WHAT IS the single most important skill you can develop to ensure success in today’s economy? According to this brilliant Fast Companyarticle (and my own experience), the answer is…adaptability.
“The new reality is multiple gigs, some of them supershort, with constant pressure to learn new things and adapt to new work situations, and no guarantee that you’ll stay in a single industry.”
But what exactly does it mean to be adaptable? Is it really a skill you can learn and hone?
My gut says yes. But it also says: “Learning to be adaptable is not just one skill, it’s lots of complementary skills developed together.” One of the most important of those skills, which I believe encompasses many others, is the ability to collaborate successfully.
Collaboration & Adaptation: One coin, two sides
If you’ve followed this blog or my newsletters, you’ve undoubtedly heard me talk about the importance of collaborative skills, but let’s break it down further. I’ve identified six broad tools you need to excel at collaboration. Here is how each one can also help you adapt to a fluid new world.
1. Know your strengths (and weaknesses): As job titles disappear (or are routinely invented) and bios become more important than resumes, it’s imperative to know exactly what you offer, why your offering is the best, and why people would want you to pay you for what you’re offering.
2. Find & engage influencers: Now that you’re more likely to create your own job than interview for it, your potential clients, co-workers, and customers are everywhere. Identifying and creating an authentic connection with them is the foundation of today’s successful marketing and sales strategies.
3. Ask the right questions: As I like to say, in our present state of flux, no one is an expert—which means everyone is an expert. It’s not enough to take one workshop or hire the “it” consultant; you need to be asking everyone you meet the big questions that relate to your business and passion.
4. Define goals and meet deadlines: When your customer or client is a moving target and your own services are constantly evolving, you have to be able to quickly and clearly establish goals for all stakeholders, strategize action items, and then build trust by meeting agreed upon deadlines.
5. Communicate successfully: The writing on the wall says that soft skills (largely interpersonal ones) are king in today’s economy. In our super-connected world, you must deeply understand your own communication preferences, be aware what other people hear when you talk, and be comfortable with a variety of communication modes.
6. Learn from experience: The barriers to entry for almost every industry have crumbled in recent years—if there’s not a freemium web serviced doing what you need yet, there will be in a year. That means the new model includes lots of experimentation, and potentially lots of failures. Those who succeed will be able to take them in stride, learn everything possible from them, and then carry those lessons forward to the next experiment.
So, collaboration skills are also adaptability skills. But let’s not forget that collaboration skills are also incredibly valuable in and of themselves. I see dynamic professional collaboration as an important way for self-employed creatives (in particular but not exclusively) to create sustainable businesses where they don’t burn themselves out working alone, in front of a computer, doing five people’s jobs while also balancing a family life.
I’m looking for collaborators
I’ve wanted to help people become better collaborators for a while now. This is the year I get intentional about it (and make it into a self-sustaining business).
I’ll be dedicating my blogging to collaboration, refocusing my website around it, and working to develop a curriculum, eBook, and traveling workshop circuit within the year. I’m jumping into a handful of collaborations myself and creating case studies with successful collaborators around the world.
I’m so excited to get started on all this, but I’m missing one big thing. Collaborators!
I truly believe in the importance of collaboration, of dropping the “me against the world” attitude and asking for help when I need it, so it’s only natural—and necessary—that I find one or more people to join me on this adventure. Might it be you?
Some things I’m looking for in a collaborator: Someone with 5 hours a week they could dedicate to an exciting but unpaid opportunity; someone who likes the idea of running their own business, if they’re not already; someone who loves to help people, talk to people, be around people; someone with expertise in curriculum building and teaching, web design and eCommerce, and/or business financials.
If you’re interested, I’d love to hear from you at miki@mikijohnson.com. And if you would have expected me to email you directly and ask you to collaborate, please get in touch anyway. I could email 100 people I think might be interested, but I’ve learned that my network knows more than I do, so I’m letting it do its thing.
{UPDATE: It’s been called to my attention that I seem to be asking people to do work for free. Well, I am, but with the potential to build a business with me that will eventually pay both (all) of us. I am pretty sure this endeavor won’t make me money for the first year (other work pays my bills); I’m looking for someone who can afford to take that risk with me. The distinction between “collaborators” and “employees” is one of the big ideas my curriculum will tackle, for exactly this reason.}
A few important questions
To help us figure out if we’d make good collaborators, I’m including a short questionnaire below, with my answers. Please include your answers in your email. Looking forward to hearing from you :)
1. What are the most important qualities you can contribute to a project?
I’m good at taking in large amounts of information from different sources, synthesizing it, contextualizing it, streamlining it, and sharing it in a clear way with a specific audience. I’m good at getting people excited about things and helping them move forward on stated goals. I love talking with people and connecting people and do it constantly.
2. What skills or areas are you hoping to develop and grow into this year?
I want to learn how to create curriculum, how to truly teach (not just talk at), how to take people’s understanding from point “a” to point “b” and give them the tools to change their lives based on that shift in thinking. I also want to truly feel that I “own a business,” instead of “freelancing” or “being self-employed.”
3. What are your three preferred forms of communication?
I love speaking face-to-face, which has recently included a lot of Skype calls. I get so much energy from other people, from their excitement, from seeing the gears turning in their head as we talk. While this is my favorite, it can also be exhausting, so I do it less frequently. I also like brief, direct communication that includes email, IM, and text, depending on how urgent the question/request is and how likely the person I’m communicating with is to be at their computer. Finally, I’m a big Facebook fan. I love being able to seamlessly share great things I find online, as well as pictures of food I cook, events I’m attending, and questions for my network.
4. How would you describe the role you most often take in group projects?
I used to be a leader, but today I’d say a facilitator. This can often mean taking the lead, setting a schedule, and getting people organized, but it’s more in the service of the group’s needs and goals than my own vision of how we should proceed. I’m more interested in harnessing collective intelligence than focusing on my own.
This is NOT a photo from my RenCenter class, but it is from a presentation I gave at the Apple Store last year. Can you tell how red my face was because of that silly mic-headset I had to wear? Thank goodness the RenCenter didn't have one of those ;) Photo by Matt Baume.
I taught my first class on social media for small businesses July 18 at the very cool Renaissance Center in San Francisco. (You can sign up for the second class here. )
There were so many great questions, and such a wide range of online experience, that I found myself running out of time before we’d addressed all the information I’d prepared.
For that reason, I promised to put up a post here on my blog, so people could ask specific questions that I will respond to (in the comments, please). Plus, anyone who wasn’t in the class can benefit from the discussion as well :)
Here are the slide presentations for my first class, as well as the second, more advanced class on August 2. If you press “play” on the first one, you’ll be able to listen to an edited version of the class, synched to the slides. If you just want to read them, you can use the “forward” and “backward” arrows. I’m still happy to take questions in the comments of this post.
“You would never walk into a room and, without introducing yourself, assume that everyone wants to hear about your latest greatest thing would you? Most of us will spend time actually listening to people, finding out who they are, and gaining their trust before we try to sell them our AmWay products. Just because it’s technology, that doesn’t give you carte blanche to abuse people with your sales pitches.”
“If you’re a designer, entrepreneur, or creative – you probably haven’t been asked for your resume in a long time. Instead, people Google you – and quickly assess your talents based on your website, portfolio, and social media profiles. Do they resonate with what you’re sharing? Do they identify with your story? Are you even giving them a story to wrap their head around?”
