Putting Your Best Photo Forward

Jason3 Comments

Yesterday I talked about resources available to find buyers for your work and talked about a great guide, The Photographers Market.  In the post, I mentioned briefly the idea of a query letter, and today, I’d like to take a closer look at that aspect of selling your work, because it’s just as important as the work itself.

You see, the age old adage of putting your best foot forward is a good one, and when submitting work to potential buyers, the same holds true.  Of course it goes without saying that you are also putting your best photo forward, but the photography isn’t all that you are showing.  When submitting work to buyers, whether it be magazines, galleries, or other publishers, what should often be included is a query letter.

This is a tough situation because just like anything else, putting together a query letter takes some time.  You want the query letter to be well-written, and writing is a skill, just like anything else that must be honed. A query letter should have a couple key facets:

1.  Short and to the point – Editors, reviewers, and gallery owners get lots of requests, so respect their time by getting right to your point.  While you don’t want to just say “Here’s my work, buy it”, you also don’t want to submit a query letter detailing your growth, develoopment, your sources of inspiration, or other tangential information.  It might be nice for an “Artist Bio” or “Artist Statement“, but it really doesn’t belong in a query letter.

2.  Accurate – One thing that is something of a pet peeve of mine is spelling and grammar.  I’ve seen a lot of just lazy spelling and grammar errors in the online community, running the gamut from forums to blogs, and even articles at major publications like USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and others where someone couldn’t take the ten seconds to run a spell check on their work.  It’s very easy, and most writing resources out there today even have built-in spell checking – including your browsers!  So, check your work, and make sure it’s accurate.  If you know you are a bad speller, then have someone proof-read your work.

3.  Include your work! – So many people tell me they are concerned about people stealing their images, even buyers and publishers, but you are not going to get anyone to buy your work sight unseen, so simply get it out there.  If it’s a series of themed images, include low-resolution copies.  If it’s an article idea – submit the article!  While some unscrupulous publishers may take the idea and have someone else write  a version that is similar, this is more the exception than the norm.

There’s more of course, and while I could go on with many more facets, sometimes it’s just easier to see it rather than explain it.  So, here’s a few articles I’ve read on the subject of writing a query letter that hit on some of the points I’ve discussed, and also include sample letters:

As you can see, this whole idea is nothing new, and the practice of writing a query letter accompanying your work is of utmost importance.  Writing a good one will make you stand out, and writing a bad one (or not even writing one) can land your email or letter in their trash bin.  So do you want to stand out or be thrown out?  Take the time to write a good letter, and when possible, have someone proofread it.

There you have it – that’s the nuts and bolts of query letter writing.  For the other photographers out there who have practice or experience with this – what would you include or add to the conversation?  Did I miss anything?  Extra tips or suggestions?  I’d love to hear others thoughts, so feel free to sound off via the comments or email.  Happy shooting all and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

Hawking your wares…

Jason7 Comments

It sounds painful, and in the current climate, it can be.  For some though, this phrase may not sound familiar, so let me expand a little here – I am talking about selling your pictures.  It’s competitive for sure, as there are many more of us than there were a mere 10 years ago.  That, combined with the fact that buyers are paying less for them than before due to shrinking budgets – does not mean that no one is buying photos.  It just means you have to look in more places.  One such resource is the publication “The Photographer’s Market”.

The 2010 Photographers Market

Published annually, the 2010 edition is available through your own favorite reseller whether it be Amazon, Wal-Mart, Borders, Barnes a& Noble or where ever you prefer (I got mine for $19 from Wal-Mart, just sayin’…)

The important question that everyone always asks is “Are there really significant changes made from one year to the next?”  I can tell you whole-heartedly, the answer is yes! I’ve had pages dog-eared in the 2009 edition and in 2010, some of the buyers have changed addresses, changed their pricing, their submission guidelines, and others have gone  completely gone belly-up.  We all know what can happen if you don’t follow submission guidelines 😉  and getting lower prices than anticipated isn’t much fun either.

