The whole idea of this blog is a place where you can relax, learn, ponder, have a laugh and get inspired to suit up for the photographic battles ahead.
A one stop shop for most things photographic upcoming exhibitions, conferences, public lectures, interviews, comical stuff, tutorials and inspirational stuff leaving the rest to blogs that do it much better.
Just search for those key subjects and let the fun begin.
In the age of digital photography with ever lower and lower price points to entry into professional photography, a plethora of free Youtube tutorials that can blow the previously required learning curve to mastery of all things photography from years of hard toil assisting at the hands of jaded and underpaying veteran photogs, to a matter of weeks and free (or relatively cheap) distribution channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Wordpress, Tumblr, Flickr ) has lead to a glut of shoot-and-burn-weekend-warrior-photographers inundating an already overflowing ocean of imagery with cat and food photos. The question then becomes how does a potential client find your work, in a sea of over saturated cat pictures?
you could.....
Spend countless hours courting the editors and contributors to the gatekeepers of the digital age (Reddit [link], Upworthy [link], Buzzfeed [link] Lost at e Minor [link] Arch Daily [link], The Design Files [link], TMZ [link] et al) in a effort to get some of your work to feature in their glossy back light illuminated feeds and provide some much needed inbound link boost to ones Google rank.
.
or......
Buy a bunch of inorganic Facebook likes, Instagram friends or Twitter followers to create pseudo social proof from sketchy companies.
or.....
Create some guaranteed click bait and and include the words what happens next you won't believe!!/what happens next will change your life/what happens next will change who you look at [insert topic of click bait] forever.
or you could just......
Simply feed the Google image search beast with sizable and healthy doses of metadata in cooperation with a Google.+ account.
Why pray should I do this?
A: Google's image search algorithm loves metadata, exif data, alt tags, image titles and file name extensions.
A: It's free. all it cost you is your time which can be optimised using templates.
B: Most people are lazy, including photographers. Most photographers can't be bothered doing any of this, so simply by doing this you are putting yourself in front of all of your competition.
If you don't believe me, then believe this guy, his an expert...
Look much can be said of the benevolence (or lack there of) of Google behind it's motivations and desire for you to be be deeply ingrained in all of it's products. Personally I'm not a fan of biting the hand that feeds me so feeding more and more information about myself until Google knows you even better than I do want I'm going to purchase or search for doesn't seem like such a bad trade off right?
[Look a cute panda!]
Simply by feeding the beast I've got many of my Frank Gehry images in the top 30 images for the search terms of Frank Gehry Abstract when my blogs have less than 2000 hits and on inbound links from any notable gatekeeper let alone any other websites.
Matt Cutts from Google talks about the importance of Meta description tags. If Matt Cutts is talking about it, you know it's important. If in doubt, just ask yourself the question, what would Matt Cutts do?
HOW pray do I go about this ?
Glad you asked. Six things are key
1. Exif Data - Metadata - Key Wording
Why not spend a few minutes doing this, on top of the hours you spent retouching the finely crafted images that nobody will ever see, because you didn't give Google a reason for people to see it. Heck, you can even save yourself a lot of work and just create a template and batch process it, across all the relevant images.
How to do it in Adobe Bridge
in Adobe Light room
In Adobe Photoshop
'
Remember be sure not to tick the remove all ICC profile /data box when you save for web in Photoshop, as it will undo all the good exif data work you have done.
2. The File Name
When saving the image, make sure you include key words describing the image in the file name, using a " - " to separate each word. Avoid making the title too long have no more than six words.
3. Alt Tags, Image Title and Description
Once you import the image into your webpage, blog, Tumblr, it's time to add alt tags, image title and description to it.
How to do it in Wordpress
4. Size of the Image
As far as Google is concerned, bigger is better. Bigger images thus rank higher. Now I know a photographer's worst nightmare is to have an unwatermarked image of theirs snatched from them and plastered on everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs without receiving a cent of compensation from the clear breach of copyright. But just remember for a second you're not Alberto Korda
or this guy
so just take a chill pill. You don't need to put up a full res images just something around the 1000 to 1400 pixels for the long edge will be plenty big.
