livebooks blog

This is a question I get a lot from readers. Do I need to move to LA or New York or other big fashion market to have a successful fashion photography career?

In the past I have offered a diplomatic answer because I know the question is coming from a place of apprehension, and I hate to be one of those arrogant asses who throw out an answer that will potentially change someone’s life without being sensitive to their context. But the question came up again in reverse form this week via email: Do I need to stay in Los Angeles to start my career, because I’m really over this city. So it’s time to address the question definitively. The short answer is, yes.

If your goal is put out a shingle and make a nice living as a local fashion photographer, then there are alternatives to moving to a big market. But if you’re looking for myriad opportunities to turn your talent and training into a career, you must immerse yourself in an epicenter of the industry. I say this with conviction because, had I moved back home instead of staying in Los Angeles after I graduated from school, my career would be a shadow of what it became.

Big city big opportunities for you and thousands of your peers
Aside from the obvious factors of logistics, knowing no one, and not knowing the terrain, moving to a city where there is an advertising or fashion/celebrity market is intimidating because you’re not the only one trying to make it. In fact there are a lot of you trying to make it, and you’re all probably pretty good at making pictures. These are your comrades and your competition.

Despite what you’re probably thinking, jumping into a pool with so much good talent is one of the healthiest things you can do for your career. Not only will you be exposed to styles and methods that you’ve never imagined, you will lose sleep trying to sort out how to compete. And that is where the magic lies: in the Darwinian epiphanies where you conjure an idea that’s better than the next guy’s. That’s one kind of creative motivation that can only come from the pressure of friendly competition.

More entry-level job opportunities in your field
Big markets, especially L.A. and New York, have a lot of of entry-level job positions in your field. This is valuable for making a buck, staying abreast of the industry gossip, getting exposed to the names of the industry players, and generally understanding the vibe of the career you’ve chosen. These jobs also carry little expectation of a long-term commitment. As soon as anyone who works for me starts exhibiting flawless performance, I know they’re about to depart for the next level of their life. You should go into these jobs with the same attitude: expecting to leave as soon as you’ve learned all you can, or you’ve saved enough money, or you’ve built your portfolio enough to start showing — whatever the reason, have an exit strategy. But, like I say in my book, never forget where you come from either. If you move past the people you work with, never lord your success over them. Remember you would be nothing without them.

More opportunities to shoot for money
I am forever grateful for the vast headshot market in Los Angeles. During lean times when I was seriously questioning how I was going to pay my bills, I was saved by the actor community. Headshots are not the most glamorous of shooting jobs, but it is a market you can break into fairly quickly and cheaply. All you need is a nice location with good natural light and a camera. Do a good job with one actor and they will recommend you to their friends. Clients usually pay in cash on the day of the shoot and the gig is a short term commitment. Best of all, it doesn’t adversely affect your reputation like shooting an ad campaign for an Alpaca porn DVD. (I’m not admitting anything here.)

Masters and heroes live in the big markets
Large markets tend to attract the heavy weights of the industry. Not only will you probably get to meet one of your heroes, you will interact with all kinds of editors, art directors, and writers who are masters of what they do. You can’t beat this type of exposure. Not only for your career, but for your sensibility as well. I can write volumes of what it’s like on the other side of magazine and agency doors, but you’ll never really feel it until you experience it for yourself.

If you can, transition slowly
When I first moved to L.A. from San Francisco, I was visiting model agencies trying to expand my model testing career on the side while going to school. It certainly made it easier to get my ass kicked in the real world when I could always return to the safety of school. I highly recommend this path, it lessens the shock of the transition. If you are out of school or not going to attend school, the transition to a new city can be tough. But once you get through the first year of emotional tumult, you’ll be acclimated and focused. That’s when the fun begins. Be smart, always keep in mind why you moved, and keep your eyes open — golden opportunities rarely present themselves the way you expect them to.

I recently attended a presentation by a young photojournalist of her photo story on debutante society. Looking at her images, it was obvious she had established an extraordinary trust relationship with her subjects, resulting in a compelling body of work. About half way through the presentation, a few subtle, chiding remarks about the debutantes began to surface from the audience. Soon after, a quiet solidarity against the culture depicted in the pictures took hold, inevitably influencing the way the photos were viewed.