So, go out and get your 2010 edition soon…because we are nearing the halfway point and (as you all know) submissions should be put out about 3 months head of when you can really expect any kind of response/payment.  So, what does this mean?  It means right now, here, today…in May and June – you should be shooting pictures with autumn in mind.  Think colors, places of interest, subject matter, etc.  It also means that in August and September, your winter and holiday submissions should be hitting the email deliveries post haste.

Other things to consider when submitting images to buyers?  Lots!

  1. Look for buyers in your own demographic – response times can be quicker
  2. Look for buyers that are interested in the subject matter you have lots of pictures in – if they want more, the last position you want to be in is one where you don’t have anything else to give…(kind of like the Boy Scounts: Be prepared!)
  3. Follow buyers recommendations and submission guidelines.  Not following these can get your images rejected for no other reason other than “too big” or “too small”, or “wrong file type”.  It’d be a shame to lose out on possible financial opportunities simply because you didn’t read the directions! 🙂
  4. Look for buyers that are receptive to submissions.  Ones that take 8-10 images per year are much less likely to consider your portfolio of 20 images.  Others that take 20-50 per month (think magazines that need lots of new content regularly) are more likely.
  5. Don’t forget your query letter.  This is an important element of the submission process, and you need to come off with the right impression.  Spelling errors, grammar errors, and other faux paux items await, so get up to speed on this as well (hint:  come back tomorrow for a post on this item alone!)
  6. Finally, don’t put all your eggs in one basket!  I know of one very successful photographer who puts out 30 query letters a month (that’s one a day!), and on average, he sells about 1/3rd of them.  (And this is a really good return rate!)  Normally, the response on query letters is about 1 in 10, and buyers happen about half of that time, especially for new submissions…(they tend to like repeat submitters – it shows they are serious, they are familiar with the body of work the editors are looking for, and they are regularly shooting new content).

The thing is – this is just the tip of the iceberg!  There are so many more factors to consider about submitting your work to potential buyers, and this is all part of the larger business of selling photography.  Most important in all of this is to remember that running a photography business is more about the business than the photography…you need to be diligent, dedicated, and always keep at it, no matter how many times you may here those hateful words, “No thanks.”

With that in mind, what other techniques do readers use to increase positive response rates to query letters?  Any other tidbits, pearls of wisdom, food for thought, suggestions, or ideas that you’d like to share?  Sound off in the comments!  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

This is only a test (but a fun one)…

Jason7 Comments

As many of you know, the forums for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), is a place that I really enjoy spending my spare time in.  It’s an excellent resource for a number of reasons:  first of all, I learn a lot!  Second, some great questions come through there that get my brain going.  Third, and most importantly, when I contribute to discussions in there, it often turns into some meaningful content I’ve created to help explain things.  That content then becomes some very useful tools in creating – yup, blog posts for the readers out here in the non-NAPP world!

For instance, someone was asking in the NAPP forums about methods to ensure all their files are output to a minimum of 50 MB for delivery to a client.  It was a great question with lots of useful contributions.  I decided to throw my two cents in, with a few suggestions that not only supported those made by others, but also include some tangential information.  My thoughts were that a client asking all images to be at least 50 MB suggested that the client doesn’t understand color very well…because different colors have different degrees of data to them.  Translation?  Some colors will produce larger inherent file sizes .

I ran a little test to help demonstrate this by taking some pictures.  Since I really wanted to get a complete illustration I sought out to find scenes that were 100% red, 100% green and 100% blue.  Naturally, I didn’t have a lot of luck in the real world, but I could produce them easily enough in Photoshop.  So, here’s what I did:

1.  Created a new document, 800px square, and filled the background with a pure red, green and blue:

Red

Blue

2.  On each new fill, I pointed my camera at the monitor (which is calibrated every two weeks*), and took a picture.  Here’s some screen shots of what the histograms looked like on the back of my camera LCD:

Red

Green

Blue

As you can tell, the histograms show that the colors are pretty spot on to where their anticipated locations should be…if you read the details below the histograms, you’ll also notice the amount of data that was in each image, but to make sure I was reading the data correctly…

3.  I then copied the files to the computer, and without any editing on white balance or anything, looked at the file sizes.  The results were pretty interesting:

Color Data

So, the color blue will result in a larger file size than red and green carries more than blue.  I also noticed that each color was successively brighter, which supports my understanding that more light in a scene also produces more data.  Since some colors are inherently “brighter” than others on the color wheel, they will also naturally have more light.

