Tag Archives: sales

How to get noticed as a Photographer

So how do you get noticed as a photographer?

To answer this question, I still have no idea!  I have been doing landscape photography for a few short years as a hobby now, and managed to sell a few prints on various sites.  However, not enough to count for anything.  Maybe I don’t charge enough?  How much should you charge?  Where is the best place to sell?  The best format?

I have learned that I have my more questions about sales and turning photography into a business than what I probably should for considering myself a photographer.  I guess you live and learn, then you change it all because it was wrong.   I have a read many another blog on the subject and many have suggestions of buying inventory, selling that inventory to art galleries or even at crafts fairs.  I have looked into those options and due to equipment costs, my full time job, lack of funds, and the costs to buy the inventory and the booth, that’s not something I can do.

Many people say that most photographers will not make money at it, I can definitely understand.  Spending so much money to try something that I am scared I will fail so miserably at is definitely hard.  There’s a few decisions I have made personally that I will share with you, these may help you, and may not.  Keep in mind that my business is growing slowly (very slowly) and that I have spent more on equipment and costs than what I have made.  These decisions have set me up to grow in my career and have many or most, of my upcoming gigs be completely profit, only my time will be a cost.

What I have decided

1. I first decided photography was my hobby.  I have a full time job and am not willing to quit and take a shot with no existing clientele, or real work in the field.

2. Given that Photography was my hobby I slowly, over about 3 years, purchased equipment and what I wanted for my hobby.

3.  If I was going to get a paid gig that I would buy what I needed for that gig then as a way to help grow my equipment.

4. I would create a site and sell my photography online in some way.  This decision proved harder than I initially thought.  So many people have sites and sell there work but for one that has never professionally printed I didn’t know where to start with the sales side.  I found a safe site called FineArtAmerica and signed up.  I was able to link to that from my site, change the look and feel to match, and they did all the money, printing, and shipping.  Given my full time job (as management in IT I put in many many hours) I would not have time to print and ship myself, this was a great decision.

5. I would go to classes, conferences, and workshops that sounded interesting to learn, not improve my business.

6.  I would never take a gig that I didn’t really want to do, or feel that I was capable of doing well.
These six points above have gotten me to where I am today.  I have an amazing 27 inch monitor for my mac, that was a hobby purchase.  I now have a d800 to go with my d7000, the 800 was part hobby part for the portrait gigs I’m getting.  By purchasing lenses slowly I was able to take my time and buy used Nikon lenses from Ebay so I have fantastic lenses that I got used at half price and in perfect shape.  I was able to get the 12-24 for $600, and the 105 for $500!  These are amazing deals that I would not have been able to wait for if I had not had the luxury of looking at this craft as a hobby to start with.

I am sure many others have grown their businesses and financial intakes much faster than I but these were the decisions that I was comfortable making and I have been pleased with the outcome.  I am now doing engagement and wedding shoots, as well as other site portraits, and even babies.

Per an upcoming wedding shoot I purchased several more memory cards for the D800 than what I had initially but it was for a reason and now I have all I need to continue shooting weddings as not additional cost.

If you are a photographer what do you do?  If you were, what do you think you would do?  What do you think of my plan?

Red Stalagmite Image Sold!

I sold a 7.75″ X 8.00″ print of Red Stalagmite on FineArtAmerica!  The buy purchased with a black frame and white matting, I think it looks rather good like this.

 

 

 

This is the image but be sure to check out the announcement page to see the image of the frame and matting on it, gives it a very different look.

Announcement page

 

 

 

 

 

This image was taken last fall when my husband and I went to West Virgina for a weekend to hang out in a cabin with his family.  His parents and sister were already there.  Part of the trip for the weekend included going through Smoke Hole Caverns.  it was truly something to see and they had it lit beautifully inside so that I could get some nice photos.

PlusOne Collection Book from Google+ Availabe for Sale

The PlusOne Collection Limited Edition book is now available for sale!  This book is a collection of photographs submitted by over 520 artists on Google Plus.  The artists range from pros to amateurs.

Each book will be printed large (11″ x 13″ landscape), and on premium fine art ProLine paper. Each copy will be numbered and include a certificate of authenticity. In addition, each book will come with a tipped-in print of one of the images in the book (prints are 6″ x 9″ on 8″ x 11.5″ paper). Prints are printed on archival paper to museum standards using UltraChrome K3 inks and will last close to 100 years with proper care.

View the PlusOneCollection site to learn more about the artists and various book editions that will be released later on Feb 21st.

One of my own images will also be available in the book.  Below you can see my image.   

The orders for the Collectors’ Limited Edition will only be taken from February 9 through February 20. No orders for that edition of the book will be taken after that date, and only one run of the Collectors’ Limited Edition will be done.

 

The PlusOneCollection site is up and ready to take your orders.  Be sure to go there soon and order if you would like the Limited Edition book!

 

Thank you again to Ivan Marakov and his team for putting this together so quickly to support the artists on Google+ and a Kiva

 

 Other Facts

  • Collectors’ Edition of Plus One Collection printed version is being released on February 9 and will be available for order until February 20th. Standard edition and ebook will be released on February 21st
  • Collectors’ Edition of Plus One Collection will be fulfilled by our team (Ivan and the Crew). Standard print edition of the book will be fulfilled through the publishing company Blurb
  • Photographers of all levels are represented – established professionals, up and coming artists, and amateurs just picking up photography
  • Photographers contributing to the project are from all four continents, representing 53 countries. Less than 50% are from the USA
  • Photographs in the book are just as diverse, representing all styles of today’s photography
  • Book’s editor and project manager is Ivan Makarov – you can find him here
  • The book is designed by design professional, Andy Lee, who volunteered his time to put the book together
  • A team of 11 photographers chose the images for the print edition. The PDF and mobile app will include ALL photographs submitted to the project
  • The total team working on the project consisted of 15 volunteers – none paid
  • Google+ page is here

 

Site Organization

What is the best way to organize your site?  I have been moving around some of my galleries so that the list of “galleries” is shorter and things are easier to find.  The fist example of this is the new “places” gallery and the Savannah gallery under that.  I have several images for Philly about that are about ready to go up as well.  Is this the best idea or is there something better?

How d o you organize your site for your own photography?

I know the more information about each gallery the better, this always helps with SEO, but they can be divided so many different ways trying to determine which is best is difficult.  I have also found it’s very difficult to keep the home page updated with new things to keep returning visitors interested.  Without updating the home page users will have less reason to view further into your site.  I’ll keep researching some of the best practices and I’ll let you know what I find.

Selling Photography #2

I have been playing with the FineArtAmerica site some more.  I think I’m starting to like this and the printing options are impressive!  It also has a great community of other artists that reiew and provide feedback on your art.

Check out some of the HDR here:

hdr art

FineArtAmerica also offers some different logos, and slideshows that you can place on your site to lead people back to your FineArt site. Below is a copy of one of these and if you notice it links to my FineArt site to purchase images. One thing that I do not like is that I cannot incorporate this into my site or remove/alter menu items to go back to my own site. A perfect example of this is the blog, I am not one to copy/paste to another blog, but I do not have enough time to work on 2 blogs.

Sample “slideshow” for FineArt

Art Prints