Heather Elder of Heather Elder Represents reached out to me yesterday to get the word out about helping the people of Ukraine through donations for beautiful photographic prints. There is a link for other photographers beyond her roster to join in the efforts to help. Together we can make a difference.
Photography has a unique ability to connect us to people in ways that words simply cannot. And, when disaster or life changing events hit, photography has the power to bring us together and remind usof our collective experiences and shared humanity.
With this understanding, Giving Photography was created to connect people and artists who want to make a difference, all while making the world a little more beautiful. And, right now, we want to focus our attention and efforts on aide to Ukraine. Whetheryou are a photographer, or someone interested in making a donation in exchange for print, we invite you to join us.
Link here if you are a photographer or artist who would like to use the #Giving Photography and your own social platforms to offer prints in exchange for donations.
Link here if you are looking to make a donation in exchange for a print. Or explore the #GivingPhotography for more options.
Giving Photography understands that people want to make a difference in the world and want to lead positive and impactful lives. By connecting photographers to buyers with shared philanthropic interests, Giving Photography can become the catalyst to start meaningful conversations around urgent issues and raise money to help support them; all while making the world a little more beautiful.
To see more of the prints and charities being supported, check out our website or follow us on Instagram.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease weekly post “The Art of the Personal Project” can be viewed every Thursday.
When I go to a portfolio review these days, I’ve got to get on an airplane.
It’s a big deal.
The packing.
The planning.
The 3 hour drive to the airport.
I’m not complaining, per se, as getting to travel to great cities is a pleasure, not a problem.
But heading to Review Santa Fe last month, it was quite a different experience.
I woke up at a normal hour.
Made breakfast for the kids.
Then I went to two parent-teacher conferences at their school. And I ate in a gas station burrito joint.
Then I went to visit a furniture store, all before I joined the photo festival on a Friday afternoon in late October.
(Quick sidebar, before you scoff, for whatever reason, there are a ton of great little taquerias in gas stations throughout Northern New Mexico. My favorite is run by a couple of ladies from Chihuahua in an Alon station on the North side of Española.)
But back to Review Santa Fe.
It was no great drama to get there, just an average day. And as it was my 5th of 6 portfolio reviews this year, (I’m going to Photo NOLA next week,) it’s all began to feel a bit normal.
Shortly after I checked into the Drury Suites hotel, where the event is held, I walked across the street to try to find a cocktail party at Radius Books.
It seems straightforward, but you’re wrong.
I bumped into Brian Clamp, a friend of the column, and two other women who were scratching their heads trying to find the place. I took the lead, as a local, but really had no idea where I was going.
We ended up in a musty, 2nd-story-carpeted-hallway, chatting about what to do next, when a heavily-plastic-surgeried older woman popped her head out of an office.
She barked at me to shut up, and I saw, through her open door, that she was a psychic.
I was stunned, as she was so rude, but the jokes write themselves.
(If she’s really psychic, why didn’t she know we’d be there? If she’s really psychic, how come she couldn’t tell us how to find Radius Books? If she’s really psychic, how come she didn’t tell me to shut up before I said anything?)
I could go on, but I won’t.
Eventually, we found the party, and it was nice to catch up with colleagues over a stiff bourbon, in a sleek modernist space. They have it going on over there at Radius. (I’ll give them that.)
Beyond the socializing, through, my favorite thing about portfolio review events like Review Santa Fe is the chance to see such a cross-section of photography, and meet people from around the world, all in a compressed space in time.
In this respect, Review Santa Fe absolutely delivered.
I did 17 consecutive reviews on Saturday, and it almost burned out my brain. But the quality of work was high, overall, and as I also popped through the portfolio walk on Friday night, I’ve got a nice selection of work to show you today and next week.
As always, the artists are in no particular order.
We’ll start with Teri Darnell. She had two projects about gay performers, and was also trying to make work about the gentrification of a historically gay neighborhood in Atlanta. I liked the first project, but was really attracted to her photographs of a cabaret in Berlin.
According to Teri, there’s a particular cabaret show on in Berlin that was made in honor of the gay performers who were imprisoned in Hitler’s Germany. She said that in one case, the performers continued to stage work until they were murdered in a concentration camp. (Heavy stuff.)