It was an interesting test/exercise to illustrate that different colors carry different amounts of data.  This also ties into the theory of “exposing for highlights and developing for shadows”.  It makes sense…because more data is available from brighter colors and less data is available in darkness.

*Finally, it bears mentioning that I do have a rather envious setup – you see I was given permission to paint the office any color I wanted recently.  I chose an 18% gray.  The office was then lit with a daylight balanced bulb from one desk lamp, and the window is normally covered with a black felt.  This, when combined with a calibrated monitor, profiled paper makes for a pretty good environment in ensuring color accuracy.  This little “color test” for someone else also was a good test for the office environment, and the results there were pleasing indeed.

This post has gone on much longer than I had anticipated, but it was a great chance to expand a little bit on a couple of topics:

1 – What happens with color in your pictures.

2 – How that impacts your file storage needs and requirements for clients

3 – The importance of working in a good color managed environment

If anyone has any questions, comments, or input of their own on the subject, please feel free to share your thoughts with me via the comments section or via email.  Happy shooting, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

It's a process…

Jason1 Comment

With the latest release of the Creative Suite from Adobe, I have added yet another item to my learning library.  For those of you that follow me personally, you also probably know that I have recently added two projects to my learning library,  databases and PHP.  Neither of these is very intuitive to me, so it’s taking a bit of patience to remind myself that we all have learning curves, and that learning is always a process fraught with frustration.

I take it for granted some times that certain technologies just “make sense” to me, and wonder why others can’t get it…the answer is because it is new to them.  Even in the field of photography, I often find myself in unfamiliar waters, and it can be a bit daunting.  So, when you feel you are at your wits end in learning some new procedure or technique for capturing and developing your images, remember, everyone is has some cross to bear with technology.  Zack Arias did a humorous bit recently on his blog that illustrates this to certain degree (especially the last bit where he is reading a magazine and…well, I can’t do it justice, so just watch it here!)

Another one that this reminded me of was the conversion to digital TV that just happened last year.  For many of us, it seemed “about time”, but for others, it was likely frustrating.  I must admit, that right now, db admin stuff feels much like this to me:

[display_podcast]

This was sent to me via email, and I can’t find a reference for it online.  The creator is Spike Feresten and the show is called “Talkshow” .  If anyone can share a reference that he has somewhere online, email me or share it in the comments.  Regardless, it very much typifies my frustration with SQL right now…

So, where are you in your learning process? 🙂

An exercise in silence…

Jason6 Comments

As creatives, we often can find ourselves just not seeing anything new…even if given a theme to go out and discover.  In times like these, it’s sometimes beneficial to stop looking outward and start looking inward.  I am not talking about Yoga, meditation, or even pontificating the meaning of life.  Although these are equally viable options for getting out of a creative rut, I am talking about looking at your own past work.  While we all have done this from time to time, I found a recent little twist on this practice helpful.  Look back at your work with a theme in mind.

The monthly contests here encourage everyone to go out and capture new work with a theme in mind, and creating new work is always a good thing, but sometimes, when given a theme, and then looking back at archives, you can find new meaning in older images, when looking with a different perspective.

For instance – I was reading an article over on Nikon (yes, I read Nikon’s website – we all know it’s the photographer and not the gear by now, right?) about the value of sounds.  The article was talking about pet photography and that you can get certain expressions if you catch the right sound (full article here:).  It got me to thinking – what would the lack of sound look like in an image?  So, I decided to close my eyes and try to imagine what a photo of silence would encompass:  the serenity of a flower, the peace of a beach or the darkness of an evening or morning sunrise or sunset when it’s just you and the landscapes, even the chill of the day with snow covering everything in a blanket of quiet.

