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7 Places To Display Your Fine Art Photography

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Even if you are a full time photographer photographing commercial work, portraits or weddings, you’ve probably dreamed of having your best work on display for the world to see. As photography is more prevalent in our lives than ever, there are more places to display your work than ever before. Yes, you might have more competition for the few spots out there. But imagine how you will feel when you’re work is accepted?

Whether for display, or to sell as a piece of fine art, consider these places in your community as opportunities waiting for you.

Commercial Galleries

Probably the easiest galleries to find, and what people most commonly think of when you mention an art gallery, is the for profit commercial gallery. These galleries accept work that meets their clients’ expectations, and makes a profit when a piece is sold to a collector. A commercial gallery will offer you a contracted time period to represent you and show your work, and will split the sales price with you if a sale is made. Exhibitions are usually scheduled well in advance – sometimes 12 months or more – to prepare and market for the event.

 

Co-Op Galleries

Many galleries out there are associated with an artist and a group. In order to show your work, you have to have a membership into the group. Each membership has different requirements for acceptance, so shop around and find a group that meets your needs, as well as accepts your type of work. In some cases you will have to work at the gallery as well, so be sure its accessible to you and your schedule. [Read more...]

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Ethics And The Never Ending Pursuit Of Wedding Photography

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Things always seem to work in trends. When one person has a question, comment or rant on a a particular subject or niche, I get the in multiples within that same niche.

That’s the way its worked lately with the niche of wedding photography, and in today’s post I thought I would share a couple of comments I’ve received in the past week on wedding photography that really opened my eyes.  Take a look:

“This past weekend we shot a wedding in Seattle, and had a girl there with a Rebel shooting. I didn’t mind, in fact, I got her involved instead of her stuffing herself in a corner and avoiding eye contact with me at all costs (because she knew what she was doing was incredibly disrespectful.) But that all changed when I jumped on to facebook to upload some sneak peeks for the bride and groom, only to find pictures already up…..and logo’d…..with the name of her photography business.

And the bride and groom signed a contract stating we would be the only photographers at the wedding.

Half of me wants to send a legalistic letter saying take em down right now, or die a legal death. The other half wants to take this poor, misguided stay-at-home part-time photographer with a kit lens to the side and explain having a Rebel doesn’t make you a business. Snapping someone’s wedding doesn’t make you a photographer. And if you’re willing to put a shot that you snuck of the first look up on facebook that you took through a window with glare and reflections….then….well….I feel bad for you.
*rant ended*” ~Stephanie

Stephanie has every reason to rant. This completely gets into a legal issue of what’s right and wrong, and how far some people are willing to go. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Wedding Photography Tagged With: , , , , ,

Toot Your Own Horn: 7 Steps to Maximize Visibility After You’ve Been Published

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Guest Post by Lara White

When you see your work published, it feels incredible. It’s an amazing validation of the work you do and the impact you are having in your field. But what does it really do for your business? Do you start to fill all those empty Saturdays because you have a featured wedding in the latest wedding magazine? Sadly, no. While it is great to get published, if you want to see results, you need to take action. It’s not enough to simply have your name in tiny, tiny print next to a photo in a magazine. Most brides will not even see that. Brides are glancing through magazines for ideas mostly.

Once you’ve been published, that is only the beginning. You now have a tool that you can use to promote yourself and your business. No one else is going to do it for you.

Create a PDF

We purchased a scanner several years ago so we could scan magazine features and covers to make pdfs to share with brides and the vendor team responsible. You never know, the bride may email the pdf to all her friends and family that attended the wedding, or better yet, her unmarried friends. Hopefully vendors will do the same, or put the feature on their own websites and blogs.

Besides helping facilitate further spread of your news via the bride and the vendors, you also signal to the vendor team that not only do you get press coverage when you photograph and event, you also help them build up their press coverage by providing them with the tools they need to self-promote as well. I’ve seen other vendors proudly frame and display these editorial features like awards in their shops. [Read more...]

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Niche Your Business? 10 Ways People Get It Wrong

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When you first thought about going into business for yourself, chances are you had a “vision”. You saw yourself doing one type of photography again and again – something that would make you happy every single day. That is the idea around niching. A niche is an activity specially suited to a person’s interests, abilities or nature. It’s a special area of demand for a product or service. And while niching may seem easy to accomplish, many people simply don’t understand the concept, and end up doing it wrong. And if you don’t niche in the right way, your chances of success aren’t high. Here are some tips to help you niche the right way.

Choose A Niche That’s Too Wide

You love people. You’ve always wanted a studio. So you decide to niche yourself as a portrait photographer. Is that a great niche? While it may sound like a great way to specialize your business, portrait photography is still broad. Think of all the different ways you can further split this niche out: baby, family, seniors, school, pets, business. Because you market each of these specialties in different ways, to different people, in different marketplaces, it still leaves you at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing. The clearer you become with who you want to photograph, the easier it is to build a business. [Read more...]

