Category Archives: Getting Noticed

A Note From A Young Photographer On The Way Up

I received this note from a photographer whose work I enjoy and who you might say is a few years past emerging:
Work has still been pretty good this year. it’s strange because it’s slowing down, but the jobs I’ve been getting this year and the last 2 are bigger paying ones so that means the [...]

After Staff Week On The Resolve Blog

Miki Johnson who runs the Resolve blog had a nice theme running all week called “after staff” (here). She interviewed and gathered advise from people who’ve either moved on or been laid off from a staff job. As a former staffer myself I can tell you… well, I’m not a good example because I worked [...]

Deal Flow, The Key To Finding New Talent

I really like the analogy in this piece over on DLK Collection (It’s a long piece so go have a look) that Joerg sent me:
“While gallery owners often complain about the “overwhelming” “deluge” of solicitations they receive and the challenges of responding to each and every one, the reality is having good “deal flow” (access [...]

Photo Contest Pre-screen — Critical Mass

Over the last two weeks I looked at 606 different photographer submissions for the Critical Mass competition and helped narrow it down to the 180 finalists (here). As you might expect the images ran the gamut from “are you effing kidding me” to “holy crap that’s amazing.”
I tried to only vote for photographers I would [...]

PhotoLucida Critical Mass, Call For Entries

The big photo contests in the editorial world are the American Photography annual (here), SPD (here) and the PDN photography annual (here). I’ve mentioned in the past that the Critical Mass review/contest (here) put on by Photolucida is a good resource for finding talent and this year I’m happy to be reviewing work again. The [...]

PDN Online Redesign and A New Feature

PDN Online has a new look and a new feature called PDN Compass (here) where you can mark on a map where you live and what you shoot then presumably Photo Eds and Art Buyers and other potential clients will search by location and specialty and easily find you. Sort of like PhotoServe.com which is [...]

Review Santa Fe Becomes Even Better

Review Santa Fe went down this past weekend and it’s always been a great resource for Photo Editors, Book Publishers and Gallerists looking for new talent. It’s also a great opportunity for photographers, because you can show your work to a very large group of people at once without the usual hassle of making appointments [...]

Flickr Stigma

I’m not gonna lie. If you sent me an email and said check out my portfolio and the link went to Flickr I wouldn’t even look. It’s the same as the portfolio test. If you don’t have your shit together enough to have a nice printed portfolio you’re not getting the job. It’s not just [...]

Free Promotion

I’ve wanted to do this for awhile and my thinking on the future of photography and photo contests and other things I’m cooking up has gotten me inspired to offer everyone the chance to promote your best work for free by submitting a couple images for a slide show. There’s plenty of photo editors and [...]

Pay to Play

A reader asked me about those cutting edge fashion magazines that require photographers to cover their own expenses and if I really think the magazine is too poor to pay for it themselves. I’m going to need a little help from my readers who’ve worked at one of these magazines (on the inside) to get [...]

The PDN 30

PDN just announced their annual 30 photographers list (here) which always proves to be a valuable resource for photo editors looking for new talent or to validate someone they’re interested in working with. Unlike the other juried competitions this one is unique because PDN seems to make a real effort to introduce (drive) new talent [...]

Serendipity

… living in big cities [is] invaluable because you increase the odds of serendipitous encounters–you gain exposure to the envelope of serendipity.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

Photographer Promo Cards

What’s the purpose of the promo card? Send me a cool photo, convey contact info, show-off your style, reinforce your brand, display your expensive logo, tell a story, show-off your new printer, tell me how clever you are, show the latest campaign you shot, show me how many styles you can shoot…
Action. Nothing else.
The purpose [...]

More on Photo Rank *on the sidebar*

If you’ve ever submitted a photo and spent $45 or more on a photography contest and never heard back from them and thought to yourself “what the hell is wrong with those people” and “just who are these cranks they hired to judge it anyway?” Well, now you can submit a photo, your portfolio or [...]

More on Style

When I think about a writer with individual style, Hunter S. Thompson comes to mind. That’s why I was floored when I read this:
He didn’t finish high school, but he taught himself to write. He retyped books by writers he admired – Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner – all the heavyweights. He said he wanted to get [...]

Getting in

You may have figured out that the editorial photography world is a bit incestuous– especially if you’re trying to break in– and there’s a pretty good reason for it called, “let someone else try out the new guy.” I’m always more than happy to poach a photographer from another leading (not rival) publication because they’ve [...]