It gave me such a burst of inspiration from my own archives that I decided to go through and pick these specific ones out with the idea of “silence” in mind…  Of course I couldn’t just leave something like this alone – so I added a little taste of music that I thought would be appropriate:

PlayPlay

This is, of course, just my own interpretation.  What are your thoughts when you think of a series of images that captures “silence”?  Would you set it to music?  How many images would you include?  Here I had 8 images…was it too many or not enough?  Sound off in the comments, as it’s really the viewer thoughts and input that is always so valuable!

PlayPlay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Five Best Kept Secrets of Photoshop CS5

Jason8 Comments

By now you should know all about the latest and greatest features of Photoshop CS5.  People have been talking until the cows come home about Content Aware Fill, Puppet Warp, and the other “sexy” features of CS5 (and they are pretty awesome, sure).  Heck, you may even know about some of the JDI (just do it) features, but there is still so much under the hood of CS5 that the gurus and pros haven’t even discussed yet.  After taking some time and tinkering around inside CS5, here are five features that I am surprised are not getting more “air time”…I am calling them:

The 5 Best Kept Secrets of Photoshop CS5

1.  Sharing Your Monitor – In Cs5, the feature has been added where you can share your monitor with others so you can show people exactly what you are looking at.  I can totally see this as a feasible solution for clients that are remote to your location, and travel costs need to be kept down.  Even training seminars could be conducted this way…imagine sitting at your computer at work (or home) and watching an instructor teaching you live from their own desktop!  Very cool!

Sharing Your MOnitor

2.  Refine Edge Backgrounds – I know, refine edge has been around for a while, and we are used to seeing the “marching ants” around our selections…but now Adobe has gone and added different backgrounds to help you better make refinements to selections.  The options are the traditional Marching Ants, and several new options like Overlay, Black, White, and Layers (my favorite).  This is a huge time saver when trying to make selections from within a photo!

Refine Edge Backgrounds

3.  Paste in Place – Another godsend!  After making selection refinements and masking off your layer selection, it’s now super easy to take another image from your clipboard and paste it directly into the active document.  Done with a simple keyboard shortcut: Shift+CTRL+V (Shift+Command+V on the Mac)

Paste in Place

4.  Cache Settings – are now adjustable to your own library preferences.  If you have mostly smaller sized images in your library, you can tweak the cache to Tall and Thin to accommodate your particular editing and library needs.  Likewise, if you are used to working with larger files, then you can customize Photoshop to Big and Flat for those purposes as well.

Cache Settings

5.  Stroke Settings – I cannot remember if this was in CS4, primarily because I didn’t have much interest in CS4, but now having used CS5 to a pretty decent degree, I am so glad this is now black instead of read by default, so I am including it here.

stroke

There’s my five “best kept secrets” of Cs5!  It takes some time to kick the tires and check out everything that new programs have to offer, so be sure you download a trial copy from Adobe.  It’s free!  Have you downloaded your trial yet?  What are your favorite “under the hood” features?  Any that you feel aren’t getting enough press or coverage in the photo circles?  Sound off in the comments!  In the meantime, don’t forget to step away from the computer periodically and take pictures! 🙂  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

Migrating Photoshop to a New Computer

Jason3 Comments

Over the past three years or so, I’ve had several people ask me about what’s involved in migrating from one installation of Photoshop to another, or what’s involved in moving from an old system to a new system.  With Photoshop, it’s just not as easy as it is with other applications for a number of reasons:

1.  Dependencies – While Photoshop is insanely popular, this popularity has spawned an entire industry of third party applications called plug-ins that get installed into Photoshop.  If you simply remove Photoshop without considering these 3rd party “apps”, you could lose their functionality.  There are also other things that become part of your work flow in Photoshop that you may want to save too, including actions, scripts, font folders, brushes, and much more.