It’s rare that photographers really play with the element of time, I find, but Teri’s moody, saturated images dovetail so well with the historical-recreation-vibe of the Berlin cabaret.
It’s trippy work for sure.
Cabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the NamelessCabaret of the Nameless
Speaking of trippy, Jill Brody is a self-professed Jewish grandmother who spends her photographic time hanging out with subcultures and religious minorities like the Hutterites in Montana.
I’m always impressed when people embed themselves in random places, because the artistic bug just won’t leave them alone. Jill and I discussed the relative saturation of colors in her palette, as I thought one or two of her blues pushed into hyperreal territory, which didn’t fit with her documentary style.
Kevin Horan was another artist who showed me things I liked and didn’t like. I don’t mean to be flippant about it, but from an advice standpoint, it’s good to mention here.
If you can bring more than one project with you, please do. Art is so subjective, and our own interests so broad, that one person may well hate one thing you’ve done and love another.
But if they love anything, you’re way ahead of the game.
Back to Kevin, though, as we saw images taken from airplanes that he’d inverted upside down in Photoshop. I wasn’t interested.
Then he showed me a beautiful, documentary series about finding dead things on nature walks. It really needs no more explanation, as his images are impressive and cohesive.
Santiago Serrano and I discussed the idea of cohesion, both visually and conceptually. He led with two or three pictures I found sub-par, and then had 15 in a row that were stellar. So we discussed how the context of those first few images determines how receptive we are to what comes next.
Santiago is from Quito, Ecuador, where bullfighting has been banned, but lived for a time in Mexico, where it’s not. He has this cool series about bullfighters in Mexico, but then there were two or three pictures of fighters in Ecuador.
I suggested that if 95% of the story was about one place, I’d cut the other pictures, for the sake of story cohesion. In particular, I appreciate his color palette, which captures that sense of the Mexican Baroque.
Festival de aficionados practicantes en Campo bravo, ubicado en San Juan del Rio. Mexico. 25/06/2010Novillero Jose Miguel Parra durante un descanso de los entrenamientos diarios en los viveros de Coyoacan como parte de sus practicas de toreo de salon. Mexico DF, Mexico. 28/07/2010Segunda Novillada en la Plaza Arroyo en la ciudad de Mexico. Mexico DF, Mexico. 31/07/2010Segunda Novillada en la Plaza Arroyo en la ciudad de Mexico. Mexico DF, Mexico. 31/07/2010Segunda Novillada en la Plaza Arroyo en la ciudad de Mexico. Mexico DF, Mexico. 31/07/2010Novillero venezolano Jose Miguel Parra, antes y durante su actuacin en la ciudad de Huamantla como parte de la segunda novillada de la feria anual. Huamantla, Estado de Tlaxcala, Mexico. 20/08/2010Novillero venezolano Jose Miguel Parra, antes y durante su actuacin en la ciudad de Huamantla como parte de la segunda novillada de la feria anual. Huamantla, Estado de Tlaxcala, Mexico. 20/08/2010Novillero venezolano Jose Miguel Parra, antes y durante su actuacin en la ciudad de Huamantla como parte de la segunda novillada de la feria anual. Huamantla, Estado de Tlaxcala, Mexico. 20/08/2010Novillero mexicano Salvador Lopez, durante su tercera presentacion en la plaza Mexico como parte de la temporada novilleril 2010. Mexico DF. Mexico. 05/09/2010El matador Cristian Aparicio durante sus entrenamientos diarios de toreo de salon en los viveros de Coyoacan. Mexico DF. Mexico. 09/09/2010
Adair Rutledge is the gutsy sort, and she needs to be. Adair, a blond, Southern, white woman, decided to do a story about a youth football team in Nashville, made up exclusively of African-American children.
We had the “stay in your lane” chat last week, so I won’t bore you, but Adair embedded herself for years, and really got to know these people. I’d argue it’s why they engage with the camera so freely and openly.
Leslie Sheryll is a former photo lab owner from New York who crossed the river into New Jersey. Most people go in the other direction, so more power to her. (I left the Tri-State area entirely, so who am I to point fingers?)
Leslie had some intricate Photoshop layered work, based on historical images she’d acquired and then digitized. She wanted to make work that really captured the spirit of the 19th Century women depicted, and her series featuring poisoned plants, which I’m showing here, was very cool.