Now the audience was utilizing the presented images, a window to another world, to pass judgment en masse on the people in the photographs. The presenter became noticeably uncomfortable, undoubtedly because the trust relationship that she earned to get access to the debutante world suddenly seemed exploitative — antithetical to journalists sensibilities. Directly admonishing an audience always seems dangerous, like smoking a cigarette while filling the gas tank of your car. And it feels even riskier when you’re coming up through the ranks trying to build your career. Ultimately the photographer did bravely address the audience’s disdain in her comments — a difficult but admirable decision.

There is no more lonely place in the world than the stage. Audiences are amorphous, intimidating beings that are difficult to predict. When they adopt a mood that is contrary to the perspective you’re trying to present, it’s all too easy to fall into league with the prevailing opinion. DO NOT. Fight the good fight and defend your position. That’s more easily written than practiced, but having publicly hung myself to twist in the wind more than once, I don’t regret a single time that I opposed the people to whom I was speaking.

About six months ago I was asked by the Aperture Foundation to defend my not-so-popular position on piracy. Half the audience in the full auditorium was positively hostile towards me. I could feel myself shrinking in fear as the critical voices got more vociferous and the “yas” and “that’s rights” became more numerous. The only reason I was able to hold my ground during the hail storm of harshness is because I decided what my opinion was way before I took the stage.

It also helps to remember, audiences are incredibly reactive and short sighted. Think of how many movies you’ve seen that you initially thought were crap, only to realize you liked them after pondering them for a few days. A negative reaction from an audience is not a death knell for your career, it’s just a story to tell people after a few months have passed. Understanding who you are and what you believe before you go on stage is imperative. Because there is no worse time to sort out your philosophy than when you’re standing under the spotlight, facing an angry mob.

When blogs swipe your images, you might get more than traffic coming back to you. ©Lou Lesko

For the last year and a half I’ve been enthusiastically pushing photographers to let their images get swiped for non-advertising online use as long as there is an attribution link back to their site. I anticipate blogs rapidly becoming the main sources for news online, so the more exposure blogs swiping your images get, the more exposure your work will get via attribution. What I didn’t consider initially is the potential guilt-by-association factor if your image is used with a bogus or inflammatory blog post.

There has been a rise in criticism of high profile blogs posting stories that violate expected ethical considerations in the past few months. Popular blogs that have risen to the top through marketing and hiring good writers who are assumed to adhere to a journalistic code of ethics. However, unless stated specifically, there may be no ethics involved at all. And to be fair, even blogs that do subscribe to an ethics code can get it wrong. Blogging is still a young medium — these issues will eventually be resolved but right now they’re still being worked out.

My concern is that a swipe of one of my images could result in my name being associated with a blog post with which I have moral or ethical conflict. I know I can’t have have it both ways. I can’t pray for link exposure and then get pissy when I get it because I don’t like the blog that gave it to me. That’s like lobbying National Geographic for a foreign photo assignment in Russia, then pouting because they send you in the dead of winter.

What are your thoughts? If a blog whose content you disagree with ran an image of yours with a highly contentious story, but you got a lot of exposure, would you be upset, maybe even contact them to have your image removed? Or would you be thrilled to have your online presence elevated because of the huge click-through rate to your site?

In a move that could portend worse to come for advertising photography, Omnicom Group , the world’s largest advertising agency holding company, is tightening its belt. The huge corporation has chosen to enforce its sequential liability language, which states that ad agencies acting as agents for their clients are not liable for production payment unless they’ve been paid by their client. That means the Acme Ad Agency, representing Tropicana Orange Juice does not have to pay me, the photographer, until they receive money from Tropicana. If I don’t agree to those terms, then I can take a hike.

The move is seen as a measure to mitigate debt exposure to advertising clients like GM who are on tenuous financial footing. What this means for photographers is, if you work with an Omnicom agency, you will no longer be getting an advance check to produce the job. Adding insult to injury, Omnicom agencies are going to ask photographers to sign a contract that states they don’t have to pay the photographer for 65 to 70 days after the completion of the shoot, and that’s only if they’ve been paid by the client.

Sequential liability has been part of ad agency contracts for two decades, but it was meant to protect the agency from getting left holding the bill with large media buys if the client went out of business. At the production level, the sequential liability language was formerly removed or ignored.