“So what is a brand? A brand is a promise. It is whatever people think, feel, trust, and believe you, your business, or your product will give them if they buy from you. It exists inside people’s minds, out of your reach — yet it’s a big part of why they buy from you.
Logos, colours, fonts and words are simply how you try to convey your brand’s promise to people. Thus a “brand” is a promise and “branding” is all the tangible things you use to express that.”
“Every single organization on the planet knows what they do. You know the products you sell and the services you offer. Some organizations know how they do what they do. What we think makes us better or stand out from our competition. But not many organizations know why they do what they do. And by ‘why’ I don’t mean to make a profit. I mean what’s your purpose, your cause, your belief. Why does your organization exist; why did you get out of bed this morning; and why should anyone care?”
“I went to drinks with the Brilliant Online Publicist one night, and asked her how she did such a good job while everyone else was failing. Was she clairvoyant? No: she just actually READ MY BLOG and knew the kind of things I liked to write about. How did she have time to give so much attention to the needs of a then relatively small website? She told me her secret: she only publicizes to eight blogs. She picked the eight blogs that covered her client’s subject, TV, that she liked the most on a personal level, read them religiously, and only sent them only the content she thought each blog would be into.”
“The edges between work and social life are blurring. People are shifting their social network into their work networks and vice versa—business associates and childhood friends, side by side. We prefer to buy from people that are like us. You like Batman movies? Me too! That may not always be enough to move a sale, but it shows your human dimensions.”
A Tumblr I keep as a way to remember useful social media articles that I generally agree with. This is a simple list of links that I update every couple of days. If you want to dig deeper into my “suggested reading,” check it out.
Resources (not exhaustive, just a few I mentioned)
If you’d like to see what he has to say but can’t join us in Boston, please check in here, where I’ll liveblog his talk and any subsequent discussion.
09:04 PDT
Studied psychology in college. Always been in the supply side of photography.
Started in photojournalism, ran a photojournalism agency, creative director for Getty, then to Ice Storm working with top artists selling large editions of work online, Art+Commerce in NYC, then back to photojournalism with VII.
Gives me perspective of the same landscape but from many different vantage points. Not stuck in silos like happens so often.
09:04 PDT
I’m an optimist: a pessimist who doesn’t know all the fact.
09:05 PDT
Talk: Two parts
1. Philosophical
2. Nitty gritty of actually selling pictures
09:07 PDT
“Life must be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” ~Kierkegaard
This is what we are going through now. Best analogy for us now is most like the invention of the printing press. This technology is changing our relationship with information.
If you look back at everything the printing press has effected in our world, the internet is taking us through a similar transition.
But internet is only part; the very nature of photography is changing.
09:09 PDT
Many of us in photography are still living under the delusion that what we’re working with is still the photograph.
It’s now a fundamentally different medium.
What the photo is built of, how it works, where it’s going is totally different, despite the fact it still looks like a photograph.
The shift from film to pixel, something strange happens: the PHOTOGRAPH is about nailing something down, “fixing” something; the DIGITAL MEDIUM is antithetical to “fixing,” it’s absolutely fluid. Fred Ritchin’s book After Photography has helped me come to understand this.
09:11 PDT
DIGITAL
Once you make the image, there are still an infinite amount of changes you can make to it.
Image is no longer understood as a physical image. It now lives online, and therefore the context is moving constantly. It is NEVER static.
“Quantum photography”: a photograph can exist in completely opposite contexts at the same time (from Fred Ritchin)
Because of this, we have to redefine ourselves and rethink how we use this new tool.
09:14 PDT
Traditionally: Photography used to record something real that happened.
Now: We take pictures as part of the experience of being.
Example: Annual meeting of VII photographers, slightly bored, and a photographer starts taking unflattering photos of colleagues and sharing them on Facebook. And it immediately became a game they were all doing. Even though this was antithetical to the “serious” approach they all have to their professional photography.
09:15 PDT
Photograph as experience: Not necessarily the full-fledged new thing, but it’s a crack in the door that allows us to see what’s coming.
09:16 PDT
Also: Photographers are no longer in the driver seat. They cannot control the way their photographs are used once they are taken and shared.
Note: That sense of control has long been a slightly false illusion.
09:17 PDT
Getting down to the nitty gritty
The photography business IS in decline.
But to me, this is a moment of invention rather than dismay.
09:21 PDT
I. Fees for photography is declining rapidly
~ From stock to editorial and commercial
~ The internet has changed the value of advertising. Photography was before a pyramid which advertising was at the top of.
~ Now, advertising money has been split across millions more distribution points (online)
Our Response: Value comes not just from the image
~ Now, we are stuck on licensing/selling intellectual content by the “unit” (a book, an album, a photograph)
~ However, we are now participating instead in a “streaming culture,” that moves away from the unit
~ Even iTunes music now, you are essentially renting the music, not buying something physical that you own
~ Netflix accounts for 25% of web traffic in the US = streaming
~ Art objects may be the exception to this, the collectors’ market
09:23 PDT
II. Starving to death in the midst of plenty
~ I believe if you have good data, value is there
~ Like the monkey trap: Delicious nut in the bottom of a jar, monkey reaches in and grabs it, can’t remove it’s hand. We’re hanging on to something we think is so precious, but it’s actually killing us. What are we hanging on to? The idea of value being attached to a “unit”
09:27 PDT
Work at VII
~ When arrived, prices for photos were very low and fewer units being bought.
~ Traditionally: thought of ourselves as producing images
~ Now: with VII, the real value is integrity (also the case with many other photographic institutions)
~ In last few years, more than half money generated by VII has come from integrity, not the sale of images
~ Example: Canon sponsorship, want to be associated with the integrity of VII
~ Example: Project celebrating 150 years of Red Cross, who is also built on their integrity, trusted that VII would contribute to that and not put it in any jeopardy
~ Example: Working with MSF
09:34 PDT
Mind Shift
Traditionally photographers have always been “suppliers”: buyer decides how much they want to buy, pay, etc. Can be a very vulnerable position. A closed relationship.
With Canon, Red Cross, MSF, we were partners. They came to us for almost a consultancy on media and communications.
Working with MSF, came with totally open dialogue. They said: We want to reinvent the dialogue on malnutrition. It’s very abstract and in some ways invisible. They asked VII, how can we tell this story visually?
Here we were, MSF and VII, both thinking expansively and as partner. Then what happened was that funding came from LG. They weren’t the client; they were buying into a project we were doing. Rather than selling something to them, we were inviting them to join our partnership.
With each addition of a partner, the project grew. LG not only contributed funding, but also technology.
Then added HC Films as a partner. Stories typically are told chronologically. But with film trailers, it’s a collage, totally non-linear, but you get the story and a call to action (to go see the movie). Experimented with that style of storytelling for the project. One lesson learned: They need to come in early as possible to the project.
09:41 PDT
What’s Interesting about Integrity
It puts the value on the photographer, not the image. This fits with what’s happening in culture. 70% of American’s primary news source is recommendations from friends. Distribution through trust networks. We pay more attention to things recommended by people we trust more.
This is also better for the photographer (or content creator). Readers are less interested in a large brand (like Time Magazine), and more interested in who is saying what. So there is the opportunity for the audience to become acquainted with and trust individual photographers.
VII photographers are now interacting directly with readers, without the mediator of the magazine.
