Marketing a photographer... any help appreciated.

[trendy kid]

Hey all,
Can you help me. I have just been approached by my next door neighbour (not like that !). She is a photographer. I have had a look at some of her portfolio and to the untrained eye it looks stunning. Its mainly fine art landscapes and equestrian i suppose. Knowing nothing about the photography industry i was wondering if any one had any advice re marketing of said stuff. Im clueless when it comes to this kind of thing. She does have a website and i can get on with the building of web presence/ Seo etc. I was just hoping one or some of you lovely people could give me some pointers. I would love to help them out as they are struggling and a young family. She is professionally trained. Why me !!!

[Jen at My Marketing Team]

Hiya,
I received some info in the post last week that may be of interest. I have never worked with the company so cannot personally recommend them - but I liked the concept. Basically they specialise in printing business cards / postcards etc where each card has a different design on. Perfect I think for a photographer who has a wide and impressive portfolio. They seem very reasonably priced and the samples that they sent in the post looked great. May be worth checking them out.... http://uk.moo.com/en/products/ .

Of course there may be a member on here that can do the same thing so may be worth asking the question...

For other tips on general low cost ideas, feel free to look on my site (it's free of charge!) for small business marketing (http://www.my-marketing-team.com) tips. www.my-marketing-team.com (http://www.my-marketing-team.com) .

Good luck -I wish you and your neighbour well!

Jen

[trendy kid]

Thanks Jen i will certainly do that, what a great idea...I will take a good look at your site too. Thanks xx

[10 Yetis]

Watcha, hows about going to some of the horsey type PR agencies and sending creds in there?

Also, maybe some form of PR campaign aimed at the horse owner magazines or competition or suchlike?

Just a few thoughts...

[BusinessIdeas]

I know this is probably out of your friend's normal brief, but I have, in the course of my business, come across photographers who specialise in baby pics door to door, this can be highly lucrative, can be offered on credit, and the accounts are collected, (minus a collection fee) by the home collected credit providers such as Provident. The attraction for the credit provider is the aquisitiion of new accounts for their loan business.

[Dawg]

I'm not sure if door to door is going to work in the Horse owning market really. The petrol costs of all those long driveways will add up...:)

Does she want to earn a living from photography? She won't do it from fine art landscapes and equine even if she is very, very good as there are established photographers who take the lucrative shoots, and the leftovers are not enough to live on.

I would suggest she thinks about a broader portfolio with a commercial bent, so she can make a living whilst she establishes herself as a top class landscape and horse snapper.

A great folio, both online and offline, with a relentless offline marketing effort to local businesses, ad agencies and anyone who pays higher than high street rates for photography. A monthly mail out of postcards with a new image every month is reasonably affordable if you can find a good digital printer, and the techniques of getting quality from digi are mastered.

[trendy kid]

I know this is probably out of your friend's normal brief, but I have, in the course of my business, come across photographers who specialise in baby pics door to door, this can be highly lucrative, can be offered on credit, and the accounts are collected, (minus a collection fee) by the home collected credit providers such as Provident. The attraction for the credit provider is the aquisitiion of new accounts for their loan business.
Hiya,
I kind of see where you are coming from but I don't reckon it would be for her (or me having to do the legwork tbh )
You see she has a different kind of eye. I could see how it could be very lucrative though. Especially as my wife is a midwife and has a captive audience !
Hmm interesting thought!!

[gmyers]

Hi,

First of all, I have heard the founder of moo recently speak at a Microsoft startup event, and it's a great business- great service and great price. I'm just about to order cards from them myself. I'd highly advise creating some direct mail postcards as Jen suggested. I'll come back to that later.

The main marketing tool of any photographer is their portfolio. Make sure your neighbour spares no expense or effort creating a dazzlingly presentation. The prints should be of the best quality, and the book itself should be unique and a true reflection of her personality. The key here is that it should please her, not what you or she thinks the market wants. This holds true for fine art as well as commercial photography portfolios.

As far as the reference to the baby photographer, door-to-door approach, this works well only with a market that supports it. I agree with Dawg; horse and landscape (fine art) work is not going to have general appeal.

For your part, I think the first thing you need to work on with the young lady is to discuss with her exactly what she wants to do. Does she want to exhibit her work in galleries? Does she want to to get commercial advertising and/or editorial jobs? (Be forwarded- working for agencies and magazines involves deadlines, pressure, and ego's, and is not for the faint of heart). Would she like to get commissions to create private/personal horse portraits?

Once you've identified the type of work, you can use your creativity to help market it. Compile a list of galleries, publications, agencies, professional organisations, and prepare some targeted mailings/promotions- yes, this means a lot of cold calling, and will will want to get the specific names of the curators/photo editors/art directors; do not send anything to a company without a personal contact. The postcards from moo would be great for this.

