livebooks blog

“It helps our business basically come out of nonexistence.”

Aerial view of Lake Natron in Tanzania, spotted with a flock of flamingos. ©Art Wolfe

I’ve talked and written about how photographers need to look beyond the stock agencies to market their images. There are a host of pros and cons to these alternate business models, but the need to drive traffic to your website is always the tallest hurdle. No single approach will do. Instead, you need to attract attention, and keep it, by projecting your brand across a range of media platforms and by creating mutually beneficial collaborations. Here are some tips for how all kinds of photographers can do that.

1. Collaborate

Once you have a collection of images, see if you can create an association with other photographers to market a particular class of subjects. Photoshelter makes that easy with their Virtual Agencies, but there are several ways to accomplish the same thing. By grouping your work with that of other photographers, all of you can offer a wider selection of similarly themed work to potential buyers. My work is available alongside images from Thomas Mangelsen and David Doubilet at WILD, our virtual agency.

2. Organize

If each photographer does a good job of file naming and keywording, a buyer is more likely to find your image collection. Online galleries also allow you to display a larger selection of your work than an editor at an agency would allow. This is not an invitation to self-indulgence, however; show only your best or most saleable work.

3. Prioritize

I steer clear of microstock. If you can produce what the market demands in high volume, there is money to be made there, but it tends to encourage “treadmill shooting,” a mentality of “generate content” instead of creating art. Forgive me if I stick to Rights Managed and Royalty Free.

The sun sets over the southern Atlantic ocean as 10,000 nesting pairs of black browed albatross settle in for the brief summer night. ©Art Wolfe

4. Contact

Once your collective is up and running, or even if you decide to fly solo, contact all your existing clients with the news. Buy and use lists of prospective clients, like those provided by Agency Access and other services. More »

It seems that Annie Leibovitz’s legal and financial woes won’t be coming to an end any time soon. While a New York judge granted her an extra month to respond to a $24-million lawsuit from Art Capital Group, Italian photographer Paolo Pizzetti is suing her for $300,000 for using two of his photos in the infamous Lavazza coffee ad campaign without his permission.

In RESOLVE news, editor Miki Johnson was interviewed Thursday by Cheri Amour, the ambitious young photographer who runs Young Photopreneur, an online resource for aspiring photographers and photo students. The podcast includes advice about leveraging your website and using social media to expand your photo business.

The iPhone and Canon XTi have been competing for the most popular camera on Flickr for a while. With the launch of Flickr’s new iPhone App, the Apple phone might soon regain its throne. Check out TechCrunch‘s rave review for details on the app.

The Associated Press’s auto-feed slideshow function is causing some trouble. A controversial photo of a U.S. Marine’s last moments appeared on some news sites without their knowledge, even after they decided not to run the image. AP explains that a lot of newspapers use an AP-run feed that automatically updates content and images, which included the photo on Friday, September 4. The photo has since been removed.

When Joe McNally, a legendary photojournalist and lighting guru, stopped by the liveBooks office during some rare down time in San Francisco, I couldn’t resist setting up a video interview. (Thanks to videographer Drew Gurian.) Joe has contributed to National Geographic for 20 years and was a staff photographer for LIFE magazine. He works with huge commercial clients and produced a seminal portrait series of September 11 heroes. He’s also the author of two must-read instructional books and writes a very popular blog — which brings us to the video below.

Joe started his blog in 2008 after prodding from friends (and avid bloggers) including Moose Peterson, David Hobby, and Scott Kelby. Now the blog is an important part of his business, especially since “big pipelines” for assignments have dried up in recent years.

“Any photographer out there now is stitching together things,” he says. “Work comes now in all sorts of strange ways.” Smart photographers like Joe understand that blogs and social media are an important part of that patchwork. They bring in assignments, create buzz, and help build community with other top professionals. (If you haven’t seen Joe’s parody of Chase Jarvis’ Consequences of Creativity video, I recommend you watch that too.)