Photography-Marketing-for-Photographers

Basics of Photography

2010-08-16T21:46:00.000-07:00

If you are a sports fan, you know what it means when a team goes into a "rebuilding year". It is just when the owners or coaches decide its time to train new members and correct bad habits in others. And invariably, what team leadership says when they go into such a time is that they are going "back to basics."

Sometimes it's good for us as photographers to go back to basics. And, of course, if you are just getting started in the world of photography and want to learn 'the ropes", the basics are a natural start. But you want the basics of what the professionals know about the craft of photography.

Anybody can take a picture. I attended a wedding reception where the wedding party left a disposable digital camera on each table at the reception for guests to snap photos. Before the evening was over, it was the children who were running around taking pictures of everything from the dirty dishes to their own underwear. These were not photographers and while those pictures will no doubt get a few chuckles, these are not the kind of professional pictures people want for their long-term memories.

Obviously, the cornerstone of the basics of photography is the camera. When you see a camera geek walking around with enough equipment on his neck to launch a space shuttle, you get the impression that cameras are phenomenally complex, more than mere mortals can grasp. But look at the professionals and you see them working with portable, relatively easy to operate cameras. That is because the basics of running a camera come down to aperture and shutter speed.

Now don't get nervous about fancy terms. Aperture is just a term for how wide your camera lens is open to let in light. And shutter speed is just how long you let the light come in to affect the picture. For getting a shot of a fast moving event, you want a wide aperture to let in a lot of light but a short shutter speed so you capture the event quickly and close the window so the picture is caught before more light hurts the quality.

Photography is really all about light. You can and will get learn a lot about lenses and flash photography and other ways to turn the control over the lighting of a shot to you. So add to your core skills of photography a willingness to never stop learning. The better and more sophisticated you get in your ability to work with the equipment, the more you will learn and the more you will want to learn.

You can get a greater control over these basic controls of the camera such as aperture and shutter speed by learning how to switch from automatic settings to manual settings. The automatic settings of any camera are just there for the general public who are not interested in learning the basics.

So they give you some basic settings like landscape, portrait and sports settings. By switching to manual, you can learn what settings work best in different situations.

And that takes us to the most important basic about becoming a great photographer and that is practice. Take some time with your equipment and play with it. Take it to situations and take photos with different aperture and shutter speed settings, in outdoor and indoor settings and different orientations to light. Don't get upset when some shots don't work. That's part of the learning curve.

By learning by doing, you will build your confidence in your work and eventually become a great photographer. But don't get cocky, there is always more to learn beyond the basics of photography. And that is one of the fun things about photography, isn't it?

Classic Car Photography Marketing

2010-07-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

The Art Exchange Project - Long Beach, California

2010-04-07T03:12:00.000-07:00

Visit Long Beach, California here

Are You A Street Photographer?

2009-02-03T07:13:00.000-08:00

Are you a street photographer? When you are shooting, do you have ‘rules’ that you comply with? Are there criteria that measures the ‘quality’ or ‘value’ of your photography work?

Street photography is a very interesting niche. For many, it is referred to as ‘no rules’ photography. Often, it is out of focus, tilted, very busy, upside down, etc. Some define it by photographs taken without posing. Some even say that street photography must include people. Still, others disagree and say that isn’t so. The location can be urban, rural, exotic or leisurely.

Capturing ‘real’ scenes as they are happening is the essence of this particular niche. Some photographers also choose to try and capture the ‘story’ of what the picture is a part of. Others simply allow the photo viewers to ‘conclude/question’ their own stories of the photos.

Actually, before I even knew that there were photography niches, I was a prolific street photographer. Especially when I first got the photography bug – I shot everything that I saw! Only later did I consider what categories that they ‘fit’ into. The thrill for me was shooting and shooting and shooting. The thrill and challenge for me was to see how well I could accurately capture what I “actually saw.”

The requirements of the street photographer are:

A camera
Knowledge how to use the camera
Space to display photography work

That’s it!

Most don’t use flash. Neither will you find a serious street photographer all pimped-out with photographic equipment. And their best work, in my opinion, is when photo subjects (if there are subjects in the shot) don’t appear to notice that they’re being observed.