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3 Reasons Most Wedding Photographers Fail

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We’re one of the few photography companies that actually created a lucrative business out of catering to the wedding industry. In less than two years, we went from a general photography company to one that specialized in wedding photography, making well into the Six Figure level. Then we doubled our business. And again.

But it wasn’t always like that.

In the beginning, we did what every other wedding photographer does.

We decided to offer wedding related services. We created our first wedding brochure. And we charged and shot pretty much like every other wedding photographer out there.

Dig Deeper: Doubt To Confidence: What Was Your Magical Moment?

But very quickly something started to change.

We studied what the top names in the industry were doing. We learned from the best. And we quickly changed and grew. And we discovered 3 things that most wedding photographers did that were actually holding them back. [Read more...]

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3 Mistakes Photographers Make When Selling Wedding Albums

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If you photograph weddings, you probably have a package or two in which you offer an album. And in many cases, your package probably looks something like this:

  • Up to 5 hours of photography
  • Over 200 images on copyright-free CD
  • 20 page bridal album
  • 11×14 Portrait Print
  • Online gallery of your wedding photos to share with friends and family worldwide

The bride knows she will receive a CD full of images, and be able to view the images online, and share them with her family and friends from around the world.

She also knows she can take weeks or even months to select a few of her favorites, and have them put into a bridal album.

But it doesn’t matter what photos she selects, how they fit together, or how the will look side by side. She simply selects her favorites, and you as the photographer will force them into some type of order, and create an album from the final selection.

I’ve seen books like this.

An image of the bride walking down the aisle is set next to a formal of the bride outside at the reception. The first dance is placed along side of the couple kissing by the limo.

In other words, there is no rhyme or reason to the way the album is put together; it’s simply a hodgepodge of images thrown together to form a book of pictures.

Wedding albums aren’t meant to be a book of pictures. They are meant to be the story of the wedding day.

First Mistake: The Photographer Lets The Bride Make The Selection

If you allow a bride to choose her favorite images, she thinks from an individual level, not from a cumulative factor. She can’t see an album because it hasn’t happened yet. She doesn’t imagine how they will look together side by side; she simply chooses based on her best expressions, and her favorite moments.

When she receives the album, it will simply go on the shelf because it’s a book of pictures. It has no meaning – its just 20+ large images from her event.

As a photographer, you should be photographing a wedding to tell the story of the day. With wedding photography, photos work together in order to bring you back to the memories of the event itself. A formal out in the gardens is great, but it’s “just” a photo of the bride and groom. But when you have a series of images of the bride and groom walking through the gardens, talking with their flower girl, sneaking kisses along the way, it becomes a story – and a memory.

As a photographer, you need to think in story format. You need to take one photograph, and then another, and another – all to work together and provide an intimate look into the event itself. Its up to you to tell the story, and present the images in such a way that the bride and groom relive the wedding again and again. [Read more...]

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Is Food Photography The Next Biggest Wave?

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“Why would I want to use Twitter? Who cares what people are having for lunch?”

Since Twitters inception, that’s been the general consensus among business owners. And as it turns out, there may be some truth to the “Twitter – its what’s for lunch” concept.

People aren’t just talking about what they had for lunch; they’re photographing it too.

According to 360i, by the end of 2010, more than 80 billion photographs were uploaded across a variety of social picture platforms. And at least once a month, 52 percent of mobile users take photos with their phones, and 19 percent upload their photos to the web.

And what is even more fascinating is that people are almost never in these photographs – only 10 percent of the photographs 360i analyzed had people in them.

So what are people taking photos of? In many cases, its food. Check out this infographic 360i did for Mashable.

With that many people taking photos of food, is there a future in food photography?

Even though were weathering a tough economy, we may be forgoing vacations, and passing on pricey cars, there is one thing we’re not willing to part with – cookbooks. While the book industry as a whole is falling, and booksellers are filing for bankruptcy, cookbook sales are up 9 percent last year, according to Nielsen statistics. And with cookbooks come photography, blogs, and a whole new reason to start photographing what you eat.

And while most people think of professional chefs and bakers when they think cookbooks, some of the highest growth in cookbooks aren’t’ coming from professionals, they are coming from bloggers.

Mom blogger The Pioneer Woman started out years ago describing her life on the ranch with her cowboy husband and four children. Now she has multiple books, including a cookbook, and is about to head into a whole new venture with her cooking show on the Food Network.

And if you’re a fan of Tim Ferriss from the 4 Hour Work Week, he’s just announced his new venture – The 4 Hour Chef.

So I guess the only question now is “how can you turn your love of food and photography into a business?”

Filed Under: Commercial Photography Tagged With: , , , , ,

3 Reasons Boudoir Photography May Be Your Ticket To Profits

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Looking for something new for your photography business? I’ve mentioned before on this blog how much I love the concept of boudoir photography. It’s a niche that sells well, is customizable, and allows you to add all of your creativity to create a final product your clients will love.

Why should you consider boudoir?

Women Like To Feel Special

Want to know the real reason women love weddings? Its one day in our lives we can look forward to, dream about, and plan for years on end. It’s the one day we can wear a dress like no other, and really enjoy the feeling of being someone special. Boudoir can give that same feeling on a different scale. It allows a woman to look inside, and find out whom she really is. It can make her feel special, and share her sensuality with that someone special in her life.

