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It’s not very often that I return from a photo festival with a cohesive message or even a consistent idea. But I spent a lot of time at LOOK3: Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville last week talking with the up-and-coming young photographers who are being given the chance to shape the photo industry in a tangible way. Starting out as a photographer today, especially as a photojournalist, means nothing is certain. So it’s reassuring to hear that young photographers understand that this time of uncertainty is also an opportunity for evolution.

One way photographers are facing many challenges is by banding together into artist collectives, such as Luceo Images, MJR, Aevum, EVE, and Oeil Public. In the video below, Matt Eich (Luceo), Tim Hussin, Mustafah Abdulaziz (MJR), and Matt Craig (MJR) explain what they’re excited about in photography now. I also had conversations along these lines with Matt Slaby (Luceo), Kevin German (Luceo), Danny Ghitis, and Michael Christopher Brown. Although rubbing elbows with legends is always fun, these young shooters are most excited about their contemporaries and the camaraderie between them.

Michael Shaw, creator of the BAGnewsNotes blog and a RESOLVE contributor, is also excited about these young photographers and the collectives they’ve started, because they treat blogging as a vital, necessary part of their careers and distribution plans. Sometimes they strive to be featured on blogzines like Verve Photo, DVAFoto, and Flak Photo, which highlight great work by (mostly) emerging photographers. There are also blogs like That’s a Negative and We Can Shoot Too, that focus on work by photographers in specific places (Portland, OR, and Los Angeles, in this case). Other times they use the blog format to promote the achievements of their own members, as with the Luceo and MJR blogs.

Despite Michael’s quip about “older photographers,” I do have to mention that Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey, one of the dons of photojournalism, is also on the front lines with his online magazine, burn, which is working toward assigning original photography to emerging and established photographers — something Michael has been doing for years at BAGnewsNotes. David presented a very fun, sexy video promo for burn at the festival that includes an annual Blurb book and lots of other intriguing possibilities for new distribution models.

• What would you do if you find out your family picture ended up in a billboard in the Czech Republic – without your permission? The story of Missouri mom Danielle Smith trying to figure out why her family photo appeared in an advertisement for a Czech grocer was getting a lot of interest on the web. This week, the story even got into mainstream news coverage. While it’s definitely a copyright infringement, no one knows for sure how the photo landed on the streets of the Czech Republic. PDN proposed a possible theory to the mystery.

• Yesterday started the Look3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, where thousands of photographers gathered to celebrate photography. The festival grew out of backyard photography parties at National Geographic Magazine editor-at-large Nick Nichols‘ home which he hosted for the last twenty years. Martin Parr, Gilles Peress, Sylvia Plachy are the featured photographers this year. Our editor Miki Johnson is there to support the event. Stay tuned for more about the festival here at RESOLVE.

• The new iPhone 3GS is here! Well, almost. Available on June 19, the iPhone 3GS has 2 times the speed compared to the iPhone 3G, a 3 megapixel built-in camera with auto focus, and video recording and editing capabilities. Plus, it starts at $199. What’s not to love? Maybe the $200 AT&T plan upgrade fee? Apparently, existing iPhone AT&T customers will need to pay an extra $200 “upgrade fee” in order to get the iPhone 3 GS and a new AT&T service plan. That might have some iPhone users thinking twice about snatching the new make.

• A Photo Editor posted an excellent video by photographer Alexx Henry, explaining how he uses the RedOne to turn his regular still shoot into a video shoot. We’re especially impressed by the quality of the video itself – we wonder if Alexx made it with his RedOne? Be sure to check out Alexx’s blog with the final results.

One of Becker's signature images. ©The Becker

Q: What social networking tools do you use? Do you immediately adopt new ones or do you assess how useful they’ll be before you dedicate your time to them?

A: Right now I use Facebook, Twitter, and of course… the [ b ] School.com. And no, I wouldn’t say I am an early adopter. I kind of check things out and I may not even sign up the first time I see something. I never had a MySpace account (seemed like it was mostly for 13-year-old girls). A lot of my friends joined Facebook a good 6 months or so before I finally gave in. Same thing with Twitter. But now that I’m on there, I use Twitter and Facebook every day, and I am stoked about what we’re building at the [ b ] School, a social network designed specifically for wedding and portrait photographers.

Q: How should photographers think about tools like Twitter and Facebook in relation to their photography business? Are they like advertising? An extended bio page? Ways to grow a contact list?

A: They are just new ways to connect with people: friends, clients, colleagues. Just like with blogs, sites like Facebook and Twitter give people a glimpse at your real life and personality, but in a more organic and real way. My status updates on FB and Twitter drive a considerable amount of traffic to my blog, my website, or to wherever else I choose.

I also figure since I’ve done the work prepping an image in Photoshop for my blog, why not also post it on Facebook where I can tag any friends or clients who are in the image, which then prompts them to check out my work. And of course every image I post online includes a watermark of my [ b ] logo and website url — that way if the images gets reposted anywhere else on the web, at least people will know where it came from…www.beckersblog.com.

Q: You have 4,500+ followers on Twitter. How did you make that happen and how do you utilize those connections?

A: I assume a lot of people followed me when I posted a link to my Twitter page on my blog. I also have an embedded widget on my blog that shows my latest tweet as well as a link to www.twitter.com/thebecker. I usually get well over 5,000 blog hits per day, so as people join Twitter, the ones who frequent my blog usually follow me too. I don’t tweet every blog post, just the ones I find most interesting, and then it is also automatically uploaded to my Facebook status. So whether you are one of my 4,500+ followers on Twitter, or one of my 4,800 Facebook friends, my updates will show up on your page with an easy-to-click link that will take you straight to the content that I want to share with you. They say “your network is your net worth,” so I am constantly trying to grow my network.