Example: I did a talk a few years ago, and Jim Casper, blogger, asked to record the talk to 150 people. A week later was stunned to find I was addressing this HUGE audience online. Now, the feedback I was getting had found me because they were interested in what I had to stay. Suddenly there were people out there keeping an eye on what I would have to say. Then I gave an article to a friend to put on a blog, which now was coming up on Google searches and went viral. And suddenly, without working on it, I had a brand as “that guy who talks about the changes in photography.
09:43 PDT
It’s better to be small than big
You can be very fluid and mobile in a way a big institution can’t.
Most complaints you hear comes from big institutions who are having trouble paying these huge bills they’ve gotten used to and have a hard time changing to adapt to quickly changing landscape.
Small companies, little overhead, can change rapidly, and don’t have to earn nearly as much to be doing well.
09:45 PDT
We are all on the same plane
People say, well sure, you’re VII, you can call up anyone and get a response.
But there is this huge population of 18-40-years-olds out there, who don’t care about newspapers, but care about the issues. How do I reach them? I’m in exactly the same position as any other photographer out there. Already as an agency, we are boxed in by expectations and our history.
09:47 PDT
The evaporation of competition
10 years ago, to be recognized you had to get your stuff in print, and there were a very finite number of titles where you could do that. It was all about elbowing competition out of the way to get your cover story in those.
Now there are infinite outlets for distribution. Now, the greatest currency is imagination and ideas. So I can talk openly about how VII is approaching the market, and you can come up with your own ideas of how to do that, and we don’t have to be in competition.
No longer a top-down relationship of “I’m telling you this,” you’re making every reader a partner in distribution, information gathering, etc.
09:49 PDT
The Subject
We think about the content producer, the editor, the publisher, the distributor, the reader. But we tend to forget about the subject. One of the things I’m excited about is finding new ways to bring the subject into that relationship structure. They understand the issue better than anyone, right?
09:52 PDT
Transmedia
Old model: Cross-platform. One story that you would put in several different places: book, magazine, exhibition, etc.
Doesn’t work because: Each distribution is different. Transmedia: Apply your story in different ways that are tailored to each media/distribution platform specifically.
Effect: Incredibly engaged audience. People are investigating, inquiring, interacting. Has been very effective in advertising. Each small element builds up a more complete, collaged sense of the product. How can that be applied to media and photography?
Slideshows, interviews with photographers, videos. Fairly traditional at this point.
Engaged an advertising agency to help create the magazine. Had worked with Magnum in Motion and found it very exciting, but also frustrating because of certain limitations.
We wanted to go far beyond that and give lots of space.
Traffic was most important: more readers = more possibility for advertising
But rather than driving traffic to OUR SITE, we created an iFrame based platform that requires a bit of code to be embedded on other websites, where audience already exists, and they get the complete VII magazine.
It’s free for them. BUT: We have complete editorial control. We get the commercial benefit (they can place ads around it, but once they click on the story, traffic counts for VII).
Give away free content: Allows you to bring in more viewers, therefore more partners and sponsors.
Old model: Amount of money you make is linked to how much work you do.
In this model: Money comes from having something interesting to say. Could do ONE great story that blows up and supports you for the year.
My answer: There is no one answer. The “answers” are limitless.
We should not be trying to replace one monolithic structure with another.
Big message: Let go of what you think is precious and valuable. Take risks. Think big. The biggest risk is STANDING STILL. What you learn as you evolve and move forward is of equal value to any money you can earn.
10:04 PDT
Questions
10:07 PDT
Q. This works for VII, can partnerships work for individual photographers also?
A. You can do it on your own, you just have to learn how to do a lot more than take photos (social media, website, etc.). Or you can partner with people to help you with those things. I have this fantasy of new photo agency, a few photographers, plus a PR person, a lawyer, a web designer. Partnership is also great because you can work from trade, not just money.
10:10 PDT
Q. How did it work, partnering between MSF as NGO and LG as commercial entity.
A. One of things MSF did, they held rigidly to their principals, and LG ended up accepting their terms. In part that was because of the inclusion of VII in the partnership. VII provided a promise of serious distribution.
This is not a new problem but people ask it a lot. We have to be very very careful, it’s true, but it’s something we’ve always done. We can’t forget that our role, even when we associate with big brands, which is to bring integrity and honesty to any work that we do.
10:13 PDT
Q. I was interested in the idea of editing a topic across multiple platforms. How do you show something that is linked, without ever repeating yourself?
A. MSF was a great example. First, no single photo story tell the whole story of malnutrition. First there is a website that points to other things, then a traveling exhibition that is very short but takes you to the website to see more. Social media is like the blood that pumps between all these different organs.
10:14 PDT
Q. NY Times has put up pay walls, but Al Jazeera is letting you stream everything for free online. Thoughts about where things are heading, especially as far as monetization?
A. I cannot imagine. And neither can the NY Times. With credit to them, they are experimenting and very publicly.
10:18 PDT
Q. How does this apply to fine art photography?
A. Fine art photography is in a bit of a bubble. I divide fine art into two categories: 1. In museum, all about the idea. (Place of the work in the history of art) 2. In gallery, all about the object. Artists can use the internet to create a brand for themselves, but fundamentally their value is based on a physical object.
10:23 PDT
Q. Does VII Photo engage in the fine art world?
A. Yes, but it’s kind of bizarre, because the content of the photos is often very sad or upsetting. One thing we do is auctioning prints to raise funds for non-profit organizations. One print went for ,000, which is now recorded in the art market, even though it was really an excuse to give money to the non-profit.
10:27 PDT
Q. How do you contend with more competition and constantly lower rates in the advertising realm?
A. I think the answer is in diversifying. Print sales, teaching/lecturing for fees, books. It will take imagination for that, but it is a necessary process right now. When I was working at Art+Commerce with people like Leibovitz and Meisel, I was just stunned at the day rates they were getting. If I’m Dolce&Gabanna and I’m paying that kind of money, it means I really really believe in that work. So one answer is to actually increase your fee, people will assume it is more valuable. In the same vein, never do anything truly for free, without any negotiating, people won’t respect the work.
I’m at Flash Forward Festival in Boston and trying out this new liveblogging widget I put on my blog. Thought I’d take some notes on the talk that’s about to start, with thoughts from Maria Luci and Sean Stone of Wonderful Machine.
11:04 PDT
Branding
Photographic identity: pictures you choose to show, not just what you shoot
Graphic identity: consistent use of logo, type, color, design
11:05 PDT
How do you choose a photographic identity?
1. What do you like to shoot?
2. What you’re good at doing
3. What the market wants from you
Where they overlap = marketable photography
11:13 PDT
Your Website
1. It’s NOT for you (ie it’s not a “best of”)
2. Large images
3. Small galleries (30 is absolute max)
4. Static and intuitive navigation (arrows should stay in same place, for example)
5. Clear branding (doesn’t mean you have to have a logo, just consistent use of type, color, style), and have it on EVERY page
6. Keep all galleries as coherent as possible, logical, industry-recognized names (fyi, no pet pictures under “portraits”). Anything that looks like wedding/lifestyle DO NOT put it anywhere on your commercial/editorial website.