Swiftest to respond to this action were the commercial production houses. Project budgets to produce a television spot run into the millions of dollars. Without the ability get a 50% advance on the budget, the production houses would have to secure massive credit lines that just aren’t available in the current economic climate. Photographers are going to have an even more difficult time because their financial resources are not as extensive as a commercial production company.

Yet all may not be lost. Last week, in the United Kingdom an industry backlash about the practice resulted in Omnicom UK suspending the sequential liability rules after engaging in talks with the Advertising Producers Association.

The question is, what’s going to happen here? Will photographers protest and force Omnicom to reconsider? Could you operate without getting an advance check? What are photographers’ options?

*UPDATE*
I spoke to Pat Sloan from Omnicom who said “There has been no policy change, we have reminded agencies of what the policy is.”  As I mentioned previously this policy is to protect Omnicom from being exposed to debt liability should a company that one of their agencies is representing not pay their bill.  Amy Rivera from DDB LA wrote me saying that “We have great clients that pay the advance every time and it is still our practice to secure advances.”

Communication is the best policy here. Ask, if there is going to be an advance available.  Read up on the financial solvency of the client.  Have a very clear understanding about how much production debt you can carry and for how long.  As Tricia Scott pointed out “There aren’t too many photographers who can upfront this type of money (and shouldn’t!). Imagine 3 jobs happening at the same time, upfronting it all.”

©Lou Lesko

When I made my first TV pitch, I was less than a nobody in Hollywood. I was able to get a meeting with a TV somebody only through the help of another huge Hollywood somebody. The Bravo Channel producer, who had a reputation for deciding the fate of a project based entirely on the pitch meeting, granted me ten minutes of her time. The advice I received from other industry veterans was to practice my spiel, tighten it up, and practice it again. Producers at this level hear so many pitches, I would only have sixty seconds to grab her attention. In spite of the confidence I gained from hours of practice, at the end of the meeting I had two puddles in my jeans pockets where the sweat dripping from my armpits had pooled. My pitch propelled the project to the next level, but it ultimately didn’t make it. I didn’t mind. I had learned one of the most valuable lessons of my career. Being able to deliver an effective pitch is as important to your business as knowing how to make an image.

Photography is an industry of cold callers and connection hounds. Even with a solid introduction to a heavy weight advertising person from your brother’s, cousin’s, ex-girlfriend’s cell mate, you need to make a solid, swift impression with your first contact. A pitch. Doing so requires that you take a few minutes to prepare.

Email is the easiest. You can write, read, edit, read, and edit some more. Yes. Edit that much. Also, if you’re thinking about employing a grammar school business letter model, they are totally outmoded. Consider the following:

Dear Super Heavyweight Person who could get me a high-paying gig,

I’d like to introduce myself, my name is Lou Lesko. As you may have heard from our mutual friend, Miki Johnson, I am calling on you in the hopes of setting up a meeting to show you my portfolio. I’ve been a photographer for 25 years with extensive experience in the fashion and lifestyle genres. I feel confident that I would be a valuable consideration for any future jobs at your agency, and I am ready to meet you at your earliest convenience at a location of your choosing.

Contrast that to:

Dear Super Heavyweight Person who could get me a high-paying gig,

Our mutual friend, Miki Johnson, let me know that it would not be a problem to contact you to set a meeting to show you my portfolio. I appreciate you offering your time. Please let me know the earliest date and a location that is convenient for you; I will make myself available. In the meantime, some of my work and my career background can be found on:
http://loulesko.com

The first example isn’t bad, but it’s about as dry as a Saltine cracker on a hungover morning. The second one is a bit more in your face, but it identifies in the first sentence the individual we both know and the reason why I’m exploiting the friendship. The rest shows that I’m reasonably polite and accommodating, but if the reader skipped reading the rest of the email, they would still know exactly what I want and why I feel justified in asking. And that is the pitch.

Leaving a voicemail requires the same pitch-style communication. Articulate why you’re calling in the first sentence, followed immediately by your contact info. A person you don’t know that’s listening to your message will not want to drudge through a long drawn out treatise about “how great it is you know the same person and, wow, we’re both in the same industry and, boy, I could sure use a shot at that new account your agency just won.” Conversely that first sentence can’t be a brash assault on the recipient’s voicemail, and should have a dash of your personality. Unless you’re an ass. Then fake it.

