers who already have a background, we like you to be our ambassadors, who better than us to say if Arcadina is going well or badly as you are going to give your opinion from experience and for us it is an honour that you have accepted the invitation and we are sure that we will do interesting things to make our services better known.

“Of course, as a biker, I have to travel more than 40 km to take my bike to the workshop, but I know that this is the best. I have tried many web hosting services and I will recommend the best and that’s why I talk about Arcadina in my talks, on my website and on my Instagram, because it comes naturally to me”.

When did photography become your profession?

“My mother always says that as soon as she loaded a roll of film in the camera I used it up. I was taking pictures all day long. My mother and my elders have always been like my teachers apart from my school teachers. I would always show my mum my photos and I still do to this day when I see a really cool photo. In fact I have a private gallery where I upload photos to my mum. Since I was little I have always been taking photos and my style now, where you see photos from very low down, is still what I did when I was little and saw the world from there. Also, with the break dancing thing, my style of photography has a lower point of view than what people normally do.

I can’t say when I started, I haven’t changed, I’ve been taking photos since I was a child, although I have been able to polish my style. At the beginning, when I wasn’t even studying, I was break dancing and I had a circus show. That’s why now, for me it’s no problem to get on stage and present an event, it’s like going back to where I came from.

I still remember the conversation with the photographer Luna Vandoorne when she told me to go into photography. Then, when I was 23 years old, I started studying the intermediate cycle and during my internship, when I did my first job with Antonio Navarro and he gave me part of the money, that’s when I realised that I could make a living out of this”.

What do you like most and least about your job?

This is something that you always strive for in life, to work in something you like and you have ended up working in something that fulfils you. Although being a photographer is not easy, it takes time and you have to keep updating your skills. What do you like the most and the least about your job?

“What I like most is talking to people and meeting people. Now I have a girl as a trainee and she tells me that I talk to everyone. And the good thing about weddings is that they have that, as I’m the photographer I can talk to everyone.

And my least favourite thing is editing, I don’t like spending a lot of time at the computer, but with AI it’s easier. I feel I’m at the top of my game.

Of course, this way you can spend more time on the actual photography work.

Do you have a job or event that you have a special memory of?

“A Los Suaves concert. I was the photographer in a concert hall in Granada and I had the advantage of being able to talk to the musicians. Talking to the singer of Los Suaves I told him what my favourite song was. When he sang it at the concert I got emotional, he noticed and pointed at me and I took the photos crying with emotion. Afterwards at other concerts the guy remembered it. It was the best moment of my career. That’s the photo I’ve taken that I like the most because of what it means.

If it’s a picture taken of me, the last picture with my parents at a wedding. My dad owns a gym and it’s not every day I get a picture of him in a suit.

I used to do martial arts with my brother and we trained very hard, my father told me that I had to learn from the best. Martial arts teaches you to have respect. If you beat me, get ready because next year I’m going to come back stronger. And with the competitions it’s the same, with the photographer of the year, this year I came fifth. Some people might think that’s a bad position, but sometimes you have to take a breath and pick up momentum for the next one”.

Fran you are from Granada but where are your clients from?

Do your clients come from Granada, the surrounding area or even further afield? Tell us about it.

“I have everything, I always leave Spain once a year. I tend to move around quite a lot, although my core is in Granada. I’m lucky to be a prophet in my own land as far as clients are concerned. The people here are very aware that if they want something different and a little bit more rowdy, Fran is here. In that respect I’m very happy”.

How do you attract customers?

When it comes to getting clients, what means work best for you? Recommendations, the web, portals, networks, etc.

“I have a very good hook because when people write to me on Instagram I send them to a form that I have on the website with 5 questions. When they answer these questions I already know if they are going to be my clients or not, and they themselves also, in that same questionnaire I put my price.

I also ask them more personal questions, for example: what is the last song you listened to as a couple. If I’m going to be their photographer, it’s very important that we know each other well.

>> Arcadina Help: General / Forms

How do you keep your customers satisfied?

I was going to ask you what you do to keep your customers satisfied, but you have already answered us. From the beginning you ask them things to get to know them so that they are satisfied at the end.

“At the end of the day we offer a service and it is a safe bet to offer a good service. In the end it is an experience. For example, with the communion photos I take, I don’t take too many photos, but the ones I take are because the parents want the child to have a good time, because they know that I’m going to play with them. And many parents tell me that there are a lot of photographers out there who are better than me, but the experience I’m giving the child, that’s what he’s going to keep”.

And they also transmit that in the photos, when they forget that you are there.

“There are photographers who prepare incredible backgrounds or beautiful lighting schemes and maybe technically it’s a better photo, and I value that a lot. But what works for me is that, a good experience. And it’s the same with the bride and groom, if something is missing I help them. There are colleagues who don’t interact at weddings but I do need to, that’s my way of leaving my little seed and over time I know that they will recommend me”.

