We’re all either doing it - or trying to figure out how. Maybe trying to figure out how much is a better description. Some people have figured it out it seems. Chase Jarvis was a successful photographer I’d not discovered - until I started hearing about his active online persona. Now I hear about him everywhere. This guy is wired. If I accidently discovered him, think how many art directors have. Stock photographer extraordinaire Jack Hollingsworth is aggressively exploring all social media and doing what he calls “Toginars” - weekly podcasts with subscribing photographers. Former news photographer Jim MacMillan has 46,000 twitter followers. David Hobby has a great educational / technical site called Strobist and makes a six figure income from it with 350,000 readers.
Maybe the most interesting approach to me is wedding photographer Christopher Becker. He’s booked work from his Facebook account and has a plan for doing so. He also has an online wedding photography site called [b] school, aimed at pro photographers who pay $10 dollars a month. So far he has 1600 subscribers. Do the math. It’s clear some photographers have made social networking and their internet alter egos profitable. Some very profitable. Photo District News has an article with what they call the Five Biggest Photographers on the Internet. I think Chase and Jack should be in there too.
Me? I dabble. Facebook and Linkedin for the past year, this blog, but that’s about it. (Feel free to friend / connect) I can see youtube working. flickr scares me because you pretty much give up rights to your photos there. Then I discovered clients had set up accounts for their clients - using my photos. The art directors are pretty good about warning me. I appreciate it and just ask for proper photo credit and hopefully copyright notice. Twitter. Not sure what to say about that. I see myself possibly using it for part of my business. Maybe - we’ll see. I did set up an account. The surprising thing is I get nearly daily notices that I’m being followed. I’ve never made a single post. Go figure. Maybe getting to 46,000 is not as amazing as I thought. And if it seems like the future in photography is not in creating images - but rather in creating things of interest for other photographers - it may just be. Yuck.
The new Workbook directory of creative talent is out and this is my ad. Always a struggle to decide what to show. I’ve been advertising in this book for exactly 20 years as well as Blackbook and others less consistently. It could be my last Workbook though. So much is online now. I’m on several portals or portfolio sites including Workbook Portfolios which is probably the best and one I’m sure many of you use. This is my WB online portfolio. So, if you’re an art director, etc and want to share if and how you still use print directories, shoot me an email or post here. Many, many photographers have stopped advertising in print annuals. Love to get your input. Knowledge is good. All of these shots were retouched by Michael Jordan, one from a portfolio shoot and the other two from jobs.
This just went out today from my Rep as an emailer to promote their photographers. You can see the other two photographers on the promotion Jennifer Pottheiser and James Quantz here in the WM Blog. Their work is excellent. It feels like there’s suddenly more activity the last couple weeks - estimate and portfolio requests are up. Anheuser Busch and Gatorade jobs - maybe people are just thirsty . . . . Or maybe things are turning around(?) We’ll see.
Either way, I like working with Wonderful Machine. There’s a lot of trust involved in a Rep / Photographer relationship though - I may not select these shots or that copy (although I am a cloud freak as my kids will attest) but sometimes its good to have other people making the decisions and doing the work. Peter Clark designs the emailers. He’s working on new ones for me too. The shots below are from a Cigna health care shoot, editorial for Power & Motoryacht, personal work in the Bahamas and a test shot for my portfolio.
What is Wonderful Machine? It’s a web portal & photographers representative that according to them is “dedicated to connecting the world’s most talented photographers with the industry’s most discerning clients”. They’re also my new rep and I couldn’t be more excited. Great, talented group of people that run WM (including producers, retouchers, marketing). Excellent photographers represented. Creatives looking for photographers can search by city and any of a number of photo specialties. The portal then links with the photographers website. Very cool. They currently have just over 150 photographers in the US as well as others around the world. They have me in the categories: lifestyle, kids, travel, action/adventure and sports/fitness. They also have a great blog (which, like mine you can subscribe to . . . . hint, hint).
WM is the creation of photographer Bill Cramer. I asked him how he chose the name: “I was reading Little House on the Prairie to my daughters one night three years ago. We came to a chapter called Wonderful Machine, about a mechanical wheat thrasher that allowed Pa to clear his whole field in two days when it used to take two weeks. I thought it was a perfect name for the company that we had just created. At that time, I had been a photographer for 20 years and over that time I had worked with several different picture agencies and all the major marketing portals. Though they all have their place, I thought it would be more useful for photographers if there was a portal that had a limited number of photographers, was actively promoted, and offered production support as well as marketing. So that’s what I built (with a lot of help from Marketing Director Neil Binkley, who has worked with me for about 5 years).”
Sounds wonderful to me.
One of the clients I like to hear from is The Republik in Durham, North Carolina. Small, creative shop. I’ve worked with art director David Avis there several times. In fact I think I was his first “hire” out of school. He says “he’ll never forget his first”. I know, sounds creepy but I’ll never get over a young art director actually calling me sir over the phone. Funny stuff. But that was then. Now Dave and his partners at The Republik have but together a fantastic idea: turning the “destruction” of their previous website into a marketing opportunity. I received an advanced email invitation the other day to “destroy our old website”. You have to try it. I’m not necessarily a gun guy and still liked it. Make sure you destroy to 100%. (You’ll see what I mean.) As they said: enjoy.
