The British Journal of Photography

“Many photographers end up putting their name to album design packages or Photoshop Action collections, marketed through the usual seminar and trade association channels on the back of business or creative reputations. Uzair Kharawala has achieved something far more difficult, and more sustainable than the trends for creative shortcuts – he’s got his own business management program Foto SF released as commercial software, sold through Apple dealers and graphics specialists like Warehouse Express and Jigsaw.
“I started photography when I was 18 years old”, said Uzair (Oz to his friends and clients). “My father owned a printing and publishing business producing business calendars, and my job was to shoot landscapes for them. I went into business properly seven years ago after my wife Farzana started photographing play-groups – we became very busy event photographers, with thousands of clients even through each order was maybe only £30 or £50.

“We needed a database – we had all these customer files, and realised it would be better to use our contacts to grow the business than always find new clients. So we hired a programmer to write a database to handle our marketing, orders and delivery. That is how we were introduced to the Macintosh system and FileMaker Pro, which was the best programmable database available for Macs.”

One of the benefits of FileMaker Pro was that it allowed the inexpert user – Oz – to modify it, try out many modules provided with it, and tap into experience dating back almost as far as the Mac system itself. In this respect, FileMaker has always been far more user-friendly than the Microsoft rival Access. Like Access, it can be used to built run-time applications. It can also be scripted to interact with other Apple software. Unlike Access, it is dual platform. FileMaker Pro and Foto SF can be run on either Mac or PC systems. The data-files can be shared on a mixed network without the need for expert systems consultants.
“Initially we had a simple database. I needed it to do much more and could see that a finished stand-alone version could become the best product on the market for photographers, so we employed a full-time programmer – and from that Foto SF was developed and launched.”
Customising reports or letters in FileMaker normally means remembering the names of fields or looking them up from a list of hundreds in a complex database. Foto SF provides button-click access to all the fields needed to construct standard letters so no programming know-how is ever needed by the user. You may need outside help or training to create formatted email shots. Foto SF makes full use of electronic delivery by email, HTML and for quotes, invoices (etc) PDF documents in place of printed output.

Diary basis

Now in Version 2, Foto SF has been designed by Oz and implemented by his programmer, with professionals paid to create the graphic look, marketing materials, packaging and website. He’s attended FileMaker TechNet meetings where the complex possibilities of a scriptable relational database are revealed, and worked closely with FileMaker themselves to get the best help and support. The result has been an extremely stable, bug-free photo studio management program which is easy to set up and use.  The whole program is built round a customer database, product database and diary, with a pre-set flow of events. Once a client is in the system, just entering the date of their wedding will automatically add corresponding dates for pre-wedding meetings, booking confirmation, deposit, proof viewings, order deadlines, album production, delivery and payments.
All these (or other) events will have been given a workflow timing by the photographer when setting up. Foto SF will then alert the operator before every stage of a job. It will record all the requirements of a wedding couple, and print out a detailed document to advise them on what they have ordered and what to expect on the day.
Staff are allocated jobs, and worksheets produced for any week or day in much the same way a good photo lab will print out a daily schedule for every workstation or operator. Double bookings are prevented by the diary system, slots for portrait sittings or PR jobs are easily found.
Though it is not an accounting package, Foto SF acts as a sales and purchase ledger system and will create VAT return figures. It provides reports suitable for an accountant to use, but lacks the nominal ledger, analysis, payroll, bank account and auditing functions of a full accounting system. It will of course issue statements and schedule reminder calls or letters for overdue debts!
Unlike some accounts packages, it does this with full graphics and font integration and no needs to export data and mail-merge with an outside word processor. No printed stationery is needed, and with an affordable colour laser printer a business’s image is easily maintained. The predesigned reports allow quick customisation with logos and information.

Out of the box

Uzair, who is an expert in profitable events photography and teaches location flash techniques for Nikon, is keen on new technology and the integration made possible within the Apple product family.
“An iPhone application is already available”, he explained. “Unlike PDAs where you need to synchronise your handheld with your computer at base every day, the iPhone is always up to date. You log in to your Foto SF system from wherever you are. I have my own Foto SF database set up on a server – it is securely stored away from my office – and I can access it through internet or my iPhone at any time.”
Foto SF can be multi-user with the appropriate FileMaker Pro upgrade, so several staff logging in at the same time do not risk corrupting data. Changes and updates from all users are made in real time, and become visible to others.
“The next addition to Foto SF v2 will be Diary integration with Apple’s iCal”, Oz added. “This will be two-way, so any diary dates added in iCal will appear in Foto SF, and any Foto SF bookings will appear in iCal.”
Diary conflicts – even with a personal function unrelated to the business and noted in the user’s iCal file – will be avoided. iCal can also be mirrored remotely and accessed by internet or iPhone, extending the options.
In the future, Foto SF will link to Apple’s Aperture raw processing and file management program. This bit of advance news came when I asked Oz if Foto SF would ever be able to replace Expression Media Pro, which I use to manage my image library with keywords and searchable cataloguing. FileMaker Pro has offered image fields for over a decade, a function often used for  employee and contact records.
Linking to Aperture, future Foto SF should be able to search keywords and browse the thumbnails and previews generated and held in Aperture’s catalogues. Then it will become a full Digital Asset Management program, with the benefit of client information added.

Efficiency

Foto SF, at £345 inc VAT, includes a full copy of FileMaker Pro Version 9 (normally a £200+ program in its own right). FileMaker has been my customer database program since the early 1990s, and has a perfect record of keeping thousands of addresses intact through many upgrades, machine changes and operating systems.
The day I was due to start writing this report, my iMac decided to stage a go-slow with a total of 15 different programs running and swapping their CPU, RAM and disk space allocations constantly. These included two FileMaker Pro databases, a full accounting package, Thunderbird, Firefox, Adobe Bridge/ACR/Photoshop/Acrobat, NeoOffice and Expression Media Pro with switches between them almost by the minute. I had to do a shutdown and restart after a week of solid work to get the machine back to speed.
Nearly everything I do in NeoOffice including writing articles, planning print work and budget spreadsheets could be done within FileMaker Pro. Aperture is a known resource-hog, but FileMaker Pro is not (it runs very ‘lightly’ on the Mac, opening and quitting with speed). It’s possible to foresee an installation where FM Pro, Foto SF and Aperture could replace half a dozen other programs and avoid inefficient switching between apps.
The iPhone module costs £80, and this I have not tested – because of the small amount extra required for an iPhone and its expensive contract! But I’m told by Foto SF users with more dosh than me that it works.

Foto SF is the first new photographic management application for many years. It is not the first to use FileMaker Pro as the ‘engine’ – Chaim Bacon’s Photographic Organiser was an early FM application. Oz is enthusiastic and determined to make this program an international standard solution for all social and event photographers. It’s obviously suitable for press and PR, commercial and corporate diaries and could manage a catalogue or pack-shot workflow well, but his testimonials, examples and demonstration files are naturally geared to the field he comes from and knows best.”

To view the reveiew on the BJP webste, click here.