Fitlike Photography

We caught up with Mike from Fitlike Photograph for an insight into his business.

Please name the main purpose of your business.
Commercial, Wedding and Property Photography.

What are the benefits to operating in Moray?
Being based in Moray gives me a central base to cover weddings. Although most of my weddings can be in Aberdeen/shire I also get a few in Inverness and the Highlands. I have had a few in Caithness (where I’m originally from) and one booked for Skye this year. I have also been photographing a lot of properties for Estate Agents which is also taking me to Aberdeen most weeks. Any commercial work that I have done has been for local companies who are building or updating their websites.

How do you connect to your local customers?
For marketing my weddings, I network with venues where I’m on the recommended lists (from Caithness to Aberdeen), recommendations from previous brides alongside SEO for my website. I had a new website built from the ground up in summer 2023 alongside a new logo to tie it all together. 2024 was spent adding content to the website to help optimise it for my keywords. At around the one-year mark it started hitting page one for my main keywords. I tend to use my social media to point prospective couples to the website which is where they will find all the information. I have also just attended “Your Wedding Exhibition” at P&J Live which is a two-day event held mid-January with around 3000 visitors over the two days and a few venue wedding fairs. There is nothing better than getting out to meet couples face to face.

For my commercial work it has mostly been recommendations so far with the odd one coming through LinkedIn. I really should make more use of LinkedIn, but I can be very sporadic with my use of this platform.

Why are you part of Moray Chamber of Commerce?
I joined Moray Chamber of Commerce to network with other businesses to help grow my commercial photography. Admittedly I have been a bit sporadic with my attendance to events in the last year due to being busy. It’s something I want to correct in 2025.

What are you most proud of?
I went self employed in June 2022 and that has been the best decision ever as it has allowed me to grow my business and take on photography jobs, I wouldn’t have been able to previously.

The weddings were mostly on weekends and being booked well in advance I could arrange time to allow me to cover those whilst having a full-time job. As I’m doing a lot of properties and commercial work now, I must be able to react at short notice plus weather constraints to cover these, which would be impossible whilst employed.

Finally, name one misconception that people have about your business.
If you search for my website the first thing that will hit you is it’s geared for weddings, which is my focus but delve into the menu and you will find commercial and property work there as well under its own section.