Looking for scenic locations is an ongoing task for most photographers. Because location can contribute so much to good photography, having great locations (studios) helps tremendously.

The photographer that (normally) shoots with a wide angle lens; continuously looking around for candid moments; don’t worry about lighting; watches people; and shoots a lot, is more than likely a street photographer.

www.MarketPhotography.com

2009-01-28T10:20:00.000-08:00

2008-12-23T04:35:00.000-08:00

FREE Photography Ebook

2008-08-17T19:14:00.000-07:00

Here's a great book for you and your love of photography.

“Freeze, I Have A Camera And I’m Not Afraid To Use It!” is a great resource for photographers, amateur and experienced. This informative guide offers tips, insights, info and resources for all levels.

Info about:

Understanding Pricing
Finding lucrative photo niches
Marketing tips
Self-promotion tips
Selling photos online
Photography website basics
Promoting your photography website
How to get and keep customers
How to make money with your photography – without spending a fortune
How to enter the stock photography market

If you’re a photographer that wants to make enough money to cover your photography expenses – you’ll love this book. If you want to start a photography business and need to know where to start – you will love this book.

A successful photographer needs to stay in front of new and current customers. This book offers tips, samples and examples of very effective marketing tools such as calendars, greeting cards, etc. The book provides free research tools to expand your reach, to find more markets for your work, to beat your competitors and to find lucrative markets to sell your photos. Click here now and get your copy today.

Amateur Photography Tip

2008-08-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

A good amateur photography tip for amateur photographers is not to get "caught-up" in the title of "amateur photographer." Professional photographers depend on making money with their photography. Amateurs don't. That's about the only difference between professional photographers and amateur photographers. The fact is, that there are amateur photographers that shoot much better work than most professional photographers. This was a surprise to me. I accidently learned this nugget while taking a great photography course.

At first, I wasn’t interested in a photography course. Not that I’m against formal training. My experience with the standard photography course is that they tend to focus on artistic photography. The audience that I cater to buys “salable” photography, not “artistic” photography. There is a difference! I enjoy shooting artistic photography. I pay for my “photography habit” by shooting salable photography. So, a good photography course for me built and reinforced my confidence with my camera. Once I learned how to confidently “manage” all functions of my camera, my confidence as a ‘qualified’ photographer literally exploded, and I knew it!! For me, the “lights came on” by accidentally using a photography course that made me a “master-user” of my cameras. Now, I successfully shoot and sell what people want, “salable” photography. My success allows me the time to do the creative/artsy photography that I enjoy (and it makes me enough extra money that allows me to needlessly buy all of the “latest” equipment that I don’t really need!) Go here and enroll now. You will shock yourself and your friends with the quality of your work!

2008-04-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

How To Produce The PERFECT Viral Ebook

2008-02-10T17:26:00.000-08:00

by Harvey Segal

Viral marketing is probably the number one method for generating traffic and sales - IF it is set up properly.

Take the case of a viral ebook - which means a book that can be passed from one person to another bringing benefits (profits) for each party in turn.

How is this achieved ?

The basic concept is that the book contains links to affiliate products. When a reader of the book makes a purchase from a link then the affiliate receives the commission.

The creator of such a book will allow some of the links to be 'rebranded' which means a person (who we will refer to as the rebrander) can replace them with his own affiliate codes thus collecting commission. This is the obvious incentive for him to pass the book around and begin the viral progression.

If we want to maximize the benefits for everyone and create the perfect viral ebook we need to have THREE key factors in place.

1) Wide Distribution

There are many permutations in the ways that you can offer an ebook. It can be free or paid, and for either option you can charge for rebranding or offer it free; plus you can have part customization or full customization. On top of that, for a paid book you can offer resale rights and even the right to grant resale rights.

Let's keep it simple.

What we want is the widest possible distribution so that we get the most commission from the affiliate links.

So we will have a FREE book and FREE rebranding rights.

2) Quality Affiliate Links

It goes without saying that your book should contain good content on a topic of interest.