7. Clear and concise URL
8. Email should be first name @ your website.com (no “info@” or “contact@” – less personal and makes you harder to find in their inbox)
9. Easily updateable (update every 3-6 months)
10. Check all spelling and grammar
11. Link to your blog and social media (and that the links work!)
12. If image can be dragged off your site, label metadata with name, copyright, contact info
13. Get outside opinions, ask them to navigate site and give feedback
14. NO MUSIC, no flashy intro (feels dated/unnecessary), no splash page
15. Full-window images are good, but don’t have the site take over the whole screen
16. Make sure your copyright notice is current
11:18 PDT
Print Portfolios
1. Update once a year
2. Should be visually consistent with site, but not a printed out version of web portfolio (if they call in your book, they’ve already seen your website)
3. Book getting called in means a conversation with you, so if you can make it impressive, do it
4. Pick production materials that suit your style and brand
5. Research wide variety of options: Blurb, Asuka, bound prints
11:22 PDT
Leave Behinds
1. Most get thrown away, nothing you can do about it. So do anything you can to stand out.
A. Large, striking image (goal is to get put up on a cubicle wall)
B. A small book, maybe a mini portfolio (too precious to throw away)
3. Helps you understand who is opening, clicking, what they’re interested in, which emails work better, etc.
11:41 PDT
Contact Database
1. Make sure you keep track of who you’ve sent to, when, if they opened, what their interest is, etc.
2. Research dedicated applications
3. Use it to take notes on personal things, way to create connections/relationships
11:47 PDT
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
*Means: Can search engines find you?
1. Art buyers and directors still go straight to Google (ex. “art photographer in boston”)
2. You NEED to come up on first page
3. Need to be able to be found by KEYWORDS not your name
4. Minimize use of Flash (search engines can’t read them, unless they have mirror HTML site, can’t be read on mobile devices)
5. Make sure context-appropriate and keyword-rich content is WRITTEN on your website (needs to be highlightable – not an image – copied by humans and read by web crawlers)
6. Email should be a clickable link (don’t mess with contact forms)
7. Make sure ALL photos have ALT tags: keyword, location, name of photography
8. Linking (into your blog, especially), gives credibility and weight to your site
9. Blog your heart out, but not about random things. Only appropriate and interesting content. Great place for work you love that just doesn’t fit in your portfolio or site. Blog about things interesting to the community in general. Art buyers say they love looking at photographers’ blogs.
11:48 PDT
WORD OF MOUTH
*By far most important part of your marketing. Majority of jobs still come this way, photographers say.
11:49 PDT
Don’t forget to judge the effectiveness of your branding marketing
1. What’s working, what isn’t?
2. Where is web traffic coming from?
3. Where are assignments coming from? (Maybe, why are you getting assignments you DON’T want?)
11:51 PDT
Get Out There!
1. Don’t let unfinished branding/book be an excuse to not just SHOW YOUR WORK
2. If book is 90% done, start showing it
3. Send the emails, make the follow up calls, even though much of the time you won’t hear from them, etc.
4. Your dedication to marketing directly relates to your success as a photographer
Q. Do you have to do blog and website and social media?
A. Most people are not going to be all of those places, so it is important to go to where the people are. However, be sure to keep it relevant to your brand. Blogs are useful mostly as a supplement right now. Some art buyers love blogs, some never look at them.
11:58 PDT
Q. Do list services really work? I’ve heard some of them get immediately deleted, or annoy editors/buyers.
A. We’ve talked to people who say, I get hundreds of emails a day, but that’s my job. The few people who are complaining about list service mass emails don’t seem to be the majority. However, be careful not to over-email them.
12:04 PDT
Q. How effective are portfolio reviews?
A. Last year a photographer asked me to take his work to NYCFotoWorks. I was really impressed with it. It was expensive, but he was from Birmingham, Alabama, but for him to schedule 12 meetings in 2 days in NYC would have been nearly impossible. And the caliber of people who were there was really impressive. I thought it was definitely worth participating and I’m going to be reviewing books there this year. Also ASMP and APA put on these reviews, which are usually free for members. The caliber of reviewers might not be as high but you’ll get lots of great feedback. And they’re a great way to network.
12:09 PDT
Q. I’m a fine art photographer, but I’m starting to think about doing commercial work. Can it negatively effect the value of my fine art work if I become known for doing commercial work?
A. People tend to be more concerned about that than it is actually a problem. We encourage people to brand people toward what they want to be doing. If you are shooting work that is drastically different from your proven portfolio, create a totally different brand with separate website, business cards, etc.
I’m leaving San Francisco soon for a month and a half of travel, which will happily include a stop in Boston, where I’m joining the Future of Photobooks panel discussion during Magenta’s Flash Forward Festival, and in Charlottesville, VA, where I may be organizing a panel for LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph.
As I wrote in my “manifesto” last year: I love photo events, but they kind of suck. And since I’m on my way to these panel discussions, I’m especially interested in how to make sure they don’t suck, either. (FYI, Matchstick has been tabled for the near future, but I’m still dedicated to those principles.)
Can we all agree to stop being this guy?
Ok, so I’m being a little hyperbolic, but I’ve sat through A LOT of panel discussions. When they’re good, they inundate the audience with so much information you leave feeling excited but overwhelmed; when they’re bad, they drag on while inept public speakers give overly vague or insultingly obvious “advice.”
In an attempt to improve on this scenario for the Future of Photobooks discussion, I’ve been brainstorming with FlakPhoto‘s Andy Adams and moderator Stephen Mayes. One of my ideas: Instead of each panelist talking about their own projects and providing disconnected overviews of a topic, we will each present a specific case study that we think exemplifies an important theme in the larger topic. For instance, I’ll talk about Simon Robert’s We English, a great example of how photographers can create a dedicated pool of supporters (and buyers) for a book through early online engagement.
I also love how Andy has been linking a larger online discussion to a real-world talk. For his recent Photo 2.0 discussion at the New York Photo Festival, he created a Facebook event where he asked people to send him discussion topics, which he folded into the talk. Now he’s asking his FlakPhoto Network to chime in about how best to integrate social streams with our Future of Photobooks discussion.
Do you have other ideas about how to improve the panel discussion template? Have you experienced panel discussions that worked really well, and what did they do right? Also, I’m particularly eager to get feedback on the questions below:
1. Discussion with the audience, helpful or annoying?
I’ve had varying degrees of success creating real dialogue between the audience and panelists, but I know that it’s key. Yet I often dread Q&A sessions when I’m in the audience, since “questions” are too often posed by people who just like to hear themselves talk.
2. Background Tweet streams, distracting or useful?
We are considering streaming tweets about our discussion in real-time, so the audience can comment instantaneously and content can easily be shared with those not in attendance. I often find these side conversations distracting, but I have faith we can find a way to make them work.
3. Setting intentions, too touchy feely?
I think it would be helpful to ask the audience, before we start, to take a silent minute and decide what they most want to get out of the talk. Why are they there? What questions do they want answered? That way they can zero in on the information most important to them and have a focused question to ask during Q&A. But, then, I live in San Francisco, where this kind of touchy feely stuff is totally normal ;)
“I’ve Been Thinking” is a new column on Hey Miki, spurred in part by my new bi-weekly newsletter. I’ve always got a few “big ideas” buzzing around my brain, maybe not so fully formed as my usual blog posts, but nagging a way that tells me there’s something important there. I’m hoping if I share them with you, I’ll be able to get to the bottom of them quicker :)
An image from Justin Maxon's project on Chester, PA, where he is getting directly involved in improving the lives of people he photographs.
Although I love all kinds of photography, photojournalism is what keeps me up at night (probably because I studied journalism myself). Dedicated photographers like James Nachtwey and EugeneRichards have proven that photographs can change the tide of history. But I strongly feel that we need to refine and sharpen the way they do that for the current media landscape, which is fragmenting and/or going bankrupt at an alarming rate.
