Before the rise of social media and the ubiquity of apps like Instagram, photographers established and flexed their brands through their personal website and blog. The photographer website supplanted the printed portfolio, for the most part, offering photographers a way to showcase their work with a remote audience of photo editors, customers, and fans.
I was interviewed by street photographer Eric Kim back in 2016, and it was a huge deal for me! I remember when I first started shooting street, his blog was one of the first that I came by.
I do a lot of automotive lifestyle personal projects that I use for self-promotion and am constantly on the hunt for new ideas. A friend of mine recently turned me on to Turo, an app for peer-to-peer car rentals. In the past, you had to hire a picture vehicle company to get vintage cars for shoots, and those can be really pricey and are severely limited in terms of how far you can drive the car.
Last week, we shared the unbelievable story of travel blogger Lauren Bullen, who discovered that one of her fans had been following her and her boyfriend around the world, copying every photo they posted down to the outfits she was wearing.
It was incredible, mind-blowing, and more than a little creepy... it may also be a big hoax.
Self-promotion is a tricky thing. We all know that marketing is probably more than half the battle when it comes to getting great clients (after all, no matter how good you are, they can't hire you if they don't know you exist) these days.
And now, as the photography market is becoming more and more saturated, the name of the game is "make an impression." There are tens if not hundreds of photographers available pitching your client... how are you going to stand out?
Here’s a great DIY project we found over on Lomography that’ll help you …
Mailers are a popular way to self-promote as a photographer, but too often the promos go directly from the …
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Photographer Clint Davis was previously the Art Director at a national magazine, so he has first hand experience on the type of photographer promo that grabs the attention of clients. Recently he himself needed to do some self-promotion, so he decided to get creative and create promo mailers filled with awesomeness. He writes,
Most of the promo pieces [Davis used to receive] were 4×6″ postcards with a picture on one side, and printed addresses on the other side. Stale, non-personalized, and probably frayed at the edges, the postcards rarely made it from the mail room to my desk. But a box?!? A freakin’ box??? NOW you have my attention. Maybe it’s just me, but when I get a box in the mail with a hand-written address, a slow fuzzy feeling comes over me and my eyes open 43% more than usual. YOU good box are coming back to my desk for a thorough dissection.
Above all I wanted to make a self-promotion mailer that wouldn’t get tossed in the trash right away. Considering the caliber of ad agencies, magazine photography editors, athletic teams, and select others that will receive this mailer, that is a tall order to accomplish.