5. Make Images Pinnable
Whatever you think of Pintrest, there are people using it including magazine editors, architects interior designers, art directors as well as your garden variety bridezillas i.e the very people who are going to buy your iamges and purchase your services. you got to go to where your customers are.
Here is how to do it in Blogspot
6. Have a mug shot via Google +
It's becoming more common, although the odds are, if people are deciding between 10 different sites that Google has spewed up, chances are that they are going to click on the link, with a face beside it or at least goes the theory of social proof. whilst on the topic of social proof having client recommendations of you works just as well so put them up as well .
That is the theory. Here is the practice
I don't think the feature will work as well once everyone has caught onto this trick.
Here is how to make that happen...
In closing....
Remember if all else fails, just heed the dulcet and sultry tones of the SEO rapper
Recently I decided to get my butt into action and go pro (pun fully intended), turning my back on my fauxtographer/shoot'n'burn/tax avoiding brethren. Sad day indeed.
So in the interest of demystifying the transition, so that the gap between the jump doesn't seem so wide and the pit at the bottom of said chasm is filled with fully ducks -more on that later- rather that vipers, red backs and a resurgent Kevin Rudd, I'll pass on my journey step by step.
1. Reality Check, Learning from the Best's Mistakes and Business Plans
There is a saying learn from the best or teach yourself, I would add learn from the mistakes the best have made, rather than making those mistakes yourself. Case in point Zack Arias. Zack has been there and back again. Zack dropped some serious knowledge, like any good mentor in this presentation.
Do yourself a favour and plug your numbers into the NPPA cost of doing business calculator then take a few moments to process all the zeros in the expense column, that is going to have to be matched and hopefully exceeded by the income section. Once you start looking at numbers everything becomes real rather than fluffy ducks, bunny rabbits or puppies.
I'm assuming here that you already have all the gear you need (not the gear that you would want and would love to own or better yet rent it and bill it back to the client), a solid business plan (it's like catnip to successful bank loan applications), the technical skills of photography down pat and are creating some killer imagery that is standing you out from the crowd - like any good purple cow - of photographers, in your local and surrounding area. Although if you need a guide on a business plans here is a good start. All the major Australian banks also have guidelines on Business Plans.
2. Get an Australian Business Number (ABN)
As much fun as it would be, to stay in the cash economy that meth cookers, crack den bosses and tradies call home, to which party, the taxman is not invited to, I decided to take the road more often traveled because:
A: Nothing say I'm a professional, like an ABN on all your business stationary and legal documentation.
B: Businesses that even if they were willing to do business with you would be forced to withhold 46.5% of your pay.
C: If you ever want to do any assisting, retouching or other form of sub contracting - to diversify and increase your income- most of those business will request an ABN from you.
D: It's free!!!
The Australian Taxation Office have streamlined the process so you can Apply for and ABN, ACN, GST and (PayG) withholding and fringe benefits etc all in one go how nice of them at their business portal how nice of them.
Some questions you need to ask of yourself or your CPA accredited tax accountant is what business structure do you want? For me it was as a sole trader for you it may be something else depending on how big you want to grow the company or if you have partners or will require a healthy supple of lowly paid minions (hello PAYG withholding and fringe benefits tax) working offshore to do all the work for you whilst you sip pina coladas on some deserted beach in Bali.
Do you think you are going to earn over 75 grand in a year? Me hell no. Although if so then you need to apply for GST and charge it to clients and what ever you do don't blow that money on an end of year junket to the Maldives.
You need a business address so are you going to work from home or setup a studio to base yourself at (this can always be changed at a later date). So I decided to work from home (which thanks to the parents is rent free). I shoot on location and if I ever need to see a client Mohammad can go to the mountain.
If you plan to work from home just check with your local council about any potential planning laws that may involve you from parking, noise levels to hours of operation etc.