In pitch situations, when I’m a bit nervous, I have a dreadful propensity to mumble. To avoid doing that, I leave a few practice messages on my own voicemail. I know it sounds a bit like a high school boy practicing a speech to get a date with a girl, but it is totally effective in polishing my pitch.

The same tactics will also prepare you for the contingency of (oh my gosh) the person picking up the phone when you call. I’m not saying you should be as disengaged as you would if you were leave a voicemail, but having taken the time practice will put you a in a great position to start a great conversation that could lead to more work.

One last tip. If you’re sending a web link in an email, test it first by sending the email to yourself. One of the most common mistakes is to place a period at the end of a link because it closes a sentence like this: And you can see my articles on http://loulesko.com/articles.

The period at the end of the sentence will make the link fail. That’s why in my example above I put the link on its own line without any closing punctuation.

That’s my pitch, thanks for listening.

Business concepts are only intimidating if you let them be. The photo industry is stereotyped as being business averse. Ironically we’re better suited for it than most people. We look outside of the box to solve photographic problems every second of every day. So why should we fail to apply the same thought process when it comes to business issues? All we need to do is learn a bit more about that other world. Not unlike we do when we research an assignment we’re about to shoot.

A few months ago I wrote a comprehensive piece about the current economic situation and how it relates to photographers. In it I touch on an explanation about where the economic crisis came from. But this video makes my simple explanation look like hieroglyphics requiring a Rosetta Stone. If you transact anything more complicated than buying a beer, stop what your doing and watch this video (by Jonathan Jarvis, as part of his thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design).

What a difference a day — and 175 million pissed-off users — can make. Yesterday, news circulated that Facebook had changed its Terms of Use to say that even if you delete your account, Facebook still had the right to use the content you uploaded. Facebook would access this content from an archive of your account that is created as soon as you sign up for the first time. This morning Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg backed down from his Terms of Use change amid a torrent of outrage from just about everyone who has a voice on the internet. However, the intent behind Mr. Zuckerberg’s terms change may not be as nefarious as you think.

When you sign up for a Facebook account you’re asked to agree to a set of terms governing you and Facebook. It’s that long scrolling text with the I Agree button at the bottom of it. The part of that agreement governing usage of your content, including your photography, gives Facebook the right to do whatever they want with your images. The reason they need such broad rights is so you can share your photos with your friends. Sharing images on Facebook is not like going to someone’s house and showing your portfolio. Facebook is displaying your content in an electronic venue that they own so your friends can have access to it. They can’t do that without permission from you.

The reason for the much maligned changes to the Terms of Use was to keep the links to your shared material active even after you scram from your account. Otherwise your friends are left with a bunch of blank holes where your pictures once existed on their accounts.

The truth about sharing anything on the internet is, once you do, it’s gone. You will have lost control over its web existence forever. It is futile to argue the fairness of this because the web is the web, and to partake it its vast reach and freedom, you must accept the previously stated truth. Kara Swisher has made this point in more detail and I agree with her completely, especially as it regards social networks such as Facebook.

This doesn’t mean that Mr. Zuckerberg is without guilt. Facebook has a dreadful record for disrespecting its users privacy. Indeed, Mr. Zuckerberg’s attempt to change the Terms of Use this last time did not give users who signed up under the original terms an opportunity to opt out and cancel their accounts before the change took place. They just woke up and found themselves bound by a new set of rules. That’s just wrong.

So does this mean you should be an anti-social artists and pray that your friends will email you to say hello since they can’t poke you on Facebook? Oh, heck no. That’s like avoiding a pub to keep from drinking too much. Be smart and you’ll have a lovely time without incurring a hangover. Recognize that anything you place on a social network is no longer yours once you post it. And if you have images that you want share with your friend list, but want to keep away from the Facebook fiefdom, then try something like: “To check out more of my work, please come to my exhibit this weekend or visit my web site at the following URL.”

Every situation you walk into requires a little scrutiny so you can protect yourself and your interests — especially as a photographer. This event at Facebook should not serve as a deterrent from all the fabulous things social networks have to offer. It should serve as the shot of heightened awareness you get after you dodge a bullet. Now you know better. Act appropriately.