Abrus precatorius rosary pea poisonPoppy PapaveraceaeVeratrum Album Poison false helleboresOenanthe crocata L. Hemlock Water-dropwortpoinsettiaAconitum napellu, monkshoodLily of the Valley ,Conuallaria majalisVomica Poisonous Strychnine TreeLily, Lilium
Finally, we’ve got Lee Johnson. He’s an Englishman living in Switzerland for work, and has been photographing the ski lifts in summer, hinting at a time when the snow won’t come. (Speaking of which, we’re very far behind normal here in Taos at the moment.)
He shoots with a boutique European film that approximates the color of expired film, then digitizes the film, and has it output as a digital polaroid-style print. Furthermore, for the images below, he’s then made digital snaps of the actual prints.
Are you confused yet?
Well then, come back next week for all the answers.
I’ll be at Shoot LA on Saturday giving a workshop from 3:15 – 4:15 PM on Social Media Marketing. I’m going to get you pumped up to use social media for marketing your work and finding an audience for projects and ideas you have. I see that Andrew Southam has a discussion from 11:45 – 1:15 and there’s a bunch of other cool workshops and talks so it looks to be worth checking out. Come say hi if you’re going to be there, I always enjoy meeting readers.
September 23 – 24 Santa Fe’s, CENTER has a retreat-style workshop called portfolio bootcamp that I will be participating in. This is a weekend intensive workshop aimed at photographers of all levels who want to get their portfolios in great shape. If this interests you go here for more information on the event including a list of presenters: http://www.visitcenter.org/bootcamp
I’m personally excited to hear Robin Fisher-Roffer, of Big Fish Marketing who’s giving a talk on how to stand out and get noticed. She’s a nationally recognized branding expert so I’m sure she will have some great ideas for this. Besides that there will be lots of intensive portfolio discussions and 1 on 1 time to work on books. Even though everyone is hiring off websites anymore, a well crafted book can be an excuse to meet in person and is still a real deal closer.
It’s always great to meet blog readers at these events. I shook a lot of hands in Denver and everyone thought the talk was the best they’ve seen on the subject. Hope to see you there.
One of the great things about being on panels with art buyers and other creatives is the interesting things you learn from them. On this last panel for APA LA called “Why We Hire You” I kept some notes to share what I found out. I was on the panel with Jigisha Bouverat the Director of Art Production at TBWA\CHIAT\DAY, Los Angeles and Mike Kohlbecker the Associate Creative Director/Art Director at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Los Angeles. Jigisha has been with the agency for 22 years and manages a team of Art Producers. Mike has worked on some major campaigns.
Here are the things that I thought were worth noting:
1. Before the event Jigisha told me they have been shooting a ton of campaigns in 2011. More this year than in the last year combined.
2. Jigisha loves the blog Feature Shoot and reads it regularly.
3. Several photographers asked the flash vs. html question for websites. Mike said I don’t care. Jigisha said I have no idea what you’re talking about.
4. Mike said he reads most of his email on his android phone and likes it when there’s a mobile version of a site to look at.
5. Mike said on the campaigns he works on, the photographers being considered all are qualified to shoot it, so it comes down to personality as the deciding factor.
6. Jigisha gave an emphatic yes when asked if she likes looking at personal work and said many times the personal work is what they hang on to from marketing material.
7. When asked where she finds new talent Jigisha she’s had good luck with portfolio reviews at the photography schools in LA.
8. Mike and Jigisha agreed that editorial is still a place where they find photographers who are established but haven’t shot advertising before.
9. Mike said he will describe the type of photography he wants for a concept or show moodboards and then Jigisha said she could name 10 photographers off the top of her head that fit any style he could come up with (i was tempted but didn’t test this).
10. Jigisha and her art producers keep internal google docs where they have photographers categorized. She saves links to things she likes to these documents.
11. the advice for the creative call from both of them was:
i. Don’t be the first to speak, gather clues about where this is going from the AD (e.g. it’s going to be bright and happy or it’s going to be dark and moody). If they’ve had other calls before yours you will hear clues on where things are headed.
ii. it’s all about your enthusiasm for the shoot.
iii. it’s easy to tell when you’re faking this.
iv. Mike admitted that sometimes the project has changed and he’s lost his enthusiasm so it’s good if you are enthusiastic about it.
v. Did I mention enthusiasm?