Q: How do you use your blog and what do you post there?

A: My blog is actually about my entire life, not just photography. When I first started blogging back in 2005, it was just a way for my folks and a few close friends to see what I’ve been up to and check out my latest work. Then in 2006, as blogging got popular and more and more people were blogging, it did prove to be quite a useful tool to sharing information and driving traffic to my sites. My blog gets about nine times as much traffic as my actual website, www.thebecker.com. Blogs are very search engine friendly, and I’ve got quite a few bookings out of some rather random searches that drove someone to my blog.

While I do try to post a few images from every single shoot that I do, I also just post about things that are going on in my life — whether it’s about my niece and nephew, something fun I did with friends, a movie review, a poker story, or just anything I find interesting and feel like sharing. It’s kinda like reality TV. I think people in America are very voyeuristic and like to see what other people are doing… it’s human nature… kinda like a soap opera.

Q: If I were a skeptical photographer who just didn’t see how a blog, Facebook, or Twitter could be worth my time, how would you convince me?

A: Well, it’s not really my job to convince you. There are lots of people who just give me blank stares when I try to explain what Twitter is and why it is useful. Not everyone gets it and that’s okay. In the last 6-9 months, I know of at least a half-dozen bookings I got as a direct result of social networking.

A couple came from tagging images in Facebook, having it show up on the bride’s friend’s news feeds and them seeing my work and finding my blog. And I am talking about old high school friends…not even someone who is still close to the bride or was at the wedding, just someone who used to know one of my brides. Facebook keeps them connected, my work gets out there, and I book jobs. Every once in a while I’ll, tweet about dates that I am still available and ask for photographers to send me referrals. I don’t do it too often as I don’t want to wear out my welcome, but I have gotten jobs that way, and likewise given out solid leads through Twitter.

An image from the ILCP Borderlands RAVE. ©Krista Schlyer

Miki Johnson: How did ILCP decide it wanted to focus more on social media like Facebook and Twitter, as well as online community building?

Trevor Frost: As a young photographer and explorer, I’ve had to spend many hours networking to get to where I am now. So when I joined ILCP as the Director of Rapid Assessment Visual Expeditions, I thought it would be great to make a online avenue for others like me to meet and work with the accomplished photographers, scientists, and explorers that make up our organization.

ILCP already does a good job at facilitating communication between members, especially our emerging league and experienced fellows. But ILCP members have little communication with others who aspire to be photographers or conservationists, yet are not quite skilled enough photographically to be a member of the ILCP. By providing a social media platform for this communication, we can link less experienced photographers, explorers, and scientists with members of our group who are very experienced. This will help support new talent, create a community beyond membership in the ILCP, broaden the reach of ILCP, and, we hope, lead to higher conservation achievements.

From the ILCP Borderlands RAVE. ©Krista Schlyer

MJ: What online tools is ILCP utilizing to extend its communication?

TF: ILCP is focusing on Twitter and our new online magazine/blog to generate a community and to catalyze connections between conservationists, scientists, and photographers. With the online magazine/blog we hope to create a digital outlet that photographers will want to be published in, something they want to put on their resume. We also hope it becomes a platform for communication and critique, and offers a place to publish stories that have been rejected by traditional media.

On Twitter we are starting off by posting links to websites and news stories that feature ILCP or its photographers, affiliates, and partner organizations. Eventually we will expand this to include a wide range of interesting conservation topics. People only want to follow Twitterers with the most interesting updates.

One major goal of all of this is to drive increased traffic to our websites and multimedia pieces, which help disseminate conservation messages. The increased web traffic should also help us forge new relationships with corporate partners by offering an opportunity for brand exposure. At this point ILCP’s involvement in social media is in its infancy. Aside from our followers and fans increasing on Twitter and Facebook, we have not seen direct benefits yet. We do, however, expect to see benefits over the course of the next year.

From the ILCP Borderlands RAVE. ©Ian Shive

MJ: Why did ILCP decide to focus its resources on social media and online tools?

TF: When people ask how they can help non-profits they almost always hear: Please donate. This is frustrating. People want to get their hands dirty. Many of the most successful conservation projects involve citizen science and participation. When people have a chance to work along side well-known scientists or photographers it, makes them VERY excited about the subject and, I believe, it motivates them to become more involved, including donating money.

ILCP membership is based heavily on one skill — the ability to produce stunning images. Thus the ILCP can seem elitist. We realize there are many photographers who take brilliant images and work very hard on conservation who are not quite to the standard of ILCP, but who could still benefit from working with ILCP in some way. Using social media, we can create an extended ILCP community without actually extending membership.

We hope that this will help our followers grow as photographers and conservationists, so at some point they can join ILCP as a member. This also fosters communication, moderated by ILCP, between emerging photographers and the extremely talented members of the ILCP. All of this empowers conservation. The bigger the army, the better!

MJ: Have ILCP members embraced this new social media initiative?

TF: I don’t have any concrete numbers or names but in the last two months I have noticed, especially on Twitter, more of our members tweeting. Even some of members with more years under their belts.

There are certainly a few of our members who are quite skilled with social media tools. Not surprisingly, most of them are our younger members or emerging members. A few names that come to mind are Chris Linder and Ian Shive. Both have helped ILCP produce the first Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition blog (Borderlands RAVE) in addition to a few other projects.

There are two upcoming Rapid Assessment Visual Expeditions (RAVE): one to the Flathead basin in British Columbia in July 2009 and one to the Yucatan Peninsula in September 2009. Stay tuned for a RAVE website with field dispatches, the ability to track expedition members, and live photos and video.