The photojournalism community (including myself) seems stuck on an old story: photographer makes image of something terrible, magazine or newspaper publishes it, people realize how bad things are and send help. Maybe part of you thinks, “How naive,” but I bet there’s another part that remembers that Nachtwey’s Somalia images led to international aid that saved 1.5 million people.
I’ve had many conversations with photographers who simply don’t believe in that model anymore. Although they still strive for fair and balanced coverage, they no longer connect to the concept of “objectivity,” and instead are actively working to change the situations their images highlight. Read more
Communicating through a screen can be hard, but a good story works in any medium. Image from video by Peter Earl McCollough.
I’ve been thinking about storytelling a lot lately. Partly because I recently read If You Want To Write by Barbara Ueland, which kindly nudged me into believing the title of its first chapter: “Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.” And partly because I’ve been reading a lot of inspiring writing, lately (the best parts of which I’ve shared below).
As I wrote in one of my first posts on this blog, “this year I’m determined to make friends with my lurking creative powers.” While I was traveling last summer, that largely meant publicly calling myself a “photographer.” Lately I’m remembering how much I love writing and realizing that I might make a damn good audio producer if I put my mind to it (to which end, I recently bought myself some professional recording gear).
A majority of the books I read are novels, yet I know that “documentary” storytelling will always be my true passion. Ira Glass sums up why in his introduction to The New Kings of Nonfiction, a fantastic collection of inspiring non-fiction pieces he recommends to potential This American Life contributors.
“While this is the golden age of [great nonfiction] reporting and writing, it’s also a golden age for crap journalism. And for some of the most amazing technological advances for stuffing it down your throat. A lot of daily reporting and news ‘commentary’ just reinforces everything we already think about the world. It lacks the sense of discovery, the curiosity, the uncorny, human-size drama that’s part of all these stories. A lot of daily reporting makes the world seem smaller and stupider.
“In that environment, these stories are a kind of beacon. By making stories full of empathy and amusement and the sheer pleasure of discovering the world, these writers reassert the fact that we live in a world where joy and empathy and pleasure are all around us, there for the noticing. They make the world seem like an exciting place to live. I come out of them feeling like a better person — more awake and more aware and more appreciative of everything around me. That’s a hard thing for any kind of writing to accomplish. In times when the media can seem so clueless and beside the point, that’s a great comfort in itself.”
Maybe I forgot for a while how much I love telling stories because modern mass media make our world seem less interesting to me. I’m glad I’ve been reminded by Ira and others that’s not real journalism, at least not the kind I signed up for.
Maybe I’m also scared. Telling people’s stories, especially in a way that holds the attention of the iPhone generation, is one of the hardest things I can imagine myself doing. Malcolm Gladwell explains why in his introduction to What The Dog Saw, a collection of some of his best New Yorker articles.
“The trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell. I say trick but what I really mean is challenge, because it’s a very hard thing to do. Our instinct as humans, after all, is to assume that most things are not interesting. We flip through the channels on the television and reject ten before we settle on one. We go to a bookstore and look at twenty novels before we pick the one we want. We filter and rank and judge. We have to. There’s just too much out there. But if you want to be a writer, you have to fight that instinct every day. Shampoo doesn’t seem interesting? Well, dammit, it must be, and if it isn’t, I have to believe that it will ultimately lead me to something that is.”
I learned very early that the only kind of knowledge worth anything is the kind you get from asking other people questions. This passage from Ira Glass gave me chills because it so exactly describes my own experience.
“I have this experience when I interview someone, if it’s going well and we’re really talking in a serious way, and they’re telling me these very personal things, I fall in love a little. Man, woman, child, any age, any background, I fall in love a little. They’re sharing so much of themselves. If you have half a heart, how can you not?”
If I ever taught a class on how to interview people (which I’d love to do), I might title it, “How to fall in love a little with everyone you meet.” Maybe I’d write this quote from Ueland’s If You Want To Write on the chalkboard the first day.
“[T]he only way to love a person is not, as the stereotyped Christian notion is, to coddle them and bring them soup when they are sick, but by listening to them and seeing and believing in the god, in the poet, in them. For by doing this, you keep the god and the poet alive and make it flourish.”
She is actually talking about how she convinces her students (all non-writers) that they can be good writers. In a way, this blog is a chance to listen to myself, to honor the poet, the storyteller inside me. Now that I’m thinking so much about storytelling, I realize that telling people’s stories is still daunting to me, but teaching people how to tell their own stories is anything but.
For the past several months I’ve been working with Heather Elder, a commercial photographer’s rep in San Francisco, to build her a dynamic blog and online presence. Instead of coming up with “social media marketing strategies,” I helped her define her voice, the personality of her company and her photographers, and what kind of knowledge she could share with the photo community that people would really appreciate. It’s been a great experience for both of us, especially since she’s been having great success.
People ask me a lot what I actually do these days. Being a freelancer, my work includes magazine writing, social media strategy, and curriculum development. But recently, I think I’ve finally found a phrase that sufficiently describes what I do, how I can help people.
I am a personal publishing strategist. In our internet age, everyone is a publisher. From your Tweet Stream to your self-published photo book, you are distributing a huge amount of content every day. It’s important to be honest, consistentcoherent, and transparent in what you publish — so the right people find you and, potentially, hire you. That’s where I can help: by teaching you to listen to yourself with love and to share your story with skill.
Freelance work is full of peaks and valleys. Learn to ride them calmly and you'll stay above water. Photo: Leroy Grannis.
I had this moment a few weeks ago, right before Christmas, where I suddenly felt like things were finally happening. Maybe you know that feeling, when you realize you’d been waiting for something and you didn’t even know it?
Here’s a little time line to help illustrate.
Dec. 8
I had a great introductory consultation with a local photo rep who I’m helping to bolster her online presence.
Dec. 12 Subscribers received the Jan/Feb issue of American Photo Magazine, featuring two of my stories (about Maisie Crow and selling self-published books) — the first I’ve written for the magazine since I stepped down as its Senior Editor two years ago.
Dec. 13 I posted my manifesto about photo events and what we can do to make them not suck so much on the Matchstick Workshops blog.
Dec. 20 The music videoPeter shot and edited in our apartment and starring yours truly went went live on Genero.tv, a site running a contest to become the official video for two David Lynch songs.
Dec. 22 I started a little conversation with Larry Towell on his Kickstarter page about the need for photographers to take social change into their own hands, not just provide the images for it. Happily this gave me a chance to highlight the new online photojournalism funding platform Emphas.is, which I’m not officially affiliated with but have been supporting however I can since I found out about it.
Dec. 23 I also confirmed that I’ll be participating in the Boston-based Flash Forward Festival, helping create an updated version of the Future of Photobooks panel I was part of in October for Flash Forward Festival in Toronto.
See, the thing about being a project-based worker (instead of a salaried employee, which I quit being in April) is that my work is now incredibly cyclical.
The freelance life feels ruled by ups and downs: uncomfortably long stretches where you’re not getting jobs, just plugging away at unglamorous foundation-laying tasks, then sudden bursts of activity that provide an excitement that’s sometimes hard to hold onto for very long. Then another lull while you wait to receive payment for all that work.
I’m a very results-oriented person, so it’s hard to work day after day without much outside feedback and without feeling like I’ve accomplished something really specific. When I’m working in an office, I feel like just finishing the day is an accomplishment; there’s a sense of relief and usefulness I get that is lacking when I work from home.
The events I listed above gave me a lot of positive reinforcement all at once, but they also left me wishing I could put some of those good vibes in a savings account, to withdraw a little at a time through the next months while I’m feeling under-productive and worried about next month’s rent.