12. When asked if there was anything that happened on a shoot that made them not want to work with a photographer again Jigisha said there was a shoot where the photographer was bad mouthing the Art Director but didn’t know his radio was on. Mike acknowledged he could be a pain in the ass on shoots asking for more coverage of things on the fly.
13. Questions about the triple bid, budgets, pricing and negotiation had Jigisha explaining the Art Producers job is to make sure they get a fair market price for their clients.
I’m giving my talk on social media marketing for photographers in Denver on Tuesday. Here’s the ASMP Colorado page with info and the facebook page. If you read the blog and your going to the event come say hi. I’ve found these events are a good opportunity to shake hands with some of my readers.
Date: Tuesday May 24, 2011
Time: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Social Hour at 6:00 PM)
Location:
Denver Pro Photo
235 S. Cherokee Street
Denver, CO 80223
This Wednesday, May 18th I will be on a panel with an Art Producer, Creative Director and Art Director at the offices of TBWA-Chiat-Day in LA to help answer the question “why we hire you.” The event is being put on by the LA chapter of APA and Andrea Stern of SternRep. More information can be found (here). I’m excited to talk about the way in which I used to choose and hire photographers and also impart knowledge gained from 3 years of blogging about the subject. The rest of the panel is strictly advertising folks (Jigisha Bouverat, Director of Art Productions TBWA\Chiat\Day; Mike Kohlbecker, Associate Creative Director/Art Director, Crispin Porter + Bogusky; Jake Kahana, Art Director, 72 and Sunny), so it will be interesting to learn about their processes and report back what I find out.
The goal will be to discuss the mix of new an old marketing methods that are used to land jobs and reach out to prospects. Also, I want to explore how companies use new media to hire photographers and what they look for when hiring for projects that are a mix of new and old media.
I can’t promise any silver bullets, but I think you will come away with some ideas and inspiration on how you can adjust the mix of your marketing methods.
Wow, this is impressive. Former Baltimore Sun newspaper photographer David Hobby and Joe McNally of LIFE and National Geographic fame have turned their burgeoning blog/workshop business of teaching hobbyists and semi-pro photographers how to light with small strobes into a 29 city 13,000 mile fully sponsored bus tour (here). First off, it’s amazing how effective blogs are at getting the word out. I honesty don’t think they will have to do a stitch of advertising to sell out all those cities (unless they’re rocking an arena tour). I’m also marveling at these two photographers who’ve looked at what was happening in the business and embraced teaching all these people clamoring to learn more about shooting. Obviously, both are great teachers and this not something you just decide to do overnight unless you have the proper skill set and have spent a good portion of the last 3-5 years developing an audience for it. And the photography manufacturers who’ve gotten on board, what an incredible method to get the word out about your product, a frickin’ bus tour of all things. It’s amazing isn’t it, that in the internet age it comes down to a couple of dudes on a bus. Of course, teaching amateurs how to light their badly conceived images may horrify many of you, but that cat ain’t going back in the bag.
I went with my buddy the location scout – he got into that after a career as an assistant. We were gonna play a drinking game where we would have a shot if we saw pictures with:
empty swimming pools
Russian hookers
Indian hookers
any kind of hookers
brothels
Indian brothels
deserted strip malls
incredibly sharp images of banal intersections with gas stations
enigmatic pictures that look like stills from movies that never happened
girls in gowns underwater in swimming pools
Anything with 20 of the same thing in a grid pattern – watertowers, neon motel signs, etc.
Anything with North Korea in it
Douglas Kirkland – in any form – on the wall, in person, endorsing something, in a workshop, advertising for a future workshop, anything
We didn’t do it, tho, which is a good thing cos we would have gotten hammered!
Anyway, by Sunday, when we went, all the vendors were bored stiff and would talk your ear off. The gal from Light Works was cool and expounded at length about their really great programs for photographers – residencies, grants, access to their print lab. I’m into that! The guy hawking beautiful ltd. editions of my one-time instructor Jerry Uelsmann let me paw thru all his stuff even when I told him I didn’t have $5K to buy one. Jerry’s work still holds up for me, even in the digital age. I could have sworn the two babes manning the booth for some gallery from Santa Fe were flirting with me, I wonder if they hooked up at the after party with the guy from another gallery who sounded like Cary Grant, or more like Tony Curtis imitating Cary Grant in “Some Like It Hot.” Counted five female patrons with shaved heads, just in that one afternoon. Lots of dudes in designer eyeglasses along the lines of Hockney or Phillip Johnson.
