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Author Topic: Re: Recent Professional Works 2  (Read 1205548 times)

Chris Barrett

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1760 on: August 30, 2015, 11:30:12 am »

Ha!  Although Mike has a point, your comment was dead on, Slobodan.  I truly despise how prudish America is.

drmike

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1761 on: August 30, 2015, 11:39:47 am »

I thought we were talking business not Art Galleries. There's a local professional photographer who does family/weddings and also boudoir work and she makes darned sure the marketing of the two never meet :) To my naive surprise the boudoir work is a very strong income stream.
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Chris Livsey

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1762 on: August 30, 2015, 12:07:13 pm »

Ha!  Although Mike has a point, your comment was dead on, Slobodan.  I truly despise how prudish America is.

I wouldn't call our work  IT dept. prudish but paranoid definitely. A sure way to get an otherwise useful site black listed, and that is UK.
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MichaelEzra

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1763 on: August 30, 2015, 09:03:47 pm »

James,

Thank you for every word. Its the best wakeup call and I needed it!

This is how I started photography, I worked 60 hours almost every weekend, Friday night through Monday morning. Time in darkroom flew at different speed. I lived on bread, cranberry juice, feta cheese and oxygen from the ac in a window. This was the best time of my life, I was driven and obscessed and could not think of anything else but creating images. The only limitation was lack of understanding how; and the only solution was to just figure it out, relentlessly. This was the time when passion for creating did not let my mind be occupied  with paying carelful attention to obstacles and navigating around them, I could not even see any. I was sufficiently financed through the day job of IT architect and lived in ideallistic world of night time in the darkroom.

I always easily obsessed with the creative process, such as image making, but this time it is about creating a business. There is quite a difference in being a business man which implies, as you pointed out,  seeking out customers and making them successful, vs. idealistic exploration of creative freedom. I need to try to figure this out.

Thank you for pointing out the important stuff and for inspiration!

- michael
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1764 on: August 31, 2015, 12:53:52 am »

...There is quite a difference in being a business man...

The beauty of being a professional photographer, a business man, is that you would be able to devote as much as 10% of your time to photography ;)

drmike

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1765 on: August 31, 2015, 02:43:38 am »

I think that BC's summary is very good and applies beyond photography. You care about what the client cares about, you try to lead him along the right paths that perhaps he hasn't seen - but that's what you did in IT anyway.

What no-one seems to have said explicitly is that you have to listen, listen to the client, then try and understand what he really means. But again you know this from your IT work. You listen and you make it obvious that you have listened and that you really, really want to understand.

The life of the self employed is precarious; be ready for months where you earn what you'd hope to earn in a week, or less. I'm not sure if you have ever been self employed but it can be hard, very hard especially if you have family and debts.

Mike

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drmike

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1766 on: August 31, 2015, 04:11:42 am »

Yep Ashley your images convinced me that I'd employ you :) They are very impressive and I imagine do their job well in recruiting clients.

Just out of interest what is the blue line I see towards the left edge of an image if I click on it rather than use the arrows to navigate?
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drmike

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1767 on: August 31, 2015, 04:59:30 am »

Hah! Point well made.

No it's not a visited link (I think) as it's a single line running top to bottom about a quarter in from the left edge. It's there if I click and hold on the mouse so I can't screen grab to show you. This is in chrome in Windows. It hardly matters but it might bug you as you are clearly something of a perfectionist.
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Chris Livsey

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1768 on: August 31, 2015, 05:44:30 am »

Chrome on Mac does it but clicking to the LHS of the line links to "tearsheets".
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drmike

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1769 on: August 31, 2015, 05:47:50 am »

Here too. Not the most intuitive action :)
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1770 on: August 31, 2015, 10:03:22 am »

... Keep in mind no successful image maker I know (unless they work in a catalog house) spends the majority of their time with a camera in their grasp...

Isn't that what I said?

Rob C

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1771 on: August 31, 2015, 11:23:46 am »

Michael,

Well, there's clearly no single, guaranteed route to making a go of it, and if there were, everybody would be crowding everybody else off the pavements. Oh, they already do that without a route map!

It also depends on where you live, how old you are, and how much capital you have to play with before you are forced to think again. You may not have to think again, but unless you are twenty, you should factor that in.

I can't decide if you intend to stay with girls or be a general practitioner. In my personal experience in Scotland, I saw four very-long-established general commercial studios go tits up before I left in '81. I guess I lasted as long as I did because I was not general: I became a sort of local go-to guy in my genre; that was enough to keep the various kites flying. But even then, I had to slide across genres, from fashion to calendars, because of factors totally out of my control.

Cooter's right when he says to disregard the negative sayers; had I listened I'd now have been a mechanical engineer (retired) living in a small house in the Scottish sticks, because it would be cheaper. Instead of cool memories and wonderful (to me) experiences in many countries I'd have to live now with regret at lack of guts.

But, I think that you'd be missing a hell of a lot if you didn't get an assisting job first with somebody already high up the ladder. Probably hard to find, but worth every bit of the effort.

