Lessons

Lesson Info

Getting Your Work Noticed

Getting your work noticed this issue some brainstorming ideas of how you guys can get your work out there not necessarily for publication but just for all kinds of different in different areas with your photography. So um social media that's probably one of the biggest ways to do this I made sure I'm connected with different social media sites with other artists and photographers, instagram, twitter, deviant art five hundred p x and so on. I spent a lot of time on other social sites and always pointed people back to my fans page of my website so um I felt this was the reason I did this was because my I felt that the fan page like my on facebook that was my my strongest presence there was a lot of interaction going on on there it was I was always on their anyways just for other just for whatever just to waste my life on facebook but you know so because I was already there, you know notification would pop up it is just be instant I know some you know somebody's said something or question...

s or whatever it is. So when I really started pushing my work, I made sure that you know any other site that I was on even on my website itself I would lead them to those two places because like I said, it was a strongest place for people to see my work it was where I was at most often what was updated the most so you know what say like deviant art or wherever there would always be links created to go right back to the fan page and I'm a lot of times people would ask me like how are you getting these many fans and wires three people on your page how come my pages and moving and this and that part of that is because you really need to interact a lot back with people who are are watching your work and sometimes I get really busy and stuff and I can't even respond to half the comments are there but I tried my best especially when I'm asking questions I'll you know, reach out to people who fall in my work alas certain things I want to get their opinions not just your work but ways to seek out um other people's advice you know even if you don't think it's going to help it's still a good idea too to interact with other people and so this is what gets them wanting to talk about you on dh you know, gets your work out there a lot more easier and a lot more quicker blogging I have not blogged much at all I've tried it a few times I tried it on tumbler and then I had a built in blogger on my site blogging is, I think, really important for like wedding photographers and people who, you know, take pictures of babies and do that kind of thing even pets, but there is a there is becoming it's becoming more and more common for fashion bloggers now, it's it's really popular and so what you guys can do is like I'm planning to start a blawg I won't say exactly what because I don't know when that's gonna happen, but with my launch of my new website, we're going to be implementing a block and they're soon and the block will consist more of photos and it is writing because I just do not want to sit there and write a story I just think a lot of people don't even really read half of what's on there, they just want to see the pretty pictures. So with fashion it's a little bit on the fence type of thing, but blogging is good and it's good for adding, um like keywords in there and creating them as forget the word like a link um for google to find certain wording in there. So you know, that's another really good thing to be doing it's great for blogging, creative shoots so, you know, showing things that from behind the scenes perspective, people like to see that a lot I don't post that a lot, but it is a good idea to take them and not too many not not too often because after a while it can get boring but say you know you've created a really strong shoot sometimes people they really curious of what you've done and then a lot of times when they see behind the scenes shot in there like what that's where it was taken it's kind of throws them back and it helps people get inspired and like again, same thing it just lets people you know, create more buzz around you and they start to talk more about you and your work so that's um that's that so another way of getting your work notices art galleries once you feel like you've built up a strong body of work, it doesn't hurt to try to contact some local galleries or faraway galleries you know, even sometimes like like from where I live there's there's these little coffee shops that people you know we'll go to end a lot of times there's a lot of art pieces on the wall out of photography put up there and you don't know it was coming in there. You have no idea who's coming in there, so I've already reached out to this one coffee shop downtown in my city and it is right by the art the major art gallery and I'm going to be I'm planning to get some canvases set up and be put in there with my information because it's just a good way to reach out to an audience that is not always necessarily on social media because sometimes also where you know you get you know like discovered if you want to call it but you know there's somebody somebody would just come through there and my discovery your work they could be connected to someone in new york you don't know so it's a really good idea to try toe try to get into those kind of places and it doesn't have to be a serious of images either like you could when you're creating gallery portrait you could do things like this create a family of images or you can create single pieces like how I did with um you know like the rose petal um image or like the girl with the red the red cloth and the doves like you could create single images like that just remember that when you're creating a gallery when you create pieces for a gallery that you are on ly putting your best work there don't just be like well this is nice I'm going to do this one if you don't feel