Shepard Fairey’s image below has achieved legendary status as one of the most recognizable icons of the now historic Barack Obama presidential campaign. The image above it may become as legendary for being the foundation of a successful copyright infringement suit against one of the most recognizable icons of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. The case for infringement is very strong, but that’s not why I’m pissed off at Shepard Fairey.

Analysis by stevesimula on Flickr of the image by AP photographer Mannie Garcia compared with Shepard Fairey's Obama HOPE poster.

Last year, at the Microsoft Pro Photography Summit, I advocated a policy of letting your online images get swiped for non-advertising use as long as they were accompanied by click-through attribution to your web site. I feel very strongly that there is more value using your images to get exposure on the web versus the money you would earn in selling your photos to blogs and other online entities. This assertion has been heard with differing degrees of shock and appreciation. I have been sure to put my photos where my mouth is with the following paragraph on the “about” page of my website:

“Copyright rules governing the material on this site: As long as you don’t use any of the copyrighted material on this site for advertising purposes or in association with anything illegal, AND you give me attribution in the form of a link back to this site, then grab the goods.”

Before the internet became a quotidian communication medium, Shepard Fairey was a significant figure in the underground art world. However, his huge popularity in the mainstream, especially the popularity of his Obama image, is a direct result of the internet. Acknowledging Mannie Garcia, the photographer who provided the image for his art piece, would have been an extraordinary example of online creative kinship.  The type of creative kinship that fuels the remixing of existing creative works found online, as well as some of the best applications that have ever existed via the open source software movement. (If you’re reading this in a Firefox browser you’re reaping the rewards of this ideal.) Mr. Fairey could have brought Mr. Garcia some significant attention without detracting from his own.

In failing to do so, Mr. Fairey let us all down. He violated the unspoken, inviolate rule of the internet community. Acknowledgment has been expected online community behavior since the pre-browser days of the internet. It is the one continuous thread that makes the evolving internet a successful democracy.

I’m sure Mr. Fairey was totally unaware that his piece was destined for such popularity. I’m also aware that Mr. Fairey is notorious for using his work to challenge established social norms. But the Obama campaign was different. It was one based on change. It offered real hope that the ideals of the rest of us, the public, would finally take precedence over the few with access to power. Mr. Fairey’s failure to recognize the importance of the celebrity of his Obama piece as an endorsement of the true democracy of the internet is a disservice to us all. Especially when one considers how easy it would have been to give credit where credit was due.

Citizen journalist Janis Krums tweeted this photo minutes after a plane crashed into the Hudson River in January.

I came upon this story and this one the week the plane crashed into the Hudson River. The pictures are solid. As a professional photographer, I might have done a bit better, but I wasn’t there. Which got me thinking about what I would have done if I was. Typically, I would have used my upscale point-and-shoot camera, and then contacted whomever I could get a hold of at the whatever paper or magazine to transmit the image and get a quick sale. A sale that would probably yield anywhere in the range of a $100 to $1,000 — if I got the sale at all.

The competition would be a phalanx of mobile phone shooters all calling the tip lines of all the same publications as me. The photo editor would choose the first “solid” image to come across his or her computer screen in mad dash to scoop all the other publications and blogs.

Now think about a different set of priorities applied to the same scenario. I shoot a quality image, better than the mobile phone shooters, and upload it up to my photography branded twitter stream or blog. The fact that I call myself a photographer in these two internet mediums will already give me a splash of credibility. The subject matter of the photos will guarantee swift dissemination and trackbacks to my site. The trade off for the exposure to my web site is worth more than the money.

Lastly, think long and hard about being a gear snob. A photographer is defined by his or her ability, not by the gear he or she owns. Ultimately I think I would shoot my first few images with my iPhone and send them to the email account that automatically publishes posts to my blog, or I would send them to my Twitter account. Then I would shoot other images with my point and shoot. I’d start calling editors and point them to my blog or Twitter account.

The resolution required for a reasonable reproduction on the internet requires little more than an iPhone camera. It’s not ideal, and it certainly goes against the quality instinct of every shooter out there, but that’s not the point anymore. The world has changed and in these journalistic situations expediency is king. As skilled photographers that might find ourselves in the right place at the right time, understanding and adapting to the new world rather than complaining about it is the best way to get more notoriety.