3. Get an Australian Business Name
You don't need to get one, although if you don't want to trade under your own name i.e Tim Macauley Photography, you will have to take out an Australian registered business name, through The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) website. Although this is not free :(. $AU76 bucks for three years or $AU33 for a year, if you just want to just dip your toes in the water.
4. Get a Business Bank Account
Another old saying goes never mix business with pleasure. I'm sure whomever said it, was thinking about setting up a business bank account, at the time. In short, it makes it easier to balance the books and come tax time know what was business expenses and personal expenses, if you are a sole trader and have to include both on your personal income tax return. Additionally having a dedicated bank account gives you a clearer sense of how your business is going financially.
This can be done through either the bank that you currently do your personal banking through or if you really want to shop around for the best range of services, at the lowest price, then by all means choose someone else. I just set my up with the Commonwealth Bank, since I already do my personal banking there.
5. Fill the Bank Account with Money and Proceed to Spend/invest it wisely...
Best part of spending money on business expenses is most of it is tax deductible just speak with your CPA accredited tax account to find out just how much. Tied into this is keeping track of the income and expenses otherwise known as accounting the Australian Tax Office is a great resource for best practice on the matter of record keeping.
6. Get a Domain, Hosting and Design a Website
I went with Go Daddy because it's a one-stop-shop and for me that makes life easier although I'm sure you could find things a bit cheaper, if you looked for the best deal on each separately. Plus some website templates are free on the interwebs so you could save some additional money there by not having to design the website.
I took out both the .com and .com.au domain and then use domain forwarding to refer from one site to the other. Given that I am operating my photography business in Australia, having the .com.au signals to clients that is where I am focused.
The Go Daddy website templates are quite varied and once I selected a template, the editor was word processor like in nature -no html in sight- and relative intuitive to use, when altering the look and content.
Some pointers with designing your website:
- Website Screen Size Resolution
Choose the screen size resolution everything you put on the page flows from this then size all your images and content relative to that. I wanted my website to look good on a laptop screen without any scrolling so sized it accordingly taking into account the screen real estate taken up by browser buttons and the windows start menu strip. end result was 1079x748 but you may want it optimised for bigger screens most creatives don't view a website on a small resolution screen.
- Resizing and Saving Images for Web
Resize all your images rather than letting the code in a photo gallery do it for you. This will greatly reduce the time required to download the image.
When saving images in Photoshop, use the save for web option. Nobody wants to be staring at a blank screen whilst your megabyte heavy images are loading. It's amazing how much you can crunch an image, before you start to see compression artifacts and image degradation.
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Listen to anything Matt Cutts has to say. He works for Google. He knows the Google Algorithm, better than anyone talking smack about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on the interwebs.
Ditto for anything Steve Souders from Google says
- Test the Website
Test it for.....
Spelling and Grammar (man my first draft was rough, as a number of reviewers noted).
Download speeds.
All the links work (both internal and external links).
Easy to use. Nobody got lost on the way.
How it renders in different browsers, on different resolution screens.More people are accessing websites through smart phones so check that out as well.
7. Setup Google Analytics
“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.”
~ H. James Harrington
Amen to that. Google Analytics is the answer to your measurement prayers.
8. Register for Google Webmaster Tools
Do this, to make sure Google will actually crawl and index your website, in a more timely manner and fashion.
9. Profile Pic as Pseudo Social Proof
It's becoming more common, although the odds are, if people are deciding between 10 different sites that Google has spewed up, chances are that they are going to click on the link, with a face beside it or at least goes the theory of social proof. whilst on the topic of social proof having client recommendations of you works just as well so put them up as well .
That is the theory. Here is the practice
I don't think the feature will work as well once everyone has caught onto this trick.
Here is how to make that happen...
10. Business cards
There is no point printing business cards, unless you have a website on a personal domain, with an associated email address for that domain, if you want to appear anything other than professional. a Tumblr/Flicker/Deviant Art/Photobucket address, with a Hotmail/Gmail email account, doesn't quite give off the same vibe.
The argument can be made, that if you have made a genuine connection with someone, you'll remember who they and vice verse, or put their details into your phone and hence no reason for printing cards in the first place. Business cards are just so impersonal. Although, given how cheap they are produce a stack of 500, when the chance, that a single sale hinged on the fact of the person trying to remember who you are, it's already paid for itself.
