Category Archives: Getting Noticed

Flickr Stigma

I’m not gonna lie. If you sent me an email and said check out my portfolio and the link went to Flickr I wouldn’t even look. It’s the same as the portfolio test. If you don’t have your shit together enough to have a nice printed portfolio you’re not getting the job. It’s not just [...]

Free Promotion

I’ve wanted to do this for awhile and my thinking on the future of photography and photo contests and other things I’m cooking up has gotten me inspired to offer everyone the chance to promote your best work for free by submitting a couple images for a slide show. There’s plenty of photo editors and [...]

Pay to Play

A reader asked me about those cutting edge fashion magazines that require photographers to cover their own expenses and if I really think the magazine is too poor to pay for it themselves. I’m going to need a little help from my readers who’ve worked at one of these magazines (on the inside) to get [...]

The PDN 30

PDN just announced their annual 30 photographers list (here) which always proves to be a valuable resource for photo editors looking for new talent or to validate someone they’re interested in working with. Unlike the other juried competitions this one is unique because PDN seems to make a real effort to introduce (drive) new talent [...]

Serendipity

… living in big cities [is] invaluable because you increase the odds of serendipitous encounters–you gain exposure to the envelope of serendipity.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

Photographer Promo Cards

What’s the purpose of the promo card? Send me a cool photo, convey contact info, show-off your style, reinforce your brand, display your expensive logo, tell a story, show-off your new printer, tell me how clever you are, show the latest campaign you shot, show me how many styles you can shoot…
Action. Nothing else.
The purpose [...]

More on Photo Rank *on the sidebar*

If you’ve ever submitted a photo and spent $45 or more on a photography contest and never heard back from them and thought to yourself “what the hell is wrong with those people” and “just who are these cranks they hired to judge it anyway?” Well, now you can submit a photo, your portfolio or [...]

More on Style

When I think about a writer with individual style, Hunter S. Thompson comes to mind. That’s why I was floored when I read this:
He didn’t finish high school, but he taught himself to write. He retyped books by writers he admired - Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner - all the heavyweights. He said he wanted to get [...]

Getting in

You may have figured out that the editorial photography world is a bit incestuous– especially if you’re trying to break in– and there’s a pretty good reason for it called, “let someone else try out the new guy.” I’m always more than happy to poach a photographer from another leading (not rival) publication because they’ve [...]