In the end, they are different styles and what you have to be clear about is who you are and how you want to feel in such an important experience with these people, and if you live it intensely, you are going to transmit it to those around you.

What about your presentations?

“Yes, it’s the same with talks. You see a talk from someone who you see is not believing it to someone who says ‘God! The way he’s experiencing it, I’m already soaking it in. And in one of my talks, maybe I don’t say anything you don’t know, but you say wow, this is the passion I want to transmit. In the end it’s all about the user experience.

I always say, when a wedding is over, that when my clients have their family photos on Sunday or Monday, it is one of the best experiences I can offer them. Tell them on Monday, this is your private gallery where you can see the photos and download them. No one is doing that and I think it’s crazy not to do that nowadays.”

It’s what you say, right now technology offers you possibilities that allow you to turn your work into an experience and to make your client really satisfied, so that they say, “look at this photographer who took my photos yesterday and the next day I’m already looking at them”. This was unthinkable 20 years ago, there were no means to achieve this.

At what point did you realise that you needed an online presentation portfolio?

franortiz.com

“I did a course with Johnny García and I realised that I needed a website when during the talk I said to myself: ‘We’re not even talking about your website. At first I got angry, but after a few days I realised why I had said that. At that moment my image on the Internet was non-existent.

At the beginning I started with a blog and after a while I realised that I needed the best. I needed something that was very easy, at that moment I couldn’t waste time because at that moment I had to retouch a lot”.

It is true that there is not enough time for everything and the saying “cobbler to your shoes”, the part that you don’t control is best done by others.

“Of course, the website I had before, the photos could be downloaded by everyone and I didn’t like that very much. It’s clear that anyone can take a screenshot, but the idea is that, even if someone downloads a photo without permission, at least it’s more difficult for them to do so”.

With the low quality of web images, watermarks, etc. the idea is that you can control your work.

What are your views on social media?

“For example, I spend time on Instagram and I’m very well positioned, but I think if Instagram goes down where am I going to take people?”

The networks are evolving and what is a trend one day, is no longer a trend the next. The networks are still a showcase where you have to be for them to see you and get to know you and then bring them into your fold. Your website. That’s where you put your form, you ask them your questions, you have the capacity to offer them your services, etc.

Every now and then a different social network becomes fashionable, but you always have to have a place to take people to, which is your website.

“Yes, the web is like your shop where you can change the shop window from time to time but the shop itself will be the same. Because in the end when you search for something you put it on Google, not on Instagram.

Also on Instagram you have to have a profile for each type of session, but on the other hand, you can have a single website and create different sections on it”.

Instagram is for the day to day and to tell your client about the things you are doing, but in your shop it doesn’t say what you have done today but you reflect your trajectory and your history and that’s a bit like the web.

SEO on your website

“On Instagram you have to be dancing in the water all the time, if it’s now popular to make videos, you have to make videos, because then it doesn’t promote you. On the other hand, the web is always the same. A good text explained with good SEO and we don’t have to fool around in front of the camera. You have to invest in websites”.

If you are a photographer in Granada and surroundings and you want to be found, you have to take into account a series of words: photographer, Granada, Seville, weddings, communions, etc. and with these words you create sections on your website in which these terms appear several times. This way when someone searches for these terms, you will appear in their results.

In the past, people used to go to the local photographer, but nowadays people look for it on the Internet.

>> Increase your visibility on the Internet: create a profitable photography website

Tell us about your client galleries

Client galleries can be used to download photos privately, to choose photos from a job. For example, for communions, photographers create a gallery with 50 photos where the parents can choose 20 images for the album or to download and from the 21st, a stipulated price is charged. In your case, what do you use the client galleries for?

“This has changed a lot because before I uploaded the photos unedited and the clients chose the photos and I edited them afterwards. Now with AI the client is already seeing the finished photos. And when you see the finished product, you like it more and in the end they choose more. And choosing more photos means more money and I’m still a company and I need to make money.

For example, I create a gallery of 100 or 200 edited photos for them and when they see them, the client no longer wants to keep only the 16 photos they were going to buy from you and the good thing is that maybe they don’t want them for the album but to print them with your laboratory”.

>> Strategies to sell my photos online without paying third party commissions

Arcadina Labs allows me to sell photos from 2017 today

Arcadina Labs is an idea that you photographers passed on to us, which is that once you have the photos taken and my work has been paid for, but if now, for example, the mother of the bride comes and wants to order a canvas, it’s easy for her to do so. That’s why we decided to connect a professional laboratory, Floricolor, which allows you to sell prints or more professional formats directly from the laboratory to your client.