Associated with the business card is the elevator pitch.
Here is mine only cut down to 15 seconds and used more as an introduction that selling something:
"Hi I'm Tim. I graduated from the BA(Photography) at RMIT a couple of years ago. I mainly focus on abstraction of architecture and other inanimate objects when I'm not geeking out as an engineer."
If you introduce yourself first, it shows that you are confident enough to approach people you don't know. People like confidence just ask any woman. The RMIT part shows both that I've studied and have some knowledge depth in photography. This gives people a chance to ask you an expert question they have about thier own photography to keep the conversation going). The abstraction of architecture gives them something definitive about you that they can further elaborate one like "Oh my uncle is an architect....". The inanimate objects part is ill defined and gives the respond-er an opportunity to clarify it "so what kind of inanimate objects...?
11. Insurance
Before you take a paying job, get insurance first. Work out what insurance coverage you actually need (and what you are preparing to risk, not to take), to save you money on paying for things you don't actually need. Plus if you join the, National Association for the Visual Arts, there are membership deals with insurance coverage included.
At the very least you will need public liability insurance, no matter if you shoot in a studio, or out in the field.
It's not a good look if you deliver an invoice to a client scrawled in red sharpie, on the side of a cow with your terms and conditions on the other side. Although this would be somewhat amusing, as a novelty cheque. Dido for:
Invoices (if you are not GST registered) and Tax Invoices (if you ware registered for GST)
If there is one area of advice worth paying for it's legal, preferable well before, you actually need it. Lowensteins Arts Management is a good place to start, using both accountants and lawyers who specialise in the creative and design fields. Legal documents should always be water tight.
14. Folio
You should really have had a body of work built up by the time you need to put the folio together, with each presentation of the folio varied slightly depending on the client. The general rule is only present your best work. no more than say 50 images for a printed folio and in digital no more than 15 images. the work should be varied if you only have 50 images all of the same model from the same shoot then probably time to get out there and shoot other models in other cloths in other locations.
Basically the folio comes in four flavours that can be deployed depending on the situation:
- Web Version
This will typically be peoples first port of call to viewing your work the work if they hear about you from someone else and Google your name or follow-up on that business card you gave them the day before (see tip No.10). The work you show in your physical or tablet version should be different to what they see on your website to give them some added value and can go into more depth than either of those allows.
-Smart Phone Version
The thing I love about smart phones is that you can have your folio on there and just bring it straight into a conversation, when people ask what you do for a living or what you love doing.
- Tablet Version
In relative terms the best bang for your buck based on how many different series of images you want to put on there to tailor it to the client you are showing it to. Plus if they bring up another theme you can just open up another folder on the fly not something you can do with a physical folio In my case using a iPad but there are much cheaper tablets out there that do the same job.
- Physical version
A physical folio is going to set you back some serious dough although when you see the finished product from mobs like Irwin and McLaren [link] the buyer's remorse subsides pretty quickly. Humans are both tactile and visual, so when you combine those two things, it can be a magical experience, viewing a physical folio. If you are serious about getting represented by an agent then this is the price of admission, something they can present to potential clients. Like any good book the first and last image have the greatest impact and there is no room for o.k images to slip in it should be crème de la crème all the way with a subtle rhyme and spacing that all adds to telling a story of who you are as a photographer.
15. Hustle
Don't expect the business to come to you. You have to go after the business. Now with everything in place, start to hit the pavement and meet face to face, with your potential clients. Build relationships up with the people you identified as potentially in need of your photographic services and learn to love the gatekeeper
Build your brand by winning competitions, creating or featuring in magazine articles and ads, create some visually viral content comment on social media or a flash mob. Basically be present where your customers are both in the virtual and real world and god forbid start up a conversation. So get out there and hustle.
I'm still working on that part ....
I'm sure I missed a few steps or glossed over others. So feel free to comment and fill in the gaps. Also what are other peoples elevator pitches?