In talking to other project-based workers, I find this is a common challenge: How do you keep positive and productive during the lulls? I have thought of a few things that always help me (although motivating to take my own good advice is sometimes the hardest thing). I’d love to hear about any practices you’ve found helpful, too :)
1. Set up a meeting with a trusted adviser
For me this is very often my career coach, but it also might be my therapist, a former boss, a favorite professor, or just an astute friend. Setting up a meeting (or phone call) is a small enough task I can make myself do it even when I’m at my least motivated. And often, I find that just taking that first step makes me feel better, so that I often find I don’t need as much encouragement by the time the meeting happens.
2. Accept that the lulls are natural
The majority of project-based work comes to you when it wants to, not when you need it. And that can suck. You know you’ve been keeping up with your contacts and updating your work regularly and that someone is bound to have a great project any day and think, hey, you’re perfect for it! But when you’re sitting there for a week or two and the phone’s not ringing, it’s so easy to think you’ll never get another job. But if you can listen to your better judgment — you know you’ve been in lulls before and that the kind of work you’ve chosen can take months or years to pay off — you’ll stay calmer and ultimately more productive.
3. Use the time to do those things you “never have time for”
Accepting that there are lulls doesn’t mean you can’t utilize that down time. What I find, though, is that when I’m stressed out about not having enough work, I tend to feel guilty doing anything but sitting in front of my computer making lists of things I should be doing. Instead, lulls are the time to do the things that make you feel good even if your brain doesn’t categorize them as distinctly productive. Go make a photo or paint a painting or write an email to a rarely-seen friend or try a new recipe or organize your craft drawer or go to the library or go for a hike. Taking care of your own mental health will ultimately do so much more for your career than sending one more email to some potential client.
4. Remind yourself of past achievements
You know, like writing a list of them on your blog ;) I hope you’ll forgive me for writing a post that is at least 50 percent self-serving. I needed to remind myself of how good I felt about work a few weeks ago, and getting additional validation by sharing it with everyone who reads my blog is icing on the cake. Being able to help others (I hope) by sharing my own experiences is also a great way to make myself feel better. Perhaps that should be Tip Number 5….
These are my notes from my favorite presentation at the three-day WPO Festival in San Francisco, titled “The San Francisco Photo Scene,” 11/19/2010. I learned a lot about opportunities to get involved with galleries and organizations in San Francisco from this panel. I hope you will too :)
I’ve listened to so many panels at so many photo events, and I often take notes (like those below) — which I never seem to have time to clean up and share with other people. So this time I decided to just publish them as I took them, so I had no excuse not to share them (and thus I hope you’ll forgive their lack of polish).
The List: How the Arts Commission publicizes new opportunities for artists (photographers and other, not just from San Francisco)
Hamburger Eyes: Photography that’s very immediate, very raw, used to be mostly analogue, publish a journal, curate exhibitions, Photo Epicenter (community printing lab)
RayKo Photo Center: Gallery for exhibitions, sometimes have open calls, very approachable, digital labs, studio space, store
PhotoAlliance: Support organization for photo community. Don’t have any members and don’t have any permanent space. Philosophy came out of Bay Area photographic history…Friends of Photography, when folded few years ago, there was a gap in the SF community and within a year PhotoAlliance was formed.
Monthly lecture series: Nine years, over 150 photographers. Start each lecture with an emerging artist (about 15 minutes)
Also host field workshops, exhibitions, portfolio reviews (always second weekend of March)
FotoVision: Bay Area nonprofit, run by Melanie and Ken Light, emphasis on documentary photography and storytelling. Workshops, lectures, blog, book reviews, store.
“[Photographers in SF] seem to share our knowledge, interests. We have a better sense of community than most places in the country and the world. We have something special, and you should revel in it.”
“We are so used to technology, and a sense of the future (being at the tip of Silicon Valley), we sometimes can’t see it. When you look at the history of photography, so much of the recent evolution has been based in technology that has come out of the Bay Area: Adobe, Apple. They started from a sense of curiosity that is unique here.”
Discussion
Meg: Keep your eyes out for calls to artists. Even if you don’t get in the show and you’re rejected, do it over and over again. Don’t assume if you don’t make it one year, you won’t make it another year. Find out how a specific curator wants to be contacted. If it’s not on their website, the best person to call is their assistant. Know about the curator, past shows, the space. Think of it as applying for a job; you have to DO YOUR RESEARCH. We’re curated out for two years [at SFAC] and then moving the next year, so I think really long term. I might decide to work with an artist and not put their work up for five years.
Thom: Curators frequently pass work along to other curators. If you send work to curators once a year, you probably won’t hear anything the first year, second time they might vaguely remember you, third time they take a look at your work, and the fourth time they might want to work with you.
Meg: If you send an email, it should be no more than five sentences: 1) I’m interested in introducing you to my work. 2, 3, 4) Show that you know who the curator/gallery are. 5) Here’s my website, please take a look. I won’t necessarily respond but I will usually click the link. Six months later, if you have a new body of work, send another email (with only three lines!)
Chuck: Think from the point of view of a curator; the worst thing for them is to NOT KNOW about a local artist, so you’re actually doing them a favor. Curators also get called a lot to make nominations or to be on juries, so it’s good for them to know something about you. The roll of the curator at a nonprofit is a public service. These places exist for you and because of you, so don’t be intimidated meeting with them. At Camerawork we have an open-door policy; if you make an appointment, I’ll try to line up 10-15 minutes at least to meet with you. We also take submissions from anyone, not just people from the Bay Area.
Meg: WHAT NOT TO DO: 1) Don’t show up with your portfolio without an appointment. 2) Don’t send a million JPGs. 3) Don’t ask for a free critique of your work. If you want a critique, go to a review; that’s not my job.
Thom: Be sure to build your own community of people who you respect and who you can get genuine feedback from, not just portfolio reviews, etc. I don’t know of a single job I’ve ever gotten not from word of mouth.
Questions
Q: Do you have suggestions for students, how to get involved in the community if you don’t have a portfolio yet? A: Go be an intern, or volunteer at Camerawork, or talk to people at Rayko or Hamburger Eyes about how you can help out. Also learn some admin skills like contracts, registration, cataloging. Ever Gold Gallery was started by local students a few years ago.
Q: Do you need to move to NYC or LA to have a successful career? A: (Meg) A gallerist is never going to ship something they can get in their own backyard. When I work with international artists, I’ll print the work myself and they can pay to have it shipped to them. (RJ) The number one thing that will get you on a gallery wall is having GREAT WORK. (Chuck) There are great communities all over, not just the major cities. (Meg) Watch for definitions on the calls for artists’. We do one every year that’s only local artists. (Thom) Doesn’t matter where you’re from, but you should be from SOMEWHERE. (Meg) If you’re submitting to a show and only have five images, don’t try to show the breadth of your work, show one cohesive BODY OF WORK.
I recently contributed a post to Seshu Badrinath‘s Tiffinbox blog, with a quick wrap-up of the panel I participated in at the Flash Forward Festival in Toronto. Hope you don’t mind if I share it here, too.
From left: Darius Himes, Jason Fulford, Alec Soth, me, Andy Adams, and Stephen Mayes, talking photobooks in Toronto. Thanks to Larissa Leclair of the Indie Photobook Library for the photo.
With so many photographers taking publishing into their own hands these days, there seem to be a lot of questions and more than a few misperceptions about photobook publishing floating around.