2.  Licensing – Because it’s not a cheap application, Adobe has to carefully manage licensing, which means that any serial number can only be activated twice before it gets “locked”.  This allows you to have an installation on a desktop and a laptop, or a work computer and a home computer.  Well, if you go an just un-install or delete the files for Photoshop, you may find yourself unable to activate again should you re-install on a new computer.  The way to avoid this is to ensure you de-authorize (or deactivate) before uninstalling.  This will free up the license for use again.

3.  Other add-ons – Photoshop also has other add-in elements like automation tasks you may have added over time.  I have a few from On One, Topaz Labs, and a few others that I’ve gathered over time.  Make sure you check to make sure these don’t have installers with licensing too, because that can also be problematic for a software migration.

4.  System settings – Unlike e-mail, some settings and preferences don’t stay with you during the course of a migration.  So, it’s often helpful to grab screen captures of various setup windows so that you can get things configured just right once you get in your new digs!  Here are the 11 screens you may want to capture before un-installing off any computer:

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

PS Preferences

As you can tell, there’s a lot to consider.  And, given the length of this post already with the included screen captures, to make things easier in terms of reference information, I’ve put together a step-by-step procedure to migrate Photoshop from one computer to another that you can download for free!  Enjoy!

Migrating Photoshop

Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

What smart phone do you own/want?

Jason7 Comments

Courtesy of the previous post, I’ve added a poll to the blog (which I rarely do anymore)…so you can sound off anonymously:

[poll id=”8“]

Share with your family, friends, colleagues, whomever – I’m really interested to see where people are in this whole smart phone deal…have a great weekend!

Making the Switch…

Jason12 Comments

We’ve all heard the stories of people switching vendors.  Scott Bourne was noted for his switch from Canon to Nikon.  Friends and family often talking about switching from Ford to Chevy, or from Coke to Pepsi, and even *gasp* switching from PC to Mac.  As I find myself moving more and more toward Apple products I contemplated making another switch – from Verizon to AT&T.  You see, my contract with Verizon was due to expire soon, and I would then have the choice (and choice is a good thing) to move however I want.  For me it was a tough decision for a number of reasons:

Pros

  • Many of my friends in both IT and the creative fields own iPhones…and not being able to do some things with my phone that they could do was aggravating.
  • I also did not enjoy having to walk around with two devices – my 1990’s flip phone and my iTouch.  I wanted to unify everything under one umbrella

Cons

  • However, getting the iPhone meant going to AT&T.  I’ve had Verizon service for many years now, and while talking to any support staff anywhere is not my cup of tea, Verizon has rarely given me any reason to call.  From what I understand of previous experience with AT&T, there are often reasons to call…
  • I know this was covered just yesterday on the blog, but the lack of Flash support on Apple products is troublesome.  While I understand that things change – I need a new phone now.  Given Apple’s “heel digging” on this subject, and the impending release of Flash support in conjunction with Google (Adobe and Google working together..wow!) made the Android OS a palatable option.  Plus, HTML5 is readily going to be accessible under both if it ever becomes finalized (you know it’s just a specification right now…right?)

I was also a little less than enamored with the public image Apple has had recently what with the whole fiasco of the thundering police in the case of the iPhone 4 beta product that they wanted back (see video here about it).  That compiled with the fact that Apple has admitted that they changed their SDK to specifically exclude developers from using Adobe products when working on iPhone development.  This is like telling a photographer to only use a Canon or one particular set of cameras to take pictures.  That was the icing on the cake for me.  The end result?  I got a Droid!

I’ve already set up a website where I am sharing my experiences with the Droid so far – mostly it’s been pics (kind of an abbreviated 365 project).  Feel free to stop by the site where I am trying to post a photo a day from the Droid.  It’s at www.mydroidpics.com.  I’ll also probably start throwing in a few commentary type posts periodically about new apps and features as I discover them…

So, I’ve made the switch.  From flip phone to smart phone!  And the solution for me was:

THE MOTOROLA DROID!

Motorola Droid

What kind of phone are you using?  Is it a smart phone?  Is it a Droid or an iPhone?  What things do you like/dislike about it?  Sound off in the comments – I’d love to hear what others are thinking about the smart phone fad!  Have a great weekend and keep on shooting!