Organize a Pop Up Studio for Your Photography Business
Photography: Grant Kessler Apple has used pop up outlets to sell iPads to conference goers. Chefs have used them to serve diners at temporary restaurants. But can one-off studio shoots, open to anyone who wants to drop by, work for photographers? The answer depends on how you plan them, what you offer — and what...
Watermarking Presents Photographers with Difficult Dilemmas
Image courtesy: WinWatermark “If a photographer fails to protect their work via a copyright symbol or Trade Dress Registration, it is considered open source on the web,” says a spokesman for WinWatermark, specialized software that helps photographers to protect their photos. “If you publish your images and do not watermark them, they become free for...
To Sell Prints on Demand, First Create the Demand
For print-on-demand art site, Fine Art America, the challenge lies in creating the demand, not making the prints. If you’re looking to sell your photographic art online, there’s no shortage of options. From Zazzle and Cafepress to RedBubble and even Etsy and Ebay, artists, including photographers, are spoilt for choice. All of those choices though...
As Fotolia Buys Wilogo, Does Spec Work Beat Microstock?
Since Getty bought iStock in 2006 for $50 million, we’ve been used to seeing stock giants snapping up their smaller rivals. At least one of those smaller rivals, though, is also expanding through acquisition. Fotolia, one of the leading microstock sites, has now paid an undisclosed sum for Wilogo, a crowdsourced design firm. Fotolia isn’t...
Take a Class to Become an Assistant
Photography: Gripnerd Assistantships can pave the way to a career in photography but do you need to complete a boot camp just to help a photographer? Photographers looking to take their first steps as professionals often use assistantships to build experience. Helping working professionals by carrying equipment, setting up lights or even taking shots as...
Win Regular Photography Jobs from Wedding Planners
Photography: Kanaka Menehune Brides aren’t the only people who hire wedding photographers. Wedding planners choose them too — and they need them more often than couples. Business owners are always told that it’s easier to hold onto a client than to try land a new one, but that’s not much help for wedding photographers. Clients...
When You Need a Photography Consultant
When corporations want to grow, they hire business consultants to show them the way forward. When photography businesses want to grow, they hire creative consultants to show off their images. When photography businesses run into trouble, their owners often feel that there’s nowhere to turn. They know they can produce great pictures. They know that...
Fun Photography Courses You’ve Never Considered
Photography courses are meant to improve technique, encourage creativity, and often to increase earnings. These courses might not broaden your professional services but they’re fun, challenging — and you haven’t thought of them. Wedding photographers might take classes on posing brides and shooting details. Portrait photographers will learn about expression and lighting, and there’s no...
Judge a Photographer By His Book Covers
Photography: Zach Cordner Zach Cordner decided that he needed to look like a wooly mammoth. A large beard wasn’t a requirement of the job but flying up to Wasilla to photograph Levi Johnston, the father of Sarah Palin’s grandchild, was going to mean spending a couple of days trekking through cold Alaskan woods shooting the...
iPhone Photos That Sell
It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer that makes the picture. That’s what photographers are always told — and what the successful ones always say — and it’s particularly true for anyone trying to take pictures on an iPhone. Although the latest model, with its new optics and 8 megapixel lens is a big improvement...
Become a Photographer Without Giving up the Day Job
Photography: Renata Ramsini Renata Ramsini’s website describes her in four different ways. She’s an “efficiency-lover,” a “photographer,” a “policy wonk” and a “law student.” That’s not the order in which her life has played out however. Like many photography enthusiasts, when it came time to pick a profession it never occurred to Ramsini to pick up...
Microstock Turns to Quality, Not Quantity
As top microstock figures complain about growing competition, rising saturation and declining returns per image, microstock companies are starting to push back. Warnings from figures as big as Yuri Arcurs, even as he rolls out a three-year study program, are leading sites to think about how they can best serve both their contributors, whom they...