It is very simple, when you enter the panel you see the cost of the product and the recommended price, which is a guide price that we have set but can be modified and from there, from what it costs to the sale price is what you keep and it is an extra income.

“I used to have only private galleries from that year, but then I thought that if I uploaded the galleries from previous years it would be easier for them to buy, for example, a photo for the anniversary and they buy a photo on paper. So I’m making money today from a wedding in 2017.

Of course, this way you have your own stock that only your customers have access to and this way you can get sales that they didn’t expect. One of our slogans is “bring your photos to life” and that’s the idea.

“A photo in the archive is worthless and what you don’t show doesn’t sell”.

Fran Ortiz, Ambassador of Arcadina encourages you to try the Booking service

There is a service that I know you don’t use but I recommend that from now on you do and that is Booking. The idea is that you can book sessions online. You can create a communion campaign and within it you can define several communion sessions. You can also define the prices of each session and the booking deposit. It is a service that I recommend and I am sure you will end up using it. It also helps you to organise yourself a bit, and you will be able to book online.

“And they can also choose the day and time of the session, can’t they?”

Of course, you create your own calendar. You enter the Arcadina panel in the booking calendar and you can mark the days you are not available and you organise the calendar according to your personal life so that when your client goes to contract you will see a calendar with the days and times available. This makes it easier for you to manage and book the service.

“Yes, I also think it’s good for pre-weddings or lifestyle. That way I don’t have to worry about the client agreeing with his or her partner”.

>> How to get the most out of the Arcadina Booking Calendar?

Let’s talk about the €2,000 non-refundable aid from the Digital Kit for the self-employed living in Spain

I wanted to talk to you about the Digital Kit that you applied for. It is a government grant of 2000 € for freelancers and companies in Spain and you took advantage of it with Arcadina to improve your services with us. What do you think about this grant? Because many people when they hear the word “aid” think that it is a hassle, that they are going to have to do a lot of paperwork, etc. and the truth is that it used to be like that.

I would like to stress that on this occasion they have done well and that this aid is simple to understand and apply for, there is very little paperwork and you have to fulfil a minimum of requirements, but I think it is an aid that has helped many professionals in Spain from all sectors and I wanted to ask you personally what you think of it.

How to apply for the 2000 € voucher?

“If I have been able to do it, so can others. It took no more than 8 clicks to apply for help, and you have always been in touch with me whenever something needed to be done. It is very good because for a long time we have been very lost with the issue of aid and you support us, you are like a kind of manager that helps us”.

Anyone who wants to use the Digital Kit with us has it very easy, you just have to enter kitdigital.arcadina.com, fill out a simple form and from there we send information and there are some processes to be done as a simple diagnostic test. Then you just have to submit the application and when the voucher is approved you can use it with the digitising agent of your choice.

Now we have 2 categories active: web business and e-commerce where we give you several options where we help you to set up the website and we add the contents or we just set up the website and you can enjoy more time with our service.

“Besides, I think this aid is coming to an end right now.”

Initially it was only for 2023 and has been extended for the whole of 2024, and we are even hearing that as it is doing so well for small companies it may be extended as it is being checked that the digitising agents are serious companies with years of experience.

Fran Ortiz, Arcadina ambassador and fan of his own team

To finish I would like to know Fran, what is your favourite hobby, although I think you have many.

“Break dancing, motorbikes, the circus… I try to do everything, although being with my family is what I value most at the moment. Because my people do the hobbies that I like. They ride motorbikes, they train break. Being with my people is what I like the most, each one of them feeds a side of me”.

I am also very family-oriented and we are always making plans with the family and meeting up with friends from time to time. And besides, I am also self-employed and there comes a time when professional and personal life are not differentiated and that is what makes us enjoy our work more intensely.

“If you are, you are. I’ve always been a photographer and I’m always taking photos with my mobile phone or I take my camera with me. Today I took the bike to the garage and I took my camera with me and even though it’s not a job as such I want to be taking pictures”.

Of course, you never know when the good photo will appear.

And if you were to start again today as a photographer, what would you change?

“I’ve already told you, when Johnny told me about your website, we didn’t talk about it. If I had made a professional website when I started, at that moment when he told me that, I would have been on Google for 15 years and I would be better positioned”.

It is true that the sooner you have an online presence the better positioned you will be.

“I would have done less Facebook, because the people who used to hire me over there, those people are no longer there but they are still on Google.”

Thank you very much Fran Ortiz, Ambassador of Arcadina for dedicating your time to us, you have a lot of personality, a big heart and a fantastic professional. We hope you continue to be very successful in your business and in life in general. At Arcadina we will always be there for whatever you need.

Below is the video with the full interview with Fran Ortiz.

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