like you have enough wait don't do it wait a year create some more strong work and you know then sit back and really think about what you want to get printed up on canvas or whatever and then you can approach approach the little coffee shops first. You know, you get your stuff out that way and then you can approach the galleries. There's. Other little things that happened not just a gallery, but there is an actual sometimes events in your city there's like an art event. Art buyers will come in and look for, um, new talent where they want to find some pieces to show case somewhere else. So you got to keep your eye open for that kind of thing. It's it's really good opportunity if you can find it. Um, yeah. So going, teo oh, the other thing with this is the art gallery. Part is just to be aware of costs facility associated with art galleries. You know the space. Sometimes you need to fork up money for that, you have to print the canvas and that can add up a lot of really quickly canvas prints could be really high unless you can get a good deal with a local or far off. Um, you know, business there is also, well, it's in the past. It's in the bonus material there are I started working with smugmug and I would refer them a lot because they have some amazing like they take care of everything for you and they could create canvases like this and in the bonus material there will be actually a discount code if you sign up, you get a certain percentage off for a year's subscription and they can take care of your prints for you so that's even another option instead of worrying about, um trying to find somebody locally, they take care of shipping and everything. So say you had some gonna count with that you could create your pieces and they will ship it off for you. You can settle that so but that that'll be more information in that after so, um connect with other artists online. This is basically the same thing as I mentioned earlier it's great for meeting new people, making new contacts and expanding your network. You know, with social media now it's it's pretty easy tio to kind of get yourself out there and do that you don't be afraid of getting yourself out there and with other artists online what I mean by that is not necessarily always photographers I'm talking about make up artist talking about any other art form painters, people who draw people who are on animation really strong website for that is devi in art I've been on there a long time it's not it's, not it's like busy and as much traffic comes to there it's not like I have a huge following on there but in deviant art there is a lot of there's so many different art forms of people who are on there and it's all those a lot of inspiration you could find people paint there's digital art there's like musicians there's everything every art form there's just a whole mixture of artist sculptures people who make those little many like food I don't know what they're called but so there's just so much little things on there that you guys can come look at it it's nice to connect with artists on there because they sometimes have information that you might be looking for a lot of times artists on there if you guys ever seen the posting you know, fan art like that one person who felt like that tattoo on their whole arm of one of my photos I thought that was crazy but um there's there's people who will take my work and create a painting or they'll sketch it and all that well a lot of them are coming from deviant art this is where they you know there there and there heading over to facebook because I've linked them that way on dh you know it's it's been really good I've done a little bit of collaborations here and there with some of those artists and it's good because you inspire each other it's nice to reach out to non photographers because photography is just one art form you don't have to be bound to that you khun always you know, expand that work with other people and talk with them asked them where they get inspiration ask painters how are there how they're finding things and cass getting your work notice especially anything with this is that I have a lot of photographers who follow my work a lot of artists follow my work is because I'm on all those artists sites right? Yeah um seek out photography competitions this is um there's a lot that happened I can't name any right at the moment but there's ones like say like new york city they have this major one I think once here it's like a new artist award show or contest I can't remember the name sorry but you can just google it I'm sure and find it but there's so many photography competition out there and once you feel you have a solid body of work that's again it's just important toe let your work you know really build itself up before you start entering into things like that make sure you're feeling confident and certain things before you just threw your work out there you only always want to show your best to everybody out there so um try to find out where they are, where there are upcoming competitions and how to submit to them just like in a magazine which I'll go over that after sometimes there's great prizes and really good exposure there is like they give you like sometimes surprises air like brand new camera brand new like mac computer you know photoshopped software just there's all kinds of things out there for the artists and there's there's also sometimes there's bursaries sometimes there's like funds to like you know get some online training for something it just depends on what the contest is for and what what it's about and photography competitions are are all over all over the world and even just within your community sometimes it's like a five hundred dollars cash prize sometimes that's ten grand to go and study at the art institute of just pencil lookinto are competitions are photography competitions once you feel confident