Category Archives: Photography Business

Crushing it in the Local Market

One of my readers who works at PDN thought the recent discussion about doing time in NYC or LA, for 2 or 3 years, then moving where you want and mopping up would make a good magazine story. I agree. Based on the comments I’d say it’s the hottest topic we’ve covered so far.
So, let’s [...]

The “Business” of Photography

Don’t know how I missed this comment from the “Crapshoot” post but It’s really good and worth bringing up front.
BRRRRRR wrote:
It’s admirable to think it could all be about the images, and it’s inspiring to think of the art world as a model. But this is about business, and business doesn’t work that way. Look [...]

2 Billion Photos on Flickr

… and they all… not going to say *it*.
TechCrunch reported a couple days ago that Flickr reached 2 Billion photos (here) and the lucky winning photo is:

Taken by Yukesmooks, who’s flickr page can be found (here). This photo evokes the famous cliché that I am sworn as a member of the professional photo community to [...]

Technology is Turning Average Consumers into Freelance Photographers

Into the annals of jackassery goes web startup gosee4me.com which proposes to have amateur photographers lowball each other for the chance to shoot an “object, structure, or physical location on the planet.” The press release is priceless as pure comedy. In a typical bloated web 2.0 style of over-hyped photo bullshit they provide a [...]

Attack of the Former First Assistants

There’s no better way to get started in this business than assisting a photographer and if you can get on with one of the big shots you are guaranteed an Ivy League Education and possibly… tons of verbal abuse. There is an art to barking out orders and whipping the assistants into a frenzy and [...]

Catalog Photographer Train Wreck

I know, I know, I shouldn’t be giving “The Shot” on VH1 (here) any “press” but it was free on itunes and now I’m hooked (I have a secret love of really bad photography). I think it’s more of a disservice to the young impressionable photographers who read this blog to not point out the [...]

Advice From A Photographer

From the comments in the Catalog Photographer post. Solid.
Old Geezer Says:
November 10th, 2007 at 9:39 pm Old Geezer here. I’m the older brother of Old Yeller. Funny how a post that started about a bad tv show ended up with a bunch of college students asking advice about their future. Well, pull up a chair, [...]

The Next Great Catalog Photographer

Victoria Secret is a catalog, ok. People who shoot women in bikinis, bras and panties for a living are not called fashion photographers.
Go (here) to watch the trailer. It was taking to long to load and bogging down the website so I removed.
Via, You Call This Photography? (here)

Aliens Work at Getty

My proof:

“Finding the right image just got easier,” because we have giant effing eyeballs.

NYC Photo Snobbery

Oddly, I found this yesterday in a book I’m reading and it’s very appropriate for the comments on the post from yesterday. The nut graph (love that editor term) is at the bottom but it’s a doozy.
From “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
… consider the effect of the first music recording, and invention that [...]

Name Your Price 2

The the temporary bridge between where we are now and free is officially “Name Your Own Price”. Paste magazine is giving out subscriptions for NYOP (here).

Retouching: The Head Pop

I’m all for a head pop or a leg or arm or whatever needs poppin’ as long as it’s from the same photo session who cares and really who can tell when the head in an image is replaced with a head from 5 min. later so you can get the correct facial expression.Retouching is [...]

Highlights From This Weeks Spam

This one is actually funny. It says “Holy cow! Where’s the photo??????

Photographer Spam

Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief at Wired posts a list of all the people who spammed him this month (here).
I’ve had it. I get more than 300 emails a day and my problem isn’t spam (Cloudmark Desktop solves that nicely), it’s PR people. Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of [...]

Subject

When an editor tells me they want better pictures in the magazine the first thing I say to them is, “get me better subjects.”
Creating compelling imagery with mundane subjects is best left to great artists. It’s nearly impossible.
When you’re starting out in this business if your friends, your family or where you live is not [...]

Travel photography. Dead.

The Secret to Selling your Vacation Photos (here).
What’s sad is people buy this crap.

Define: Professional

I read a great quote from Mario Batali (but suddenly can’t find it) about what makes a professional chef.
He says the difference between an amazing amateur chef and a professional chef is the ability to make that perfect meal 100 times in a row.
That applies to photography too.

Fly’n Photographers

A reader asks me about sending people all over the world to shoot jobs when many times perfectly capable photographers are already there. This mirrors another comment about Vanity Fair sending someone from NY to Durham, NC to shoot a picture of a house.
I’ll start with VF. I didn’t see the piece but I’d be [...]