I never would have considered myself an expert in photobooks until this February when I collaborated with Andy Adams of FlakPhoto to create the Future of Photobooks project, a month-long, cross-blog discussion about how photobooks would be made, read, and sold in the future.
Over the course of the project, more than 50 photo professionals and publishers wrote posts on their own blogs about where they saw photobooks heading. I read them all, organizing them and pulling out highlights for three final discussions hosted by guest bloggers. I felt at times like the blogosphere was giving me my own private class in photobook publishing :)
With a project like that, my greatest reward was getting to redistribute that knowledge back to the community, connecting with so many new people, and seeing people get excited about the discussions. Personally I have also been asked to speak publicly about phtoobooks, most recently on a panel at the inaugural Flash Forward Festival in Toronto — along with highly respected colleagues Alec Soth, Stephen Mayes, Darius Himes, Jason Fulford, and Andy Adams.
A number of important questions were raised during that discussion, ones I thought it would be helpful to share with anyone thinking about publishing a book or seeking a publisher for one. I’ve listed three big ideas below, but these are only starting points. It would be great to hear what you think about these, since the future of photobooks, now more than ever, truly is ours to shape.
1. Don’t expect your photobook to make money.
Aside from the very rare exception (things with large general appeal like Full Moon and A Child is Born) photobooks rarely turn a profit — in fact, many fail to break even. Darius Himes, founder of the non-profit Radius Books, pointed this out in his post for Future of Photobooks and again in Toronto. Photographers looking to have a book published often expect the same experience of lucky novelists, who receive an advance check before the book is even written. Photobooks are a completely different model. Novels cost a tiny fraction of a photobook to produce, and they have a much wider audience. Photographers (aside from Annie Leibovitz maybe) DO NOT get advances, and even top photographers with several books in publication admit they haven’t made any money from them.
2. Decide what you want to accomplish with your book.
Once you get over the idea that your book is going to make you any money, do you still want to make it? If so, why? Do you want it to be a culmination of a specific project, essentially a hand-held exhibition? Then you might need to work with a publisher that can help you find professional designers and editors. Or you could consider working with a printer directly, and producing a small editioned run of artist books. If you want your images to achieve a specific outcome, to be seen by lots of people or a few of the right people, partnering with a non-profit organization is a good option. Or you might even set aside the idea of a physical book for a viral video that can travel much further. If you simply want to be able to share your images in a tangible way, perhaps with friends and family or editors and clients, then a self-published book is great. All of these decisions and more will depend on your ultimate goal for your book — so figure that out first.
3. Be prepared to provide your own capital and, ideally, audience.
During our discussion, several photographers expressed chagrin that they had been asked to make an initial investment in order to publish their book with a publishing house. Although that may seem unfair, Darius and Jason both said that finding funding for a book was an important first step for them as publishers — as non-profits they worked together with the photographer to do that, but it’s not uncommon for publishers to ask the photographers to do it themselves. Funding may be the area that new technology can have the most effect on, through online pledge drive software like Kickstarter, or pre-sales through social media as with Lay Flat and Publication. And even when the actual funding isn’t provided online, that can still be an important place to build support and audience for a book project. For instance, look at Phil Toledano’s Days With My Father, which drew over 1 million hits as a website and allowed Phil to approach publishers with 15,000 emails from people who said they would buy the book in hard copy. Or Simon Roberts, who enlisted his fellow Brits through his blog, asking for ideas for photos to include in his We English book, thus creating an automatic base of support: Fans who were involved in the project were more likely to buy the book and share it with friends.
What steps are you taking to publish your photography book? If you are working on a book project and want to share it, please comment below :)
I’ve been helping out with NYCFotoWorks for the past few months, and one thing I agreed with Marc and Josh about immediately was the need to help photographers get the most out of the portfolio review, Oct. 28-30 in NYC. I’ve encountered a lot of doubt from photographers about how to approach reviews and a lot of misconceptions about what to expect. So here are a few tips; and for the veterans in the audience, I hope you won’t mind a little refresher.
There are two things that I suggest photographers consider before any sit-down with a respected member of the industry: What do you want to get from this meeting, and what do they want to get from it?
Below are some responses from the other side: editors, reps, and gallerists attending the NYCFotoWorks portfolio review. The variety of their preferences demonstrates the importance of doing your research before a meeting. And, conveniently illustrating my above point, almost all of them want the photographer to be able to explain what they want from the review, not just their work.
For additional insights from reviewers, check out this video, too.
1. What kind of questions should photographers be ready to answer? Or is it more important they have their own questions?
Marianne Butler – Freelance photo editor: Where do you live? How long have you been shooting? Who have you been working for? Any personal projects you are working on? What do you like to shoot most? It’s also important to have background info on specific photos in their book: assignment or personal work? How much time with the subject? What else did you shoot that day? If digital work was done on the photo, and did you do it yourself? They should ask some questions of the person reviewing their portfolio to find out what they are looking for and to see where they might fit in. If they are meeting a photo editor for a specific publication, it’s helpful to have some knowledge of the magazine and the sort of photography they run.
Leslie DelaVega – Essence Magazine: It’s more important for me that they have their own questions. Usually the questions I do ask are pretty basic: where they’ve worked, gone to school, etc.
Michele Hadlow – Forbes Magazine: I like hearing a little bit about some of the images I will see; jobs or personal shots that were particularly challenging or enjoyable. I don’t mind getting questions but nobody should feel like they have to ask anything.
Jocelyn Miller – Conde Nast Traveler: They should be prepared to tell the reviewer about the specific assignments in their portfolios. I want to hear the stories behind the pictures. I want to know who they’ve worked for in the past, who they’re working for now, and their goals for the future. They should also take the opportunity to ask questions they have of the editors.
Karen O’Donnell – People Magazine: I would ask what kind of assignments they are looking to shoot, what are their main interests photo-wise, and what kind of editorial work they would like to be working on. They should have their own questions, too.
Travis Ruse -Inc. Magazine: It’s more important that they have their own questions.
Marcel Saba – Redux Pictures: They really should have their own questions to ask, and hopefully a lot of them.
Kristina Snyder – Photo agent: Yes on both. I usually open a review with a question: What are you trying to get out of this visit? Why are you here paying money to see me? Do you want to know how to improve your book? Judgement of overall quality of the work? Feedback on look of your book? They should also be able to answer questions about the kind of work they’re looking for: editorial or advertising? People often don’t know how to answer that. Also, too many photographers come expecting to be discovered and aren’t prepared to take criticism.
Wendy Tiefenbacher -Kiplinger’s Magazine: I like to look at their work. I’m most interested in any recently finished personal or professional projects and any work they’ve done for other magazines or clients. Any questions I would ask them would be based on looking at their photography, though I do like to know where someone lives.
Catherine Wyatt – ClampArt: Any photographer should be able to give the basics of how they create their work: film vs. digital, type of print and paper, ideal display size, edition, etc. They should also expect to answer questions about the subject matter displayed in the works. On the other hand, if the photographer has specific questions to ask, the review session is the perfect time for those. It really depends on what the artist is trying to get out of the session. Does he/she want an opinion about the work and the direction it should take or does he/she feel very strongly about the work and is now interested in finding representation?
2. What are you most interested in: hearing specific story pitches, seeing a wide range of work, or getting to know the photographer personally?