What was striking was the lack of anything really all that new. Nobody from this yrs MOMA “New Photography” show – Alex Prager, Roe Etheridge, etc. No Gursky this year. Only one by Kahn and Selesnick, kind of tucked away, odd cos they seem to be making a big splash with their cool work http://www.kahnselesnick.com/. No Jill Greenberg, who is usually represented. Some truly weird stuff – one thing where you could take your picture in this booth and they photoshopped it into some kind of weird Buddha garden thing. None of the big NYC galleries like Yancey Richardson or Yossi Milo, I guess they don’t have to, no Clampart, nothing like that.
I was thinking about the Clint Clemens interview you did as well, regarding China – there was one Chinese gallery represented, which had a spiffy booth and some nice giveaway postcards, but they were dealing in vintage images of stuff from the 50s in China, which was visually nice but nothing leading edge.
If I had $100K to buy for a zillionaire’s loft, you could have gotten a lot of cool stuff, tho not necessarily for a song, but reams of famous vintage images from the worlds of fashion/ celeb/ journalism available for under $10K. Fetching BIG prices was Helmut Newton. You could have gotten some nice Lillian Bassmans for relatively cheap – one well heeled West Side type power couple were mulling over a purchase as “She’s going to die any minute and they’ll triple.”
Hardly any imitation Eggleston, except for something called “LA Matrix La Brea”, which was heavy on the intersections with gas stations incredibly sharp, Steven Shore involved there along with younger types.
I think the most of one thing we saw was Antarctica/the Arctic/ frozen wastelands with scary icebergs – tons of that! Lots of photo-shopped, manipulated landscapes, which were neat to look at for the most part, tho some of them a little hokey. Also, as usual – we should have put this on the list for our drinking game – there are ALWAYS a million pics of Muhammad Ali at this thing, as was the case this yr.
One of the best things about it, from an overall industry view, was it was way more heavily attended than last yr., and stuff seemed to be selling, even the smaller galleries said business had been good; they felt justified in the outlay of putting up a booth. Last year it was like oh my God the sky is falling, it was not so hot saleswise. There was a lot of stuff with red dots on it, for sold, so that’s encouraging.
I think my fave thing – that stopped me in my tracks and made me laff – was this Corey Arnold pic, on display as the cover of his book:
I’m giving a talk next week in Boise, ID on social media marketing for photographers. If you’re going come say hi afterwards. Here are the specifics:
Social Media has quickly changed the way people communicate and do business. If you’re like most photographers you have Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and maybe you’ve done a bit of blogging, but you haven’t figured out how this fits into your marketing plan. You’re not alone, long established media and advertising businesses were caught off guard as social media revolutionized their industry. Staying informed, making a plan and taking action is essential for anyone running a business in this new environment. In this presentation Rob Haggart will help you make sense of how these new tools work, show you photographers who are finding success with social media and inspire you to take action.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Hotel 43 Downtown Boise
Longitude Room
981 Grove Street
Boise, Idaho 83702
As a follow up to my post entitled Pay For Meetings?, where I looked at the NYC FotoWorks portfolio reviews taking place at the same time as the trade show, I asked a few photographers who attended to give us their feedback:
Thanks for the post a few weeks ago on the NYCFotoWorks portfolio review. I would not have heard about it otherwise. I’m really glad I went and even though I didn’t get to see everyone I wanted, the feedback from those I did see was tremendous. An assignment offer was given on the spot and lots of great contacts were made. For an event of its size, it was very well run. Totally worth every dime I spent!
I didn’t pull the trigger to do the reviews until 2 weeks before, when I realized that a possible assignment was not going to happen the same week. I was still able to get a deal on airfare from the west coast and I have a cousin and a place to stay in the city. I felt the timing was right to get feedback as well as get my work out there after recent awards and a year in which my book has changed almost completely as I focused on where I want to be next. I compared both the juried NYCFotoworks and the PDN/Palm Springs reviews at PhotoPlus Expo and decided to do a set of of 14 editors/5 ABs on Thurs/Friday at Sandbox studios with NYCFotoworks and then the Saturday with 5 more at the event at Photo Plus Expo. $990 + $250.
