Don’t be a One Hit Wonder

[by Blake Discher]

By now, it’s very likely that every client you shoot for  knows about Flickr and other crowd-sourcing photo sites.  Look at crowd-sourcing photography from a client’s perspective.  Think about why some clients look to Flickr for photography instead of seeking out a photographer.    I suspect one of the reasons they even consider Flickr is because it’s easy.  Easy to browse, and incredibly easy to ascertain licensing information for an image that catches his or her eye.

Now think about how easy it is to do business with you.  How can you streamline your workflow to benefit the client?  What steps can you take that will make working with you easier?   Because of cut-back and staff reductions, there’s a good chance your client is doing the work of more than one person.  Because of this, “easy” is huge value-added these days.

Added value helps you to differentiate yourself from your competitors.   Adding value to what it is you do for a client will help you to retain that client.   Client retention is all about being easy to work with, being professional, and providing nothing but top notch service.  Doing less will make you a one-hit wonder.

Blake Discher is a photographer and search engine optimization consultant to small businesses.  Visit his lifestream to learn more.

The Web is Dead, Long Live the Internet…

[by Shannon Fagan]

A subject line on one of the photography email list-serves that I follow caught my eye this week, “The Web is Dead!  Long Live the Internet!”  Hmmmm.  There was a link and click, click; I was taken Wired Magazine’s site.  There, Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff have prepared a compelling article about the future of Internet traffic. I invite you to read the article as it’ll make my observations for the photo industry more compelling.

What’s occurring on the Internet has been seen in our own image licensing economy and push to future technology.

“Big sucks the traffic out of small,” Milner says in the article.  “In theory you can have a few very successful individuals controlling hundreds of millions of people. You can become big fast, and that favors the domination of strong people.”

This is very familiar to what we have observed with Getty Images and the Canon Corporation.  Getty is the world’s largest online distributor of stock images and illustration, and Canon is the world’s largest camera manufacturer.

In contrast to this article (where the web started with a low-barrier of entry), photography began with a high-barrier of entry and is moving oppositely in the other direction to a democratized access point.  This is also occurring in music, graphic design, and illustration; perhaps legal forms, writing, and news; just about anything with intellectual property merit being shared or licensed on the Internet.

“The less powerful are sapped of their reason for being by the better resourced, organized, and efficient — is perhaps the rudest shock possible to the leveled, porous, low-barrier-to-entry ethos of the Internet Age,” says Michael Wolff.  “After all, this is a battle that seemed fought and won — not just toppling newspapers and music labels but also AOL and Prodigy and anyone who built a business on the idea that a curated experience would beat out the flexibility and freedom of the Web.”

We are now witnessing a rise of low-barrier of entry to photography by the masses; something observed again first-hand at the Canon Expo in New York in early September.  Evidence of why this trend will not end is largely due in part to the stronghold that Canon “as the world’s largest camera manufacturer” has over the determination of digital imaging’s future.  This combination of The Wired Magazine article and what we are observing in the photographic economy begs the question as to whether it is possible for success outside of the majors?

To date, it was generally accepted that one must have “high-level” access to distribution and technology in order to succeed in photographic licensing online.   In other words, to make real money, and a sustainable income, one needed to secure Getty distribution with a Canon, or perhaps a Nikon, camera in hand.  There seems to have arisen an assumption amongst image content creators (and the smaller platforms assisting them) that perhaps in the future this dominance will not be as prevalent as “direct licensing” and other democratized access points level that higher playing field.  This may be true.  The Wired Magazine article’s macro view of what is happening on the Internet however, is interestingly counter to this argument.  All stock content licensing is taking place online via the Internet.  Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff give us a bit more to ponder about regarding our democratized future.

Shannon Fagan is leading up ASMP’s new Strategic Image Licensing Committee (SILC) and is a former President of the Stock Artists Alliance.

Domino’s Pizza

[by Todd Joyce]

Have you seen the Domino’s TV ad asking for photos of delivered pizzas to show how good they look?   Yeah, I hate losing work to a soccer mom with a point and shoot too.

The Domino’s campaign is not about getting free photos.  It’s about a perception.  Even if nobody submits a single image, Domino’s got what they wanted.   Attention.  Domino’s is sending a message that they’re confident that they deliver a good looking pizza.    And look what we’re doing.   Perpetuating their message.   It’s working and we haven’t even seen a photo yet.   Oh, they’ll get pictures.  With the millions of pizzas they deliver, there’s no doubt, there will be a few good looking pizzas placed in the hands of someone with the ability to take a good picture.   It’s the law of averages.

