Tag: photography

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!

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 makes you a professional?

Jason5 Comments

Photography has become a huge industry, within a very short period of time relative to the presence of the field.  Think about it – the technology to capture images has been around since the 1800’s with the first pinhole cameras, and metal plates of silver halide that were then reversed onto copper to produce an image.  Even when film became a more cost effective method of producing images, we still have not seen such an explosion of interest in photography as we have in the past 5-10 years.  With the growing interest, many have hung out shingles, offering their photography services, trying to make a living at it.

Now, while I grant you that some are more talented than others, and even have vision that others lack, there is a disctinction that exists around photographers – lines in the sand, so to speak.  And these lines pretty much have divided us into one of the following categories:

  • Professional
  • Enthusiast/Hobbyist
  • Amateur

Here, the ‘amateur” or beginner is pretty much evident by recency or lack of experience, but it’s the other two where there has been a blurring of the lines.  Traditionally, the difference between a professional and an enthusiast is the former made a living at it.  But then, enthusiasts and hobbyists decided to throw their hats in the ring and earn a buck or two.  So, the definition became more strict – a pro is someone who earns more than 50% of their income from it.  While that still exists in many cases (and I think fits for tax purposes), the quality of the results is much more blurred than before.

With the advancement in gear, things like image stabilization (vibration reduction for Nikonians), and some just astounding increases in ISO handling, shutter speeds, and everything else, including cleaning things up in post production, some not very good photographers have been able to maintain a living at it.  Meanwhile, “enthusiasts” are out there pouring their heart and soul into work but are tossed aside, simply because they don’t make money (or enough money from a percentage perspective) at it.

Clearly, enthusiasts can produce professional results, and equally, there are professionals that have produced, well…less than professional results.  So, with that in mind, I would submit that the definition of a professional (for me) really is defined by the quality of the product.  Consistency, reliability, knowledgeable, and high quality is what I look for when hiring someone to do anything.  And if someone can do that, regardless of how others classify them, to me that is the very definition of professionalism.

So, where did this come from?  Well, after the success of the article I put out for people in Shutters and Apertures Explained, I decided to start assembling all the articles I had previously written in various capacities  with the idea of putting them out as a collective bundle for people to enjoy.  Once I got everything assembled, I was astonished to find that I have produced over 20 articles on photography alone, and countless others on various computer topics, including Helpdesk documentation, Service level Agreements, Helpdesk and Desktop support documentation, along with many other types of technical content.

All told, I have over 150 publications under my belt in the writing world.  Yet prior to “Shutters and Apertures“, I had not earned a single dime.  Does that mean I am not a professional writer?   While my earnings have been a mere pittance compared to many in the field, the quality of content is something I am proud of.  Even this blog has been a huge commitment of time and energy which requires research, editing, proof-reading, and much more, way before I ever press the “Submit” button!

So, with over 150 articles and writing credits, and over 6 years of writing experience in various capacities, why do I not consider myself a professional writer?  I think the answer lies in how you perceive yourself.  Where you think your strengths are, and where your ambition and passion lie.  When does one become a professional anything?  I’ve got my own reasons for choosing IT as a career path, (and photography and writing as secondary income sources), and while most define me by my predominant income source – I would classify myself as a professional in all of them.

Quite an extensive narrative, eh?  But,  it does bring up an interesting question of “What makes anyone a professional?“!  So, with that in mind, let’s turn the question outward and see what answers we can find!  What makes you a professional?  Is it your income ratio, the quality of your work, or something else?  What defines you?  Sound off in the comments – I’d love to hear what others think on this topic!

Welcome to the neighborhood!

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Not sure if you all remember when we moved a while back, and our first day in, the next door neighbors called Animal Control because our dog was following us in and out of the house as we unloaded.  It took some talking, negotiating and convincing, but we did finagle a deal so that the dog wouldn’t be hauled off to doggie jail.  It was not the kind of welcome we were looking for.  Suffice to say, the lack of any real friendly neighbors or sense of community was kind of a motivating factor in our desire to find new digs.

So, when we found this place, the reception we would get was one thing we were a little curious about.  Moving day was Friday.  Saturday we re-assembled furniture (beds, sofas, TV’s, half the computer setup, etc.) and Sunday we started unpacking boxes.  In the midst of our unpacking, our agent stopped by with a card, a planter of tulips, and a welcome mat (very generous given her commission on both properties).  Well, maybe not the best “thanks for your business” gift relative to monies spent, but still a nice gesture.  When we did finally meet our next door neighbor, this was the welcome we got:

Apple Pie

And they say a sense of community is disappearing!  We’ll be hard-pressed to move again…

The Ides of April

Jason2 Comments

Well, it’s not really the ides of April, more the Ides of Closing.  Yup, us nomads are at it again – we just can’t seem to settle down.  Our cross-country move into an apartment for 6 months, then another move into our current house for two years was not enough.  Nope, we got the itch again.  Funny how the moving itch is coincidentally happening within a week of our seven year anniversary.  Isn’t that supposed to be the itch?  Oh well, I’ll take this itch over the alternative.  So, with this being closing date and all, I’ve clearly got a lot on the plate today and throughout the remainder of the week.

Believe it or not though, I’ve got a couple really good posts lined up over the next few days (amazing what happens to your content when you plan ahead, eh? 🙂 )  For today, I am bringing back the “Shout outs” theme from the previous months Flickr Group contributions.  These are just a sampling from the entire month of March to the group pool, and have nothing to do with the contests.  Just some images that I thought deserved a little recognition…so, without further ado, here’s that random sampling.  Thanks to all who have so generously shared their images and who continue to do so – it’s awesome to enjoy all the talent that is out there!

Flickr March

Flickr March

Flickr March

Flickr March

Flickr March

Flickr March

Flickr March

Flickr March

I think I got the order right, but if I cross-referenced these wrong after download, please let me know.  Honors this month go respectively to the following people:

  • Grey Hamster
  • Josh Cohen
  • KaleidoscopePhotos
  • karensk7
  • KBTImages
  • NZSnapper
  • Sue90ca
  • and whalenmdw

Thanks to them especially for their creative, inspiring and thoughtful contributions!  Everyone’s were really great so it was even hard to narrow it down to a select few here too.  Keep on sharing and next month, we’ll see which ones end up on the blog.  Stop over to their respective Flickr threads and give them some praise for their excellent work!

Speaking of months – don’t forget there’s not much time left in April to enter the Balance themed contest to win an Expo Disc from the generous folks over at Expo Imaging!  Entries are taken until midnight April 30th, MDT (GMT-7).  Good luck and don’t forget to enter your images in the thread here.

Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for more news and updates from the LDP/CB corner of the photo world! 🙂

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