I made my selections and have to say I was pretty happy with who I was able to see at both events. I prefer how NYCFotoworks handled the registration and selection process although I wish I knew the final schedule sooner. There were some cancellations and rescheduling and I was able to secure an agency AB when a magazine PE could not make it which was better for me. But one reschedule caught me as I did not make note of the change and was out on a break, missing my time slot. During the events I also met with a rep and an agency AB who wanted to see my book in the hallway outside of the schedule. And an artist adviser was on site at Sandbox for free 20 minute consults (smart for her as a great way to market herself). I did not go in expecting to find work – having launched a direction this year I wanted expert advice and critical feedback on my work, my edit, my style, my strengths and weaknesses. I was really surprised that some of the most helpful sessions came unexpectedly, from those reviewers who were near the bottom of my preference list. And that some of those on the top of my list did not provide a critical level I expected. But all in all it was well worth it – it did result in a magazine request for an image to run and one AB said I made her day after she saw an image and realized I was the one she could pitch for a client meeting the next week for a 2011 project.
Fifteen or less minutes (as changeovers were every fifteen minutes) at Sandbox was too short. On Friday evening I had 5 sessions that were back-to-back. What I appreciated were the reviewers who would ask why I was there and what I wanted and then would flip through the book very quickly, close it, open it again and go more slowly, sometimes making a third pass even slower. The sessions at Photo Plus Expo (on Saturday) were 20 minutes and seemed to be less hurried – both in that the extra 25% helps as well so a little overage was OK and everyone was cleared from the room before the next review session. That is in contrast to NYC Fotoworks where I was more than once in the awkward position of standing at my next reviewer’s table while the photographer from the last session was still wrapping up.
This is the first time I have done these “speed dating” sessions. I will usually block a week to visit a city and get appointments (LA, SF, NY). The last time I was in NY I had ten agency AB and editorial PE meetings in five days – and that took a good part of two weeks of preparation: calls, emails and more emails, and a lot of dead time “on call” and leaving voicemails during the visit week.
As a result of all of this I have had face time with an incredible number of editors, reps and agencies that have seen my work now and I can follow up with a level of familiarity that would not have been there otherwise. Some images are now axed from the book, the sequence edited and my direction affirmed while a future personal project has been inspired from one of the reviewer’s prompts.
I had some apprehension about the review events value to me before I went. It’s not inexpensive and since I don’t live in NY it was a big commitment for me to make the trip. But, I felt like if I made the decision to go, I should do everything I could to make the most of it. I ended up purchasing a pretty significant package of reviews and I balanced my reviewer requests fairly evenly between editors, art buyers, and agents.
The list of attending reviewers was pretty impressive. I signed up early and I ended up being scheduled with most of the people I really wanted to see. When the two day event began, there were also opportunities for me and all other photographers to meet with both photography consultant Colleen Vreeland and a representative from Corbis without incurring any additional costs. I signed up for both additional sessions.
I did my homework before the event. I read everything I could find about the people I was meeting with. I made lists of the art buyers’ most relevant clients. I checked everyone’s resumes on LinkedIn to find out where they’d been before they arrived at the jobs they hold now. I looked at recent copies of the editors’ respective publications. And I looked at the work of all of the photographers who are represented by the agents. I think I was as prepared as I could have been and I think it made me more confident going into the reviews.
Each scheduled meeting was 15 minutes long and the organizers of the event did a pretty good job of making sure the transitions occurred on time. Things got a little backed up throughout the first day (mostly because a couple of the reviewers arrived late) but it didn’t result in anyone being denied meetings. There were one or two reviewers who neglected to show up at all but in those instances, I believe the organizers did everything they could to reschedule photographers with other reviewers. All in all I’d say the event was well run.
I hadn’t attended a review event like this before and I was concerned that reviewers might be so overwhelmed with the number of people they were seeing that they might become disengaged after a few reviews. But, my schedule on both days was pretty spread out and the people I met with seemed genuinely invested in the process throughout the day. I received a lot of positive feedback about my work as well as some valuable suggestions regarding the editing of my portfolio. The agent meetings were helpful to me, not because I expected anyone to sign me to their roster, but because I was able to discuss some specific questions I had about tightening up bids and writing treatments for commercial jobs. I think the 15 minute review times were appropriate since they’re about on par with what I think most photographers can expect in meetings they set up on their own outside of events like these.