Marianne Butler: I really just want to learn about their work, find out what they like to shoot, and get a feel for what working with them might be like. I like to hear what they’ve been working on lately because they may have a project or some unpublished work that could be right for something I’m editing/assigning. I don’t really like hard sales pitches.
Leslie DelaVega: I’m more interested in the body of work, however specific or wide. I am a proponent of seeing that photographers have a wide range of interests.
Michele Hadlow: I would say getting to know a photographer is what I am most interested in. A wide range of work is nice, as well, so I can get an idea of what type of projects he/she would be a good fit for. Pitches are not helpful at all right now, I am afraid.
Jocelyn Miller: Seeing a wide range of travel-related work. I want to know about their upcoming trips and also get to know the photographer personally.
Karen O’Donnell: Seeing a wide range of work.
Travis Ruse: Seeing work that is: a. relevant to Inc. b. inspiring to me but not necessarily perfect for Inc. c. that the photographer has a personality that could work with our subjects.
Marcel Saba: It is all the above for me. Since we are an agency and act as agents at the same time, we like to see a variety of work to determine the photographer’s strength, style, and composition.
Kristina Snyder: I try to figure out where this person is in their career: a working photographer or just coming out of the gate? And what kind of photographer are they? Do they only shoot paid projects or do they shoot personal work a lot, too. I work with all kinds, so I want to know what their psychology is, their expectations, what they aspire to be.
Wendy Tiefenbacher: I don’t like seeing a wide range of work. Though I don’t mind looking at someone’s portraits AND a personal project. Or still lifes and portraits. Or a book of still lifes, portraits, and a photo essay. I’m not usually interested in someone’s personal history or getting to “know them” unless they were a circus performer or astronaut in a previous life. I would be very interested in someone pitching a story BUT ONLY if they were familiar with my magazine and were pitching a story related to what we do. Not just some random story that has nothing to do with my magazine (which happens to be personal finance).
Catherine Wyatt: I am most interested in being of some help. Every reviewer goes to a portfolio viewing hoping to see something new, striking, dazzling, and sell-able. Of course, it is very rare for a one-time meeting to turn into a greatly successful gallery/artist relationship. Since this is the case, it is important that the reviewer sees a photographer’s best work and gets to know the photographer on a personal level. I want to know the meaning and story behind your pieces, but I don’t want it to take up the whole time we have together. I want to see a series of photographs but not so many that I don’t have time to talk to you about the pieces. A good balance of hearing about the work, looking at the work, and talking about the work is best.
3. What is the best way for a photographer to follow-up with you after a review and how often should they be in touch?
Marianne Butler: After a meeting, an email or a promo card/note is nice. Photo editors all feel differently about how often to be in touch, so this is just me, of course: I get turned off by “checking in” emails. If there’s a new website, or they’ve completed a new project that they think I should see, then sending another email is cool. Other than that, if I don’t already have a working relationship with a photographer, a few times a year is enough.
Leslie DelaVega: Email is best.
Michele Hadlow: Email. It will be hit or miss depending on when the email lands in my box, but an email a week or so after our meeting and a reminder down the road if you have a new project or website update that I should see.
Jocelyn Miller: I want to know when they are traveling; they should email me a month before their trips.
Karen O’Donnell: I think email is the best.
Travis Ruse: Mailed promos are good. Email is also ok. They should stay in touch if I encourage it. Send new work that is appropriate for Inc.
Marcel Saba: Stay in touch by email and send updates of their new work.
Kristina Snyder: I get so many emails from all over world. If I want to see what you’re doing, email is OK, but just a couple photos, lo-res, of recent work that is hopefully relevant to what I do. That means doing research on the kind of artists I work with. And don’t expect me to answer every email.
Wendy Tiefenbacher: If I like someone’s work I always give them my business card and, as long as they don’t pester me, I like them to stay in touch. To be perfectly honest – New Yorkers may have less of a chance of being hired by me than someone from Cleveland or Texas or Kansas. Some more out of the way place where it’s much harder to find a good local photographer. But you never know…
Catherine Wyatt: The best way to follow up is either by a quick email or by mailing a thank you note. Some reviewers will prefer physical cards; others prefer digital, so it’s up to the photographer. I also like knowing where a photographer’s career is going. If you are included in a group show or have a solo show coming up, please let me know. The same goes for any new works you have in progress or book deals in the works. Of course, I do not want a weekly update on what you are shooting now, but rather just the headlines.
Still have questions?
Leave them in the comments below and I’ll be sure to address them in the video interviews with reviewers and photographers that I’ll be conducting during the review.
I’ve been helping out recently with the NYCFotoWorks portfolio review, Oct. 28-30 at Sandbox in NYC. There are a lot of portfolio reviews out there, so when Marc Asnin and Joshua Herman approached me about helping get the word out for NYCFW, I had one big question: How is this any different from all the other portfolio reviews?
As editor/publisher/blogger, I receive dozens of press releases every day, each one claiming that its event is brand new, one-of-a-kind, and oh so innovative. Guess what — they’re not.
My suggestion for how to distinguish NYCFotoWorks was to help photographers get the most out of the event by emphasizing education — Marc and Josh were definitely on the same page.
Not surprisingly, when I started emailing colleagues to ask for their help spreading the word, some of those same concerns came back to me. Jonathan Worth, as always a vanguard of efficiency and online sharing, suggested I post our email exchange for the general benefit.
Jonathan’s thoughts
“How do you feel about the pricing on this? I’ve been pretty outspoken about these events in the past, especially where they’re clearly a cynical business ruse. This one looks massive.
“I think the list of contributors includes some awesome people (some of my faves), but also a few that I’d have to be paid to sit through a meeting with — a couple who I think, frankly, should be shot, not sought out for advice.”
My response
“I have the same feeling about portfolio reviews, and when Marc and Josh came to me about helping with it, I specifically wanted to know what made this one different…other than a very impressive list of reviewers. The thing we were on the same page about was this idea of educating photographers who attend about how to get the most out of the experience.
“It really is amazing how many artists can’t talk about their work well or have done no research on the person they’re meeting with. So I’m sending out feedback from the reviewers about what they’re looking for before the photographers get there. Then I’m filming interviews with reviewers and participating photographers that can be shared with the whole photographic community.
“Any list of reviewers is going to be a little hit or miss. The nice thing about NYCFotoWorks is that photographers get to choose between five and twenty-four reviewers they want to see. Of course, it’s first come first served, but the chances a photographer would get stuck with a bunch of people they don’t like are slim.
“As for the price: It’s no more than it would cost to FedEx your book to that many people, or the cost of your time to set up that many high-profile meetings in two days. I’ve talked with Marc, the founder, a lot. Yes this is in part a new business venture for him and Josh, but he’s also genuinely dedicated to education and using his wide experience and network to help other photographers. He’s doing what more photographers should be doing: seeking out new revenue streams so he can do more of what he really loves, teaching photography to young kids.”
What I’ve been working on
Above is a short video of Marc, talking about his ideas for the NYCFW Portfolio Review. I produced this, with help from the talented Simon Biswas, because I wanted people to get to know the person behind this project. Marc doesn’t pretend to be anything but what he is — a Brooklyn boy, born and raised, and damn proud of it — which is why his message of being yourself with editors rings true.
I have also collected reviewers responses, which I think will be really helpful to anyone attending any portfolio review. You can see all the responses here.
Your thoughts?
I’d be happy to hear what people think about the value of portfolio reviews. What should and shouldn’t you expect to get out of them? And what about reviewers: Do you honestly find new people to work with from these events? What are the biggest problems with them?