But will readers click on those affiliate links ?

The answer is 'NO' if you copy the poor example of many authors, for instance:

- have you ever opened an ebook and been faced with a barrage of affiliate links ?

- or seen affiliate products which have nothing to do with the theme of the book ? For example in a book about hypnotism you get a link to a web hosting company.

So what is the best way ?

The secret is to have highly relevant links and weave them naturally into the content in a low key style without appearing to push for a sale. So when you discuss a particular topic and want to show where more detail can be found, or how a particular problem can be solved, that's where you can mention the affiliate product as a source of further information. If you want to see really good examples of how to do this read the free book at the end of this article.

See - that last sentence was an ACTUAL working example of how to weave in a link.

3) Maximum Return For Both Parties

You need to get the rebranding balance right.

If you give away an ebook and allow all the affiliate links to be rebranded that is a great deal for the rebrander - but what do you get out of it ? No affiliate commission, just subscribers maybe for your mailing list if you have a sign-up form in the book.

Conversely if you hand out only a few affiliate links for rebranding then that provides little incentive for the rebrander to distribute the book.

Ideally what you want is the maximum motivation for your rebrander which would be

* to allow free rebranding

* to allow ALL the links to be rebranded

but in a way that you can still benefit.

Can that be possible ?

Fortunately it is, using any of 3 different methods

* if the links in the book are for your own products

* If the links are for products for which you have resale rights

* If the links are for 2-tier affiliate programs so that you collect the 2nd tier commission when a rebrander, who has signed up under you, makes a sale

And so, if you use these techniques you can begin a viral marketing campaign which will continue to generate traffic and sales with little on-going effort on your part.

EXCEPT for two issues we need to resolve

1) What happens if everyone rebrands the book and only makes purchases from their own copy ?

Well, I have found that in practise only a minority (say 10%) will take the time to rebrand a book which means that the majority (90%) will be reading your book and purchasing from YOUR links.

So only 10% will be 'lost' to you . . . or are they ?

2) Suppose you plan to produce a viral book. It's about a popular topic - so it's bound to have a wide circulation - but you can't find any of the three types of suitable links to put in the book, i.e. links to a product of your own, to products with resale rights or for 2-tier affiliate programs.

Is there a solution ?

Yes - there are answers to both problems in my book "101 SuperTips" - they are actually tips 100 and 101.

As you might expect this book is free, with valuable information linking to highly relevant products, and you can rebrand it, again for free.

By all the rules above it's a candidate, I hope you agree, for 'the perfect viral ebook' and a profitable source of revenue for you.

Harvey is the author of several viral ebooks including 101 SuperTips, a collection of unique Internet Marketing tips, which you can collect at

http://www.supertips.com/101/

Find Your Photography Niche First!

2008-02-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

Finding your photography niche before you start a photography business is critical to your success. Too often, our photography marketing is not specific or targeted enough. Many photographers want customers to know that they ‘can do it all.’ But, by doing so, I think they fail to recognize that people prefer to do business with specialist – whether they’re chefs or photographers!

What is a photography niche?

Why should you specialize?

What are some of the different photography niches?

More stock photography articles.

FREE Photographer Ebook - Find Your Niche

2008-01-26T23:58:00.000-08:00

It's Important To Know That 'Marketing Is A Process'

2008-01-24T20:40:00.000-08:00

Always remember that a successful photography marketing campaign is never ending. It has a beginning and middle - but, never an end. You tweak it, perfect it, modify it, slow it down and even speed it up. But you never stop it completely.

Of all the steps in succeeding with a successful campaign, keeping it going takes the most time. Developing the successful campaign and launching it can be done in a specific span of time. You spend the life of your photography business maintaining, monitoring and improving your campaign.

Successful photographers thrive and prosper because they understand the deeper meanings of the phrases "customer base" and "long term commitment." This enables them to reinvent their marketing -- just as long as they are firm in their commitment to their existing customers and prospects.

More information here...

'Key' Factors That Photographers Forget When Starting A Photography Business

2008-01-21T18:12:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, too many photographers start a photography business and don’t consider a few factors that cost them a great deal of money. “Workflow” is one factor that I didn’t factor in when deciding to take on photography jobs. “Workflow” is the process after the photo is taken. Different photography niches have different workflow processes.