I met with a lot of people in the two day period. I doubt I could have arranged to see half the number of people on my own and if I had it would have taken days or weeks of repeated phone calls and emails to make happen. I also would have had to spend more time in New York (I love NY but, of course, it costs a fortune to be there) and I’d have had to do a lot of running around to see everyone. My time is worth more to me than the money I would have saved by trying to set up so many meetings on my own and, again, I’m certain I wouldn’t have been able to arrange meetings at all with some of the people I saw at the event. I made some great contacts and I enjoyed the process.
Update: Jasmine DeFoore gives us portfolio review do’s and dont’s from the PDN/Palm Springs Review (here).
I have a several interesting posts coming from the show floor, seminars I was involved in and the portfolio reviews. In the meantime there’s some good stuff up on Stella Kramer’s blog stellazine as she and several others were reporting live from the event.
(And other ways to ignore the reason you became a professional photographer)
When you are in the business of selling something subjective like photography, there is no standard formula which will tell you who is going to connect with what you do, any more than it is possible to predict who is likely to fall in love with you.
Following what’s hot right now; doing what you have been seeing out there already – imitating the same content, styles, or processes as everybody else is going to be futile in the end.
If you make and show images with the intention of speaking the language of potential clients (and that is what most people do)…you will just end up looking like most people. You will wind up moving away from yourself.
“Yeah but I have to make money”.
And you may, for a while. However, your career will ultimately suffer.
And so will your heart.
The answer: Make work that is made entirely of… You.
Your life, and your passions.
The things that no one else can appropriate.
If you do that, (and get past your fears about whether it will work), you will have less, or even no competition. And that is always safer and more profitable than being part of the crowd.
The strongest part of you, is the honest you, and that remains true regardless of the economy, technology, or the weather report.
The connection between a photographer and a person who is in a position to hire them and collaborate with them, begins with chemistry. And chemistry begins with honesty.
But that is not the whole story.
You will never have a career being the best-kept secret in photography.
The formula for success? It starts here:
Show yourself in your images, and stand by them no matter what. Show your work to people who can hire you. All of them. EVERYWHERE. Mass market and send your photographs far and wide.
Those who see your pictures and are moved by them will understand you. Will want to be around you. Work with you.
Isn’t that your ultimate goal? Isn’t that why you chose this career in the first place?
Allegra Wilde
Portfolio Reviews, Marketing Consultation + Visual Strategies for Photographers, Agents, and the rest of the Professional Photography Community
Why: I thought it would be fun to take the ask anything format and make it live which boils down to this: Amanda, Suzanne and I have all the tough questions you would love to put to these people, but we all know this industry is small and who wants to ask Kat Dalager “Why do agencies tell me to cut expenses and then treat a photoshoot like an all expenses paid vacation for the agency and client? Your catered lunch would pay my assistants rent for a year.”
We’re going to ask those questions.
I hope to have a live feed setup as well so stay tuned to that if you’re interested.
One of the highlights of last weekend’s Telluride Photography Festival was seeing the work of Robert Glenn Ketchum and learning about the International League of Conservation Photographers. If your photography had the kind of impact Robert’s has just once in your career you would die happy. He does it over and over again with a multitude of grants from people who understand the impact photography can have in changing peoples minds. What really brought this idea home for me was watching the presentation by Christina Mittermeier, president of the iLCP, where she said the goal of their RAVE (rapid assessment visual expedition) projects was to “create tipping points around conservation issues using the power of photography.” Seeing the successes of both Robert and the iLCP emboldened my thoughts about the vast power of photography and its place in our future. Not just for conservation, but as a tool for reaching people in an increasingly crowded media space.
There’s a Photography Festival in Telluride, Colorado happening this week. I’ll be there Friday and Saturday doing some portfolio reviews, giving a couple seminars and hanging an outdoor exhibit. If you’re going to be there as well stop by and say hi. The boys from PhotoShelter will be around as well as the PhotoAttorney so it should be a good time. I’m excited to see the work of Robert Glenn Ketchum and hopefully meet him as well. This is the first year of the festival and I’m looking forward to this turning into a significant event for the photo community in my neck of the woods.
