Get Ready For The Newest Industry Trend … Nostalgia

“In an era of unscratchable touch screens and sleek, perpetually Internet-connected devices that seem to smoothen all the edges of the world, people suddenly find themselves yearning for the reassuring roughness of the imperfect.”

In a recent article in The China Post, the writer questioned if we may just be at the tip of a brand new era. Technology? Nope. Information? Not quite.

Instead, what this writer proposes is we may be at the beginning of the nostalgia era. People are looking for a way to revive the feelings they once had by things of the past before we morphed everything into a digital rendition of itself. We miss touching and feeling things that had meaning without the necessity of plugging it in or running an “app” for that.

And in fact this article may be on to something.

Think of the most recent sale within the photography industry. Instagram sold for $1 billion dollars; its an app designed to make photographs have an old-world look.

When you take a photograph, you simply use an app to turn it into something from another time. With a touch of a button, you capture an image and apply various techniques. Then shoot it out to your friends through your favorite site, whether its Facebook or simply placing it on your blog. You aren’t giving up the things you love about today – instantaneous capture and manipulation, and sharing with friends around the world. Yet you’re giving it a look you remember from your youth.

And this isn’t the only example. [Read more...]

Will Mirrorless Cameras Change Photography?

We’ve been doing our research and are ready to take the plunge. Yep, we’ve got our order in for our first mirrorless camera, a Sony NEX-7

We’re heading to Europe soon, and have decided that traveling with 3 laptops, 3 iPad/Kindles, 3 iPhone/iPods and a big bag of camera equipment isn’t something we want to do. So the logical choice was to cut out the camera equipment. Especially when we started reading the reviews of the NEX-7.

People love cameras. Sortable.com recently surveyed more than 275,000 people and found that while point and shoots and DSLRs are still at the top of the heap when it comes to camera purchases, mirrorless technology has definitely claimed its stake in the “war”.

What makes 3rd generation cameras attractive is the fact that they offer the “best of both worlds” – the functionality of the DSLR and the size of the point and shoot. Because it offers a mirrorless design, its simpler, smaller and easier to carry. Because the camera body is designed differently, the lenses are simpler and smaller as well. Meaning the entire camera system – body and lenses – can easily fit in just about any bag you want it to. So you don’t need a large camera bag that makes it pretty obvious you are a professional photographer. And you don’t have to whip out a lens that makes it pretty obvious you’ve spent big bucks.

Will mirrorless cameras become a fad or will it form the future of photography? Right now there isn’t a large lens selection available with 3rd generation technology. Which may be a huge consideration for a professional who shoots a wide array of photographs, such as at a wedding. But as they continue to improve the selection, that “difference” will become obsolete.

And ultimately its not about what camera you use or what lens you use; its all about your creative eye, how you market yourself and what your portfolio looks like.

What is your opinion on mirrorless or 3rd generation cameras?

 

Will Generation C Love Your Photography?

What if you could find a group of people that loved what you do? And they had the perfect group of friends who were just like them, loved hearing recommendations, and valued their opinions enough to use the same companies they talked about?

Sounds like a perfect group of people to target with your marketing, right?

Welcome to Generation C. Generation C is a group of Americans who are between 18 and 34, consume media, socialize and share experiences through technology devices more than any other age group. Oh, and they are leaning heavily towards being more female.

The C stands for connection. They love new devices and new experiences like no other group before them. And because they are highly connected to their devices, it offers you both a challenge and an opportunity to market to them.

Want a simple way to combine photography with technology? Head over to Google and do a search for iPad wedding albums. I’m already finding many photographers who are combining the two together and delivering their clients a dynamic presentation.

Not only can you put your wedding album onto the iPad, you can customize the iPad too. Try a skin – I love what Nordica Photography has done.

Or look for a iPad album. Here is a great option from Allister Freeman Photography.

If you haven’t thought about putting technology into your business plan, sit down today and do it. There is a lot of potential, especially if you are one of the first to put something into place within your area.

Let me know if you have any more ideas – I’d love to see what you are doing.

Photography + Small Business + PIPA and SOPA = Death To An Industry

A couple of weeks ago, I posted Why SOPA/PIPA Affect All Of Us to help you better understand two bills that were before congress and the impact they could have on us all. I’ve been involved in groups for the past couple of years that have been watching and fighting this “concept” as it makes its way through both state and federal levels again and again.

I was happy to see both tabled and not put forward for a vote. But again, they were merely tabled, not stopped. Which means they will surface again. And probably again.

So of course I keep following what people are saying and what industries support these types of bills – and which ones are against it.

I was very surprised a week or so ago when PPA came out with a post on their site and also proceeded to email it out to their members. If you haven’t read it, head over and read it now.

SOPA and PIPA – Don’t Be Fooled

There are many things wrong with this lines of thinking – so many I could literally go line by line. But the one item in particular that stands out to me is:

“So when a behemoth corporate money-maker like Google attempts to stand on the backs of photographers to increase its profits, we as your association take exception.”