enough to do that and network network network if possible collaborate with many artists often and like I said already I don't mean shooting with other photographers so I mean different makeup artist models designers and so on it's about getting yourself and your work out there and doing it through many different ways even ways that I have not mentioned so is there anything that you guys I have thought of doing that I haven't brought up anything love to hear if you guys have ideas out there as well jump in the chat room and share your ideas because this is something that I don't know that there's any one person that has all the answers to get your work noticed there's so many different ways so many ways I was just wondering going back to social media would you say that there is any, uh, benefit to having a website? If you have a, uh facebook page, should you have both? Yeah, yeah, I think you should have both for sure you should have both because the thing is me is like for just for my own experiences like my audience there is like the social media audience and then there's a potential clients audience and so when there's potential clients and people looking up my work, they just want to see they don't want to see all these comments they don't want to see like how many likes the photo got? They just want to see my work and so I have to make sure that what I'm putting on my website is very specific I can't like put everything on there so there's a photo like something really crazy and artistic and strange on my fan page, I probably won't put that on my my website because that's a whole different um audience is looking at my work these air potential clients, magazine people, you know, people who want me to come fly overto wherever to come do it, you know, commercial job for them, they need to see that I could do that and I don't they don't want to be scrolling down the wall like they'll just they don't care that to them doesn't matter. It's social media is where getting your work noticed is through most of the other photographers and building your your experience absolute yeah couple great suggestions from folks online we have dug on design who says contact local theater groups, we find a lot of talent that way many contacts because I work with local theater community and then allison mas beck's local colleges are also good looking for students were doing makeup, hair or even fashion design. Yeah, you never worked with with students from college or did you? I haven't, but actually where in back home there is ah, college there, and every year the students will to pass, you know, to move on to the next level, they have to create like, a fantasy character and things like that, and so they have that that kind of thing going on, but I haven't really ever done done much of that with students, but I know other photographers do collaborate with, um yeah, that's, great that's really good. Um, we've got a question to me. Oh yeah, no that's, good love, one from eighty far in england who says when trying to get notes in the fashion industry, what steps to take to separate your conceptual and portrait work from your fashion works that they're not put off I noticed you have all your portfolios on your website together. So do you feel that you need to separate your work at all or targeted specific markets or do you just keep it all in one place and anyone who's interested? Can you? Yeah, I do keep it all in one place, but I show less of that like that dreamy stuff there is still some of that is on my website, but more of the work I put up there like I I will really want to make sure that I published work is up there. More of the fashion work is up there. The clean beauty shots are up there because yep, like when the client comes onto your site near portfolio that way they want to see if you can really pull off those looks they don't, you know it's not about you know, you know, the little fairy photos and stuff like that I love doing that kind of thing, but it's important to separate that to an extent but still have it mixed in with your work, you don't have to keep it totally separated. One other folks are one other person in chatham says what about flicker or I would add five hundred p x or any of the other enhance any of those other kind of photo social networking sites? Do you good have any experience have any thoughts on those I have a five hundred px flickr I've tried to get into so many times and I just I don't know I don't know I just can't get into it I know a lot of people are on there a lot of photographers um my five hundred px is much, much more of a strong um you know market for me I guess if you want to call it so um yeah there's those sites as well any kind of artist site there's so many popping up right now I get emails like every so often from these new sights coming up there like we want to showcase your work and because it's helping they're bringing artists who have following in and it will bring more people to the site that's kind of how five hundred px got started and they're from toronto where I'm from but yeah, and so I'm yeah I don't know it just it depends like their soul money ideas out there there's so many other ways this was just kind of like the way I won't even say that I've done because I don't blogger and you know, there's certain things I don't always do but it's a it's a common the common way people mostly get their work going out there so I love it so one more question may be what do you think ismm or I guess more important getting your work notice by fans or by industry professionals I mean because there's kind of that balance between like fans of the ones who are going to share your work and make sure that it's out there but the industry professionals of the ones that are going teo give you money for shooting pictures eso how do you balance that and who do you target too and or do you yeah, um there's okay, so