If you do approach ad agencies or magazines, you will find having multiple portfolios very useful. Getting a personal meeting with an editor or art director is often difficult do to their busy schedules, and unknown. photographers are often asked to 'drop off' a book for their review. This can be good, as some agencies have scheduled times to review these 'drop offs', and a large number of art directors will get to see them. lulu.com is a web site that can even print small runs of portfolios, and if I was still in the business, I'd definitely being exploring this further myself.

Another channel you should definitely consider is stock photography agencies. This market has expanded massively in recent years due to online sales. A quick Google search should provide you with a wealth of information to start.

For your information, I ran a successful commercial photo studio in NY for about 10 years and attended one of the best universities for photography.

And good luck!

[Dawg]

Ahh! NY snapper. You reminded me that I hadn't looked at Albert Watson's (http://www.albertwatson.com/) site for a while. Thank you!
Just about my fave photog. of all.

[gmyers]

I agree, Albert Watson's work is excellent.;)

[trendy kid]

Hi thanks for the posts and all the valuable information.
I had already put it to her that I thought her appeal would be too small from just fine art and equstrian.
She used to do commercial work. Shoots for models and apparently a large carpet company too.

[gmyers]

With all due respect, you didn't understand my most important word of advice. I'll repeat to you so as you didn't take it in the first time. Do not try to fit her to the market (what you've described as her appeal), but find a market for what she does. That's my advice.

[trendy kid]

With all due respect, you didn't understand my most important word of advice. I'll repeat to you so as you didn't take it in the first time. Do not try to fit her to the market (what you've described as her appeal), but find a market for what she does. That's my advice.

Thanks and you are right i didn't pick it up the first time. It was first thing in the morning and i was reading it on my blackberry...As soon as i read it on my computer (after a cup of tea) i get it. Thanks for making me aware of it again though. Very, very important advice from someone who knows the industry...I love UKBF !!

[Place of design]

Hey all,
Can you help me. I have just been approached by my next door neighbour (not like that !). She is a photographer. I have had a look at some of her portfolio and to the untrained eye it looks stunning. Its mainly fine art landscapes and equestrian i suppose. Knowing nothing about the photography industry i was wondering if any one had any advice re marketing of said stuff. Im clueless when it comes to this kind of thing. She does have a website and i can get on with the building of web presence/ Seo etc. I was just hoping one or some of you lovely people could give me some pointers. I would love to help them out as they are struggling and a young family. She is professionally trained. Why me !!!
Pops photographer hat on..

Plenty of people take stunning landscapes. However, commercially they are usually non-starters. There are very few commercially successful landscape photographers.. they are successful, because they can shoot to a brief. That is the difference. I love going for a walk and shooting a landscape, but that is an entirely different proposition of capturing Helvelyn in the mist during a sunset.. that sort of brief requires a lot of effort and patience to shoot successfully

The money in equestrian photography is shooting events, and that's a really hard discipline. again - it is shooting to a brief, and the brief is very tight in its specification

That leaves the artistic market, which is very tough.

Tips
1. it is international
2. Shooting 1 horse beautifully will take 1 day, + 1 days prep, + travelling + 1-2 days Post Processing In other words, like with all portraits, you need to make a considerable sale in terms of canvases and prints
3. Generic fine art and prints sell well in the US market, you need to get the whole acid free museum grade glicee printing thing sorted though
4. There are stock libraries that specialise in equestrian and fine art
5. fine art prints can sell well of your own site, and this increases your margin, but marketing will be tougher than going through a library
6. High profile exhibitions are a given must

In summary:
Shooting photographs professionally means getting them right first time, every time, under adversity and in a tight spot. You need to be able to deliver the goods every time - and with animals and landscapes, thats a tough call

Selling fine art is a slow burner, can be lucrative, and becomes a numbers game, research the fine art stock libraries, and learn all about fine art printing

[Dawg]

^^^Good post, as usual.

[Beau Rivvie Ltd]

Hi there
Don't really know anything about photography but have you considered selling your pics to online image banks such as getty, imagesource, istock etc etc.
Not sure how much they pay but think it's on percentage of sales. Could be a nice little extra each month for very little work. You also get a profile on istock so people will get to view their full range. Could lead to something bigger through being noticed.
Lou

[mike weeks]

There are actually 2 sides to Equestrian Photography - Events which has a reasonably high equipment burden and the best way of getting work for that area is to network with other Equestrian Event Photographers at a site like the EventPhotographerSociety and the other way is to look at the fine art / stable visit type portraits - the latter needs a good body of work to produce more work but done correctly it is the Equestrian equivalent of Venture.

Mike