Yes I will agree, Google is a huge money making company. Yet they stand up for keeping censorship at bay and work to give everyone free reign to promote and do as they will to make money as a small business. They work to keep the playing field as equal as possible for everyone online. Google isn’t alone – Wikipedia and others all have the same approach to Internet regulation. Which is why a great majority of them went dark to support defeating the SOPA and PIPA regulations. And will continue to do so again and again.

There are two ways of looking at business today: old school or innovative.

The Internet made old school obsolete. If you’ve ever read the book “Who Moved My Cheese”, old school associations and businesses are still in the old store room, looking for “cheese” that has long since disappeared. Yes, there are still ways of making money with old school thinking, but they are drying up quickly. Not just in photography, but in every industry out there – think newspapers and book publishing.

Yet the Internet is what is allowing small businesses to be truly innovative. You can use sites like Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Pinterest with simply an investment of time (occasionally a little money) and a whole lot of magic to create a business beyond your wildest dreams. Its you, your innovation, a little time, and magic can truly happen.

Who is threatened by that? Old school businesses who like things the way they always were. We will never go back to the way things were. The only way to move forward is to allow us to keep the playing field as equal as possible.

Here are how others are sounding off

The Foolish PPA is Pro PIPA and SOPA

An Open Letter to David Trust and PPA

Photographers Supposrt SOPA and PIPA?

Open Letter to PPA and David Trust

And a few statistics to show you where others stand:

SOPA and PIPA Internet Blackout Aftermath

What’s your opinion?

The One Big Secret You Can Learn From Kodak

Its official. Kodak filed for bankruptcy today.

The 131 year old company went from being the leader in the industry, to losing sight of a strong, successful path.

They went from employing 63,900 to 17,000 in less than 10 years.

They failed to see future trends (even though they developed digital technology), which ultimately cost them everything.

Yet its not uncommon in today’s world.

We see it everywhere. The big companies of yesteryear are falling every day.

Part of it is the “red tape” that exists behind the industry walls. They do business the way it’s always been done. They can’t change quickly. They can’t react to current trends and what people want the most.

So they are dying off.

What’s needed in the future are quick thinkers, rapid reactors and speedy implementers.

When a new idea is conceived, you need to jump on it as fast as possible. [Read more...]

Why SOPA/PIPA Affect All Of Us

I normally keep this blog political free and completely related to running a photography business. But after following net neutrality issues for years, I know the only way to stop things is to become active. When groups gather on the capital steps to show support for leaving the Internet “free” – I’m there. And when large groups are doing whatever they can to stop America censorship of the Internet, I’m there as well.

If you haven’t heard of SOPA/PIPA, take a few minutes to learn more.

Both the Senate (PIPA) and the House (SOPA) have sponsored bills to pass Internet censorship. And while the House has tabled the bill – not killed it, just tabled it for the moment – its still live and active in the Senate with final voting to occur January 24th.

SOPA/PIPA impact far more than just US citizens. It impacts everyone who uses US-based IP addresses and VPNs to access the Internet. That includes travelers, educators, journalists and businesses that have International clientele.

Now is the time to make your voice heard. You can get active in a variety of ways – visit the American Censorship site for more information.

If you are in business for yourself and you want to continue doing business online, this will impact you. Take a stance now to make sure you have the freedom to run your business anyway you choose now and well into the future.

Do You Need To Be A Storage Facility Instead Of A Printer?

One of my favorite parts of blogging is research. I love seeing what other people are doing, what they are thinking, and how they are setting businesses up for the future.

Today I ran across a great article on H&H Color Lab – Towards a Brave New World in Photography. And it reminded me of an article I wrote months ago – Photographers – The History Killers.

Digital is here to stay. And whether we like it or not, photography is changing. Twenty-five years from now, our homes won’t be set up the way they are today. Instead of a paper printed photographs hanging on the wall, we’ll probably have a screen displaying a series of images that we have pre-selected. We won’t use photo albums; we’ll use devices that allow us to store mega amounts of data in a variety of formats. We’ll be able to carry all of our memories within one small unit.

It’s coming whether we want it to or not. You can’t change it. It’s like standing at the base of a volcano and trying to hold back a flow of lava. No matter what you do, it will flow around you and just keep going. You can’t hold back the progress.

But it also makes me question once again:

Is this the generation that will end up with zero memories in 20 years?

I too have met people that treat flash cards like film. They keep shooting and buying flash drives because they don’t know how to get the images off the card. So the cards stack up on the desk alongside the computer.

Others rely on CD/DVDs, and expect them to be there 10 years from now when they decide to look at them again. They throw them into a box with all the other CD/DVDs – which ultimately has very little value, and very little significance.

Still others load their images on a computer, and store them in a file “personal photos”. They add new images every chance they get, and the file continues to grow.

I’m willing to bet less than one percent of today’s consumers backup their computer on a regular basis, if at all. I hear the horror stories all the time: house fire, theft, computer failure. It happens in the blink of an eye, and all of your data, all of your memories are gone in an instant. [Read more...]

