Hey Photographer – Are You A Storyteller?

One of the things that set us apart from other photographers early on was our storytelling. We didn’t believe photography was all we had to offer. Instead, we chose to take it to a different level and offer storytelling through our albums. We regularly sold three to five albums to our clients, so I guess they loved it as well.

Storytelling involves many things. It involves thinking ahead of time about what you want to capture. It involves understanding what will happen and being there ready and in position before it does. It also involves being ready for the unexpected as well.

Dig Deeper: 7 Tips For Visual Storytelling

I ran across a great series of videos today by Ira Glass who hosts This American Life on Public Radio. He has a series of four videos in which he goes over his ideas on what it takes to be a storyteller – all are good and worth listening to.

But it’s a compilation video that really caught my eye. The way its written can be an inspiration to any creative artist. It may be just what you need as you begin planning for a New Year.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Will You Regret Not Jumping Into A Full Time Photography Business?

If you look back at your life so far, what do you regret?

I’m sure a few things pop into your head immediately.

Do you regret not finishing up your degree? Or maybe never going to school at all?

Do you wish you would have followed a different career path? Or chosen a different job?

I watched one of the top TED videos from 2011 today on regret, and I’ve included it here. It’s around 15 minutes in length, and I would highly recommend watching as it teaches a lot about how we look at ourselves.

 

One of the most interesting things Kathryn Schulz mentions is:

When we look back at our lives, there are many things we regret:

  • Education 33%
  • Career 22%
  • Romance15%
  • Parenting 10%
  • Self 5.47%
  • Leisure 2.55%

Yet financial regrets are even less.

We don’t wish we made more money and had more cash to buy bigger houses and cars. We want to take care of ourselves and the people around us; the ones that we love the most. We want to educate ourselves to feel fulfilled. We want a great career that we love and feel we are contributing to society.

We regret not taking chances that have could have done more to improve our lives. We regret not taking advantage of opportunities that come by.

So now is the time to think of what you have today, what opportunities are being presented to you, and what you will do that will affect the rest of your life.

Will you move forward with your goal of creating a successful full time professional photography business?

Or will you face regret at some point in the future?

How To Maximize Your Marketing Results By Using YouTube Videos

You blog. You use Facebook. You showcase your photographs. But what about video? Are you using video to enhance your marketing efforts?

As photographers, we think “stills”. Yet it’s easier than ever to create a video – many DSLRs have the capability. So why not use it to help you market what you do? Here are a few tips to help you use video to enhance your marketing efforts.

Create Compelling Content

By creating a YouTube video, your goal isn’t to create the most watched video ever. You’ll never be able to compete with Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga, who have pulled a half billion views for just one of their videos.

But do you really need a half billion views? What would you do with that much traffic? Would you really be able to shoot that many portraits, or service that many wedding clients?

Instead, create content that addresses your audience’s needs and desires. If you are in the world of fashion photography, showcase what you look for every day. If you regularly work with brides, showcase your trash the dress shoots.

When you look at the videos showcased in the above two niches, you’ll see that they don’t create videos that sell what they do. Instead they focus on creating content that shares a little about who they are and what they look for – you can quickly find the talent and expertise, and choose to search further into how to use their services. [Read more…]

The Best Three Minutes – Be Motivated Today

If you work online for any length of time, you understand the risks of having access to just about everything right at your finger tips. Just today, I’ve visited several of my favorite blogs, checked out several news sites, visited Amazon and made a purchase, and got lost in Internet surfing as well.

One of the great things about surfing is occasionally you find real gems that are worth putting your business aside for a few minutes, and taking in something new and completely inspiring. And today I think I’ve found something that will do the trick.

Take a look at these three videos – Move Eat Learn – all produced by a team out of Australia.

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

 

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.

The Key To Photography: Connection

Have you ever watched Ted? They have the most amazing speakers. I head over there all the time and watch one (or two or three) to be inspired and learn something new.

Yesterday I was in my Ted watching mode, and I found this wonderful talk by Brene Brown called The Power of Vulnerability.

As a human researcher, she spent years out in the field studying humans, and why we’re so afraid of one of the most key characteristics we face – vulnerability. It’s worth watching:

In it she talks about a variety of things, and it brought several aha moments to light, including one on connection.

Ultimately we as people want to feel connection with those in our own community. Connection is why we’re here – its what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. We want to fit in. We want to belong.

On the opposite side of connection is disconnect. If you are vulnerable, you end up with shame, or the feeling of being disconnected. And that’s something we all avoid like the plague.

We never want to “not fit in”. So we do whatever we need to do to make those around us happy. Even if it means putting our own feelings and beliefs in jeopardy.

As an artist, as a photographer, this can be hard to take.

  • If you’ve ever created an image that you love and your client hates, you understand vulnerability.
  • If you’ve ever created the perfect package, only to find none of your clients are willing to buy it, you know vulnerability.
  • If you’ve ever put together a wedding album that you simply love and you feel tells the complete story of the wedding, only to have your client rip it apart, you know vulnerability.
  • If you’ve ever put the business on hold because everyone around you tells you how risky it is to start your own business, you know vulnerability.
  • If you’ve ever struggled with vulnerability, and tried to numb it so you would be more liked, more accepted, find a way to push back.

Do one thing today that shows your courage. Do one thing that helps you take that crucial step to believing in yourself, and connecting with people that truly love what you do.

How To Put Together A Self Promotional Kit To WOW Your Prospects

What do you do when you’re trying to bring in new clients?

You probably have a few marketing tools you use regularly. Maybe a business card, a postcard, or even a brochure. Those are all nice, and can attract your average client. But what if you want to really kick it up a level, and attract a large customer that can bring in a ton of revenue to your studio?

You may need something that stands out from the crowd.

While we’ve talked here before on ways to develop a strong presentation piece or marketing kit, I found a video today from a commercial photographer that shows you how to put the WOW into it.

Great stuff.

Is something like this expensive? You bet. But the idea behind kits like this isn’t to mail them to thousands of people. Instead, its about finding the right people, limiting it to a few dozen or even a few hundred at most, and doing all you can to WOW them into wanting to use you.

Step one – Find your target market

Before you even begin creating a presentation piece, its important that you know whom you will be marketing to. Define your exact target market down to the detail. The more you know, the easier it is to find them and reach out to them. The key to a great presentation piece is speaking directly to the heart. And if you can define them perfectly, it’s easier to reach out to them. [Read more…]

Photographing The Macworld Cover

Every wonder what it takes to photograph the cover of a magazine? We found a great video that time lapses the entire process, from start to finish.

Photoshop Tutorial – Depth Of Field Blur

Adding depth of field to your image can alter the look dramatically. In this video, instructor Richard Harrington from Photoshop from Video, will show you how to use depth of field blur to create backdrops for use in chroma keying. Check out this video: [Read more…]

Photoshop Tutorial – Panoramic Images on the Web

Photoshop CS3 includes a Zoomify plug-in that lets you take large images and place them within a website page without your clients having to wait for the download. Check out this video tutorial on adding Panoramic images to a webpage. [Read more…]