with that the funny thing is because of social media somebody's always connected to someone else, right? So even though I have these people following my work and you know they may not ever pay me for a photo shoot or do anything like that there friend of a friend of a friend of a friend is owner of this magazine and this is how a lot of things have come along my way they would have never seen me unless somebody else three people ago shared my work on their page and so social media is more stronger than people think. It's ah it's a good way of getting yourself out there and there's always just like I said, everything is connected somehow and that's a lot of where mostly of what my paid work has come from because they saw my work being shared through somebody who would never hire me for anything so that's that yeah, maybe like one more question on this before we move on to the next well topic, I noticed alison ma's back is from issues and upcoming senior in high school, you have any thoughts specifically for younger folks who are looking to do this? Do you have any thoughts on things to get started early on? Would you do it any differently, or do you think age matters at all when you're getting started? Because conversely, there could also be issues with starting with people thinking it's too late for them to start? You have any thoughts on that? Yeah, okay. I don't think it's ever too late to do anything if you're still living and breathing goal for it. I don't. You can go for it. Go for it. I started late and I do at the same time, I feel like I wish I would have smartened up earlier. I was for years. I just sort of not knowing where I was going. I was getting into this. I was getting into that as taken, of course, dropping out of it. And I was just sort of a mess in all over the place, so I give praise to people who start really young good for them it gives getsem established really early but at the same time I know there's people who are like in their fifties and they're starting photography and they're doing just great they're getting published work I don't think that matters and that shouldn't even matter where you're from either you know just look where I I live in a city and like it's not a fashion forward place it all and I've got my work out there good amount so yep love let's get going okay okay the last thing I think for this one is build a strong an impactful portfolio and I said that through the whole thing in the end it should be about your work your style what feelings and message you want to bring to your audience and to remember to continually add new work and remove older work so even if you feel you have made progress I mean sorry if you feel like you've made progress in a certain area um even if you, uh you know there's a photo that's like a few years old I still have pieces on my website that are still old but they're so strong they just they're they're good like people still love certain images like, say, the girl with the rose petals that's old now but I keep that on my site because it's a really strong piece but otherwise it's really good to make sure and tear down and build up because people come to your site or your port wherever your portfolio is being it's hosted and they come often there's people who returned back and to see you know they're looking for a new fresh work and if they come back and they keep saying the same thing, they just don't bother anymore and they forget you so it's always good to keep up dating your work I even mean when I'm looking at other artists or certain photographers who I really admire every couple of months I go back and just want to see what they've done and I've even done it I've seen that they haven't updated nothing months have gone by, I just give up on book like I take the bookmark out I'm like, well, I don't what was going on with them so and they're just like for buttons so always keep this stuff fresh so people could keep you worrying in the rates and yeah that's um I fall for that. Is there any more questions and risk and and like you're saying taking out old things would you advocate maybe having a space on your website that was like archived images like if someone comes back soon like why did you take down this this shoot that we did? I was trying to show somebody you know, from modeling agency something that we shot together three years ago and it's not on your site well advocate kind of like having it tucked away and in an area where people could still see it if they went looking for it more now no, I don't I get rid of stuff, I don't want it up there, and usually they know it's up to them to keep their own images that I've given them for them theirself so I don't think it's up to me to be I mean, I'm just down from blog's I understand for clients and like, maybe they want to come back like a wedding, you know, shooting, they want to look back at it a year later, something but when it's from what I'm doing, no, I just take things out and clean it up and kind of getting you stuff up there, so no, and then somebody else has something how often you'll rotate them? Yeah, yeah, so I won't see a certain number but don't like it's really important to not like if you guys wanna go to my website, you'll see there is a good amount on their think maybe around I don't even know maybe forty images or fifty I don't know, but I have book one book, too our portfolio? I don't know, it just changed. I can't remember the titles. I have to go back and look, but and then I have published now I haven't separated that way, so everything has its own little section. And if you were to take all the photos all together, it would be quite a lot. But everything is in its own like division. Um, I would say keep it, keep it as minimal as you can, like try to put all your strong stuff up there, but don't overload it because one if the site are pages taking too long to little people