Another factor is photo packaging. Too many photographers deliver their photos in envelopes or untidy packaging. Not enough of us recognize the ‘value’ of our packaging. Good packaging doesn’t cost that much more than the envelopes or other untidy ‘packaging’ that we use.

Profitable photo products can be very instrumental when starting a photography business. Posters, calendars, greeting cards, mugs, photo books, etc. All make great products and ‘value-added- benefits to your photography business.

Learn more information here….

Submitting Your Photography Website To Directories Builds Links

2008-01-20T22:02:00.000-08:00

You may or may not know that Website Directory Submission is quickly becoming a very popular and easy way to get quality, one way links to your photography website.These kind of links are exactly what the search engines are looking for. The photography websites with more quality, one way links are typically the sites that rank the highest, period.

With that said, there are several websites directory submission programs on the market. The best and easiest to use is a new program created by Brad Callen, called Directory Submitter.

The software currently contains around 1700 website directories, all free. It is the most straightforward program that we've come across, in that all you need to do is:

1. Input your website details (i.e. title, description, URL, etc.) into the software

2. Click on the directory you want to submit to

And then the program will automatically fill in your website details. Then, you simply click the submit button and your website is instantly submitted to the directory. Then, you can move to the next directory, go through the list, and by the time you're finished you'll have roughly 1500 one way links pointing to your website.

I can't think of an easier way to get links. Of course, if you're going to get links this quickly, it's important to vary your website title (anchor text) every 20-30 links or so, to make things look more natural to the search engines.

You can do this very easily via Directory Submitter when you create your project in the beginning. The software is constantly being updated and their is an incredible community of users established that all work together to make the software better and better, so you know you're getting great value for the money.

To check out the software, go here:

FREE Directory Submitter

Cute Photos Don't Sell Themselves

2008-01-20T19:54:00.000-08:00

Sometimes cuteness sells. But rarely do cute photos sell just because they’re cute. Of course, parents and family members find cute valuable. But that ‘value’ usually goes no further than the family. Often, telling the ‘story’ of the photo helps in the ‘value’ of the ‘cute’ photo to viewers not in the family. In this case, the little girl is dressed in a princess costume and she’s very shy – at least she’s suspicious of the photographer.

I'm a photographer that believes that "photography is made to be seen!" So, "Show Your Work"

Photography Marketing Is Needed Because Photos Don't Sell Themselves - Nothing Does!

2008-01-20T16:49:00.000-08:00

Most photographers ‘know’ that great photography doesn’t sell itself, but many photographers act as if photos do sell themselves – they refuse to market! Often, these same photographers continue to wonder how photographers that take photos that are inferior to their photographs (in their opinion), are so popular and successful as photographers.

In many cases, the popular/successful photographer has a great photo. But in every case, the photographer puts as much commitment to marketing themselves as they do in taking great photos. Photographers that know this and act on it are the successful and popular photographers. Period.

Photography marketing isn’t difficult or expensive. Its just misunderstood and underappreciated. McDonald’s hamburgers clearly understand marketing. They are the #1 selling hamburger in the world! But, I think that it is safe to say that their hamburger would not make anyone’s “best 25 hamburgers” list! They don’t make the best hamburger (or anything close), yet they sell more hamburgers than anyone else in the world! This happens even though others sell cheaper, better tasting and higher quality hamburgers.

McDonald’s is one of the best marketers the world of business has ever seen. Nike, Starbuck’s, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Cadillac, Visa, and other very familiar name brands do their fair share of marketing – because marketing works!

Photographers should pay attention. Photography marketing is not difficult, expensive, mysterious or a waste of time. Good marketing requires work on a consistent basis. One of the mistakes made is that marketing is viewed as advertising. But, marketing and advertising aren’t the same. Advertising is a part of marketing.

Help is available. Photography marketing for photographers.

If you have any intention to start a photography business, you must include a serious photography marketing plan or your photography business is doomed for failure. Period!