Business sense. I don't believe you can do much about that – like a good eye, I think it's an instinctive, genetic gift. I may or may not have had an eye, but I sure as hell pulled some dumb business decisions!

I also think you have to know early on if you want to grow and become a 'studio brand' with lots of other people on the payroll or not. I never did: I wanted to make a good life for myself and the family, doing what I still love today, and not to be an employer. Basically, I wasn't money-driven; I was photography-driven. It isn't as irrelevant a choice as some may imagine – it's a basic mindset and you have to know what you want and who/what you are, or the fights will always be with yourself.

Rob C

Justinr

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1772 on: September 07, 2015, 06:15:32 pm »

And I'd say: "Thanks, but not thanks" - as I'm more than happy to employ myself.
However, if you would like me to produce and then provide you with some images for you to use instead, then I'd be more than happy to talk - as that is normally all that anyone actually wants to pay me for ;)

As for you seeing a 'blue line' around the images - I assume you are viewing the site using Firefox, as opposed to Safari (or viewing it on an iPad or iPhone) - as the Links / Active Links / Visited Links should be grey - but for some reason Firefox shows it as blue.  

It was an absolute bane when I used to put websites together, every browser would display the sites differently, and they still do which is one reason why everything is 'white space' nowadays, to minimize such problems, and consequently the web is becoming a boring and predictable visual wasteland.
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MichaelEzra

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1773 on: September 07, 2015, 11:45:12 pm »

James,

An immersive image:) After all, this is what this thread is about.

Thank you for the positive drive. That interview was interesting, I actually never knew his story.

You are right, I do need to concur my scariest opponent first - myself.

Rob,

The business sense likely is the primary challenge for me:) I realize that what I would actually enjoy doing entirely, is my artwork, transforming it into sculpture.
Although I know how to create nudes I am yet to figure out how make a living out of just that.
Given that we just recently bought a new house I must give this path a thoughtful assessment.

So, looking at a broader scope, I started giving this some structure, identifying the primary lines of business, then breaking that down by customer segment, then by products / services. Following recommendations in this thread, I will separate the family photos from the nudes that will be moved to a new site.

Art - michaelezra.com
   Collectors
      Open/limited editions of nudes and landscapes
      Portfolios with 5-10 prints
   Retail
      Books / kickstarter / publishers
      Merchandise with artwork images

Education - michaelezra.com
   Photographers
      Master classes and workshops
      Online tutorials

Personal services - TimelessMe.com
   Families
      Group and individual portraits of family members on location or studio
      Family heirlooms
      Events
      Wedding services
      Gift Certificates
   Kids
      Dance studios
      Taekwondo / sports clubs
      Kids with pets
      Kids at play
      Studio portraits
   Horses & pets
      Portraits with owners
      Just horses / pets
   Actors and wannabes
      Headshots
      Model portfolios

Personal services, nude - website3
   Sculptural nudes
   Sentimental nudes

Business services - website4
   Corporate
      Landscapes for interior decoration
      Headshots for professionals
      Interior photography
   Small businesses
      Landscapes for interior decoration
      Advertising-related services:
         Product photography
         Interior photography
   Yoga studios
      Studio or location sessions
      Selected nudes for decoration
   Artists
      Reproduction photography of paintings & sculptures
      PDF portfolios
   Stock photography
      Lifestyle
      Abstracts
      Nudes
      Nature
      Concepts
      Objects
   Brands
      Client's projects

Is this a kind of approach that makes business sense?
Where do the agencies fit in?
How does one approach big brands?


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Justinr

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Re: Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1774 on: September 08, 2015, 03:35:26 am »

The beauty of being a professional photographer, a business man, is that you would be able to devote as much as 10% of your time to photography ;)

The trouble is trying to justify to customers why they should pay you for the remaining 90%!
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Rob C

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Re: Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1775 on: September 08, 2015, 02:35:57 pm »

The trouble is trying to justify to customers why they should pay you for the remaining 90%!




The man has a very good point.

It could be developed, and printed out for when it is helpful to remind a client of the reality of the business model.

Rob C

MichaelEzra

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1776 on: September 08, 2015, 02:53:40 pm »

Although it sounds like an extremely inefficient process, but I guess there is more to it. Seems that image maker / photographer in such case is wearing many hats.

In the modern IT world, if you have an idea, and can design a supporting system, and need to go live asap, one can utilize cloud platforms to scale globally in an agile fashion.
Is there an equivalent solution in photography business? How can one pilot him/her self into photo business overnight?
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jduncan

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1777 on: September 10, 2015, 12:05:39 pm »

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MichaelEzra

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1778 on: September 11, 2015, 12:49:46 am »

Thanks again for responding to my questions.

Here is the photo reportage just compiled into a slide show from photographs taken on 9/11 in New York:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOiQsznsYr8

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Ken R

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Re: Recent Professional Works 2
« Reply #1779 on: September 11, 2015, 09:50:37 am »

Here are to recent shots I made while working as a Unit Stills Photographer on a feature film. Used the 5D3 and 70-200 f2.8L IS inside a blimp. 100% Natural light. I have done this type of work for years and love it. More and more it has become a much higher % of my work. Union rates are not bad.
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