Women Will Pay For Things That Create A New Experience

People may not be able to afford a new car, or the trip they’ve been planning for years. But they can save up and invest in a daylong experience that will help them escape reality for a time.

It’s a Niche That The Big Box Stores Won’t Offer

It’s getting more difficult to compete with the big box stores on the average photography. In fact, they are getting pretty good at creativity with what they have. But if you stretch beyond what they can do, you’ll have more luck within your community, and become more recognizable for what you do. Big box stores like the “repetition” model. Come in, wait in line, stand on the X, snap the picture, buy your prints, and leave. What they can’t do is offer exceptional service and creativity. Boudoir gives you that edge; that option of offering something they simply can’t get anywhere else.

Don’t like the word “boudoir”? (I have had people tell me that they don’t feel comfortable promoting that type of photography.) Then change the name.

  • Intimate Portraiture
  • Maternity Memories
  • Love Stories

Get creative, and find a way to niche the idea of boudoir even further.

And if you’re looking for a way to learn more about turning this into a lucrative niche for your photography business, check out Ed Verosky’s newest release, Boudoir Photography: The Quick Start Guide For Professional Photographers. I’ve followed Ed for a number of years now, and I can tell you without a doubt that his books are packed full of useful tips, great how-to ideas, and many step by step strategies that will have you up and running with boudoir photography in no time. It’s a great investment in your future if you’ve decided to add this to your services.

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Photographing Baby: A Quick Primer

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A guest post by Susan Black

Babies have the transformative power of kryptonite.  There is nothing funnier than watching a tough, leather-clad, motorcycle riding hulk, suddenly morph into a cooing, grinning, nonsense-spouting hulk, in the presence of a toddler.  Or how about the completely un-self conscious “face pulling” performed by strangers in line at the grocery store in an effort to entertain a child in a cart?  Seeing a baby smile makes everyone happy, and in everyday situations, as long as the little person is not too tired or uncomfortable in some other way, babies will smile repeatedly.  So why is it so difficult to get them to smile when you want to take their photograph?  Capturing that perfect still image with your offspring can be a truly frustrating experience, both for you and your baby.  Here are a few tips to help you and your child smile through the whole process.

1.  Natural Light is Your Friend

Bright lights, loud noise, and sudden movement, especially in the first few months of any child’s life, can be very disturbing.  The new world that they have emerged into is a lot to take.  Consequently, as a new parent photographing a baby, avoid using your flash bulb at all times.  Instead, find areas of natural light.  Areas where the light shifts over time are preferable.  That way, you can leave your little person in one place, while reaping the photographic rewards of an environment that is subtly shifting over time, as the sun changes position.

2.  Bigger is Better

Go in close with your photographs or try an entire session in macro mode.  Work with a long lens, so you do not have to impose the camera on your child’s space.  As the great architect Mies van der Rohe once said, “God is in the details”.  Whether you believe in God or not, there is no denying that the little parts that make up your little person are as wonderful as the whole.  While everyone wants that perfect smiling shot, remember to take photographs of other body parts as well.  They sometimes make for the most compositionally interesting shots, and they can also serve as a great chronicle of your child’s growth.  Shooting body parts close-up can also serve as practice for more portrait-style photographs. [Read more...]

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10 Myths About Becoming A Portrait Photographer

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One of the easiest businesses to set up is a portrait photography business. With a camera and a business card, you can start finding clients anywhere in your community. Right?

Actually, it’s not quite that simple. While many photographers get started that way, and can find a handful of clients just with the people they know, the tough part comes after those first few clients. How do you find more? How do you build a sustainable business?

If you’ve been struggling with building your own portrait studio, see if you are falling into one of the traps below.

Myth #1 One camera is all I need

When you first got into photography, chances are it was with one camera body, and maybe a lens or two. That works when you don’t have to rely on it. But what if it quits working in the middle of a paid shoot? Or what if you leave your camera and a lens on a tripod to move in and adjust your client … and the entire thing collapses, leaving pieces scattering everywhere? Backups are mandatory when you are a professional.

Myth #2 I’m a natural light photographer and don’t need flash

Have you ever seen people advertise they are a natural light photographer? What does that really mean? We personally built our business off of natural light photographs too – in fact I highly prefer the look. But there are many times when you simply don’t have the natural light you need for a professional shot. An on camera flash won’t cut it. You need to be able to separate the flash, use flash in a variety of ways, and use it to highlight and amplify the look of your work. And you have to know how to use it.

Myth #3 Everyone will see the difference between me and my competition

When you look at your work, you view it through your own eyes, and see it with all the love and passion it took to create it. Yet most of your potential customers get lost when they view your work and try to compare it to the next guy. If you build a website just like everyone else; if you put a handful of images into a gallery portfolio just like everyone else; if you use the same words in your advertising just like everyone else; your prospects won’t be able to separate you from your competition. [Read more...]

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