believe they don't stay on the side at all. They're like, oh, my god, I do what I'm like this is okay, goodbye, exit out. I don't care and just make sure that it doesn't take too long for your images toe load and you don't have too much to look at because one there's just too much to look at. You know you. Sometimes you go into a store and there's just too much of a selection and you don't even know when you're sitting there for way too long trying to figure out what you need or what you want to get you end up just leaving. That happens to me. I just I'm like, okay, I got to get out. This is too much going on. Well, it's the same thing, you know, online on on on certain websites, so keep it minimal. Just always have your strongest stuff up there. Um, I was yeah, like even even when I studied graphic design, my teachers told me that it wasn't even photography was about my my projects and stuff that I created, they tell you like even if you only have five good things just put the five things that they don't try to put fillers in cause it's confusing tow the person watching and looking at your work. Yep. Anybody else? Crystal, uh, for high fashion would you suggest in that case, separating those two? Because they are so different? Human on live on the web site. Sorry. Yeah. Compared to story high fashion compared to yeah, compared to this more like, you know, thie special it's more like fine art, conceptual kind of work and it's for galleries. Yeah, and then you have a high fashion, which is totally different. Yeah, and you know what? You know how you could do it that way if you still want to keep showing that kind of work, so the thing with that is that clients are drawn to that like people who you know magazines that want your work and stuff they are drawn to that kind of like more artistic side but when it comes down to what they want from you it ends up being more clean and that kind of thing so I would suggest if you're just soul cutthroat right in the middle of my work kind of blends together like a kind of wines and I would suggest putting you know your galleries up and saying this is conceptual work, personal work, fashion work, beauty work sometimes the other way of doing it his book one book tio published or whatever and the way that that goes is that it's booked two is your older work book one is the latest work that's a common thing but it just feel this just whatever you feel comfortable doing separating your work if you want to blend it together by category or by by the time so people can see how your work improved it just yeah, okay. And do you give any thought to the placement of the images within the individual book itself like the flow from one image to another or, you know, do you think about like colors? Contrast ing with each other, mixing black and white and color like within an individual book how how much thought and what are you thinking about when you order the images you mean like a printed book arguing just on website? Yeah, you know what? That's kind of good question, because I've been all over the place with that, like on my website it's a lot of like I'll go back and I'll organize the photos and then after I'm like there's two like I'll say, I'll put all the ethereal photos in a gallery, my websites different now the websites just been relaunched, but now everything is sort of blended into ah, like a collage it's the new style of portfolios, it's not so much of the scroll thing like people were happy or they're having, like, scrolling across and you're seeing serious, I mean, just going by now, it's like all sort of in tiles and I tried to keep them, like flowing good, but the thing is, is that at the same time, if you do, if you put too much like a theory or pictures together and all of a sudden it's high fashion, it becomes a little bit, I don't know, I just find it like people are going to be a bored looking at the same style over and over, and then all of a sudden it's this and then it's like that over and over, so I would say mix it up, but not too much like, keep, like, you know, like, if I had these three pictures on a gallery, I would try to keep the three girls together but then move into something a little different, then go back to something like that just so it kind of flows easily. Yeah, it's just I've been, you know, I've done different ways, but I think I like it the the way I've explained it, and then a question for nicole, renee and actually also for me personally, because I'm literally in the middle, like, each night I'm working on putting together a portfolio website for the first time, and I we are both having that, like, just a devil of a time like editing our image is picking the ones that we love picking the best ones to go in there. Do you have any suggestions or thoughts on how to be your own best critic? Um, I would say, you know, two this is the way I do things is how I narrow stuff down, this is where I do it, so I don't know how other people kind of, um said it, but I I will go through my work, I will narrow it down, I'll pick like just like, say, for example, when I'm even calling calling through photos, I will pick a certain set of images, and then I just try to get away from those pictures for a few days. I don't even want to look at them or anything, because it's it's just just refreshes your brain and kind of gives you and you look at it. You might, you know, do you think, wow, this is good, this is good. Then you come back here like why'd I pick that it's, good to stop and just pull away, come back and narrow them down again, and kind of keep doing it that way. So if you're looking to build report like I mean sorry, created gallery online, I would, I would suggest doing it that way, just kind of taking little breaks in between and not just throwing everything up there, because you might change your mind after and think what I pulls that or where is that up? But yeah.