The 5 Traits You Need To Succeed In A Poor Economy

It’s hard NOT to wonder what the future holds. The news is filled with gloom and doom: riots, debt crisis, failing businesses, and unemployment at all time highs. And depending on whom you believe, a quick fix isn’t around the corner. This may take months, even years to fix, not just a few weeks.

If a poor economy is likely over the coming years, do you have what it takes to create a business that is strong and thriving? Just as many successful businesses are created during hard times as they are the good ones. So it is possible. But there are telltale signs that pave the path to success. Do you have the traits necessary to move forward in a positive way?

Hard Working and Smart Working

While a lot of business advice focuses around the “4 hour work week” concept, the truth is it does take more than 4 hours to establish a new, successful business. It takes a lot of hard work to build a concept to the point of it becoming profitable, and give you the wealth you need to sustain your lifestyle.

While hard work is necessary, you also have to find ways to work hard on the concepts that matter the most – and that’s where you really can learn from the “4 hour work week” concept. The idea is to work smarter with the hours you are given. Instead of spending hour after hour working on things you don’t like or aren’t good at, give that to people that can do it, freeing your time up to do what you love.

When you combine the two concepts together, you can quickly know which concepts will earn you money, and which ones will waste your time. You’ll see which ones will move you forward, and which ones will hold you back. [Read more...]

What Questions Will Define The Photographic Future?

Never before in time has the world traveled so fast. What you learned as a kid, simply no longer applies. Much of what I learned throughout my college career is obsolete. And technology I bought a mere five years ago can bring chuckles from 16 year old daughter.

It’s easy to look back and see what’s changed along the way. But how do we look forward and predict what’s going to happen?

One great place to follow future thinkers, and learn what they think the future will look like is TED. TED brings out new videos every week from the greatest minds in the world. And occasionally they hold TED conferences that bring many people together in different locations. This week, TED is hosting TEDGlobal 2011 in Scotland. And one of the things that caught my eye from their blog was not a video, but instead a question they asked the audience.

What trends should we be watching?

And the answers bring a lot of insight into the direction we may be heading.

“The internet is a huge platform to leverage citizen participation in the world.”

“I see three institutions going away in the next ten years: marriage, schools, and hospitals.”

“There is a growing and dangerous trend of reducing complex ideas to simple ones.”

“Technology has outstripped imagination; let’s bring imagination back to the forefront.”

Is Photography Imagination?

When you work with technology, things tend to be black and white. You do something and get an expected response.

And that tends to be how a lot of photographers operate these days. The term “spray and pray” comes to mind. Instead of knowing what you want to capture, what story you want to tell, you simply jump in and take dozens of pictures, hoping you capture something that’s “workable”. Then you had back to the office and work in Photoshop for hours, until you attain the look you were going for.

In order for photography to be a true art form, you have to think first, and click the shutter second. Take a look at this video by David Griffin, photo director for National Geographic.

In it, David talks about the “flashbulb moment” – the moment that lives in your mind for eternity – what you saw, what it was like, how it smelled, what you felt. Pictures don’t give you a flashbulb moment. But a photograph can, and it can convey that message not only to the photographer, but to every person that views it.

And that ultimately is the difference between an amateur and a professional. An amateur takes one or two flashbulb moment photographs; a professional creates them all the time.

You have to have storytelling power. Instead of showing knowledge of what’s happening, you must showcase empathy. You must go beyond the superficial, and expose the reality of the situation. No matter if you are capturing a child’s first birthday portrait, or showcasing the plight of animals in the wild.

4 Trends That Will Shape The Next 10 Years Of Photography

Imagine a world where …

That’s the way a recent report I read started out. The Intuit 2020 Report: Twenty Trends That Will Shape The Next Decade is a great read, and brings up a wide array of ideas that will impact business in the future. Some are fairly easy to predict:

Customers control the relationship

Some may bring up ideas you’ve never though about:

Work shifts from full time to free agent employment

And some are in between:

Niche markets flourish in the new economy

If you currently run a business, you know times are changing. And in order to remain successful, you have to change along with it. Even if you are successful today, without watching what’s happening in the economy can be the death of your business in just a few short months. Which is why I love to keep a handle on future predictions, to see what leading thinkers in the world predict, and how I can stay on top of those predictions.

Lets take a look at 4 of the predictions within this report, and see how they can affect your photography business in the future.

It’s a She-conomy

Its predicted that 870 million women globally who have not previously participated in the mainstream economy will gain employment or start their own businesses by 2020. 47 million will come from North America, Western Europe and Japan, with the rest coming from nonindustrialized countries.

Women will dominate college graduation rates and professional workforce entry, expanding into all areas of work, management and technology. They will look for flexibility as they remain connected to families and children at home, and the needs of creating an income.

This also means they will be looking for services that cater to them. I featured Christina Morassi about a year ago, and her idea rings even stronger today. As women become more active in business, they need to develop a stronger persona around their ideas and concepts. What better way than to create a personalized photo shoot that builds confidence as it creates dynamic images that will help them attract new clients into their businesses? [Read more...]