For you food shooters out there, imagine telling your pizza client “we’ll just have a pie delivered and hope it looks good enough to shoot.”   No true professional would willingly take a chance like that.   Being a professional means more than charging money.  It’s a state of mind that leaves as little as possible to chance.  Promote your level of professionalism.   It’s a strength that you have that is very marketable.   Visualize what you offer as a professional and use it to your advantage.

Domino’s hired professional advertising people to get attention, not to save money on photo shoots.   Show your clients the true value of what you bring as a professional.

Todd Joyce is a recent Past President of ASMP and specializes in conceptual people photography for advertising. See Todd’s work at joycephotography.com and contact him at todd@joycephotography.com

Work and Pleasure are One in the Same

[by Gail Mooney]

Seth Godin recently wrote in his blog about professionals and amateurs:

“If you want something done, perhaps you would ask a professional to do it. Someone who costs a lot but is worth more than they charge. Someone who shows up even when she doesn’t feel like it. Someone who stands behind her work, gets better over time and is quite serious indeed about the transaction.
Or perhaps you could hire a passionate amateur. That’s a forum leader doing it for love, not money. An obsessive in love with the craft. A talented person willing to trade income for the chance to do what he loves, with freedom.”
He goes on to say “don’t hire someone who just thinks it’s a job.”  I guess I’m lucky because I have never really thought of my photography or shooting motion as a job.  In fact most of the times I don’t even look at what I do as “work”.  I think work has taken on a negative connotation in our society and there seems to be a line drawn between work and pleasure.  But for me, work and pleasure are one in the same.

So I guess I could look at Seth’s quotes above and not really identify myself as a professional or an amateur, at least just going by his descriptions.  I think I’m a mix between the two or maybe I’m a “passionate professional”.  I sometimes think that professional photographers get a bit jealous of the amateur, especially if they are not doing gratifying work.  And that doesn’t just happen when someone has been in the business too long – it happens because you get derailed from what gives you joy. I’ve seen some photographers and other creative’s get defensive about being a professional because they feel threatened by the amateur who is doing what they love to do. Perhaps somewhere along the line they lost the passion, or maybe it was never there to begin with.

Nowadays, just about anyone can take a pretty good photograph because the tools have become so easy to use.  And since amateurs don’t really have the fear of failure because they don’t have as “much at stake” – they tend to take more chances and good things come when you are willing to do that.  You can no longer define a professional photographer as one who just knows how to operate a camera proficiently. And if a pro positions himself/herself by the tools that they use, it’s only a matter of time that they become out of fashion as their tools become obsolete.

So rather than get defensive about being a professional and feeling threatened by the amateur – maybe we pros should take a lesson from them and focus on the joy of creating imagery.

Gail Mooney runs a video production company www.kellymooney.com.

Professionals vs. Crowdsourcing – Who’s Who?

[by Ellen Boughn]

© Pavel Losevsky | Dreamstime.com

Last week I was in Los Angeles on a project and took the time to help a friend start a store on a site for handmade goods. Since this was an experiment on a shoestring, she asked if I would take the photos. After all I’ve been in the photography business for decades so I was the right person for the job. Yes? Answer? NO.

As I struggled with her old and cheap tripod, mounted with a point and shoot, I tipped my mental hat to professionals and their equipment everywhere.  Even with the help of a jewelry lighting setup, she bought online, I fumbled my way through three days of shooting…the result? A few dozen selects.

And those few dozen? Underexposed, blown out, soft, too narrow a depth of field, off colors, bad crops, flat. Ok, so I’m a photo editor not a photographer but geez! (In my defense: like book editors, the business of photo editing is about selecting the best words and pictures not about creating them.)

In my main area of expertise-stock photography, it’s often more about being a professional looking photo than it is about whether or not the creator is a professional photographer.

Many long time professional photographers are still up in arms about the ‘crowd sourced’ photos in microstock collections. But remember: anyone can take a good photo once in a while and these gems often end up in microstock. Even so, look at the poster boys (and girls) for microstock success: these are now all professional photographers with expensive operations.  Even in microstock stock, the winners must come home with the bacon again and again. This makes them professionals, in my book.

Being a pro isn’t about how many lenses you own, if and how big your studio is or even how much money you make. It means that you have the talent, the NECESSARY equipment, the business sense and the personality to solve visual problems under many circumstances again and again.

Follow up note: I’ve suggested that my jewelry friend contact L.A.’s Art Center and pay a student intern who wants to be earn to learn in gaining experience in shooting products.  And to hire, at the first financially feasible opportunity, an experienced photographer.

Ellen Boughn is a professional photo editor, consultant and writer. She tweets @ellenboughn and you can find her on facebook under ellenboughn. Her website is www.ellenboughn.com and that’s enough ellenboughns!

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