I get it. A self-employed photographer wears many hats. There is no marketing, accounting or human resources department. It’s an army of one. If you don’t tell the world how great you are, who will? (maybe your clients, but thus I digress)
There is no denying the power of social media in advertising. Why do you think every company and human being on the face of the planet is Twittering or setting up a Facebook fan page? Why blog when you can tag clients on Facebook and immediately get feedback and comments from all your friends and clients? People who can’t take a minute to share a comment on a blog will spend all day leaving comments on Facebook.
It just so happens that many of my friends on Facebook are photographers. It can be an isolated work experience. Most of us are sole-proprietors. The industry specific water cooler talk, gossip and trend awareness all happen at conventions, forums and through social media. But lately, I’ve noticed a trend happening in my global network. And I’m not alone…
Continue Reading →
Infectious laughter that girl.
I dunno, sometimes it’s time to blog the latest shoot and are at a loss of what to say. I never go so vanilla to say amazing. I just say it was marvelrificlious.
Whatever you do, just don’t call it EPIC.
Steve… I concur! The overuse of adjectives is not so much about blogging, but Facebook status updates. Our lives have been reduced to 140 characters of adjectives. EPIC never fails!
The problem is, we can’t post anything negative about our clients, which sometimes is a little limiting, isn’t it? One can’t say, “Dude! I just had the most amazing bridezilla ever and she was awesomely horrible!”
Well, you could CHOOSE to say something negative, but that would probably be a bad choice in so many ways. On the other hand, my point was letting the photos speak for themselves and again, we’re not talking about blogs. I’m talking about jumping on Facebook or Twitter and telling everyone you just “rocked” a high school senior portrait session or just got back from the most “amazing” wedding. The couple totally “rocked”! It’s our job to find the story and not get hung up on the bridezillas. Either that or we could just start a Facebook page about what NOT to wear to a wedding… or perhaps talk about the horrible tyranny of strapless dresses…
Randy,
I love reading your posts and reflecting on the ways photography and writing are the same and different. We writers fall in love with our stories (but also in hate until we wrangle them). I think with a picture you can look at it and know if it is amazing but a writer doesn’t always have that kind of perspective about her story. I may have confidence, but someone else has to read it, or when I read it outloud to someone else, I realize what’s not working (and I get to re-write, not so possible with photography). And for sure writers have to let our work stand on it’s own without too much “it’s amazing” going on.
Your work stands on it’s own for sure. But the one time I had professional head shots done, I liked it when the photographer told me which ones he loved.
I love this! This is something that bothers me a lot, yet as photographers it can be difficult to blog about a session, find adjectives to use and still make it real and sincere. I am doing my best, but your blog has made me remember why I need to do it more.
Randy, what a thought provoking post. It was a very refreshing to read a photog blog post that differed from the usual modus operandi of many other photography blogs. In the last few years it seems like one of the big catchphrases used by us photographers in our posts, tweets and Facebook status updates is “so-and-so totally rocked it in front of the camera” or “I love rocking it out with my camera”. All I can visualize is some photographer who has worked him/herself up into some other realm of consciousness, doing nothing but rocking back and forth with their camera, silly grin and all, while their clients look at them completely bewildered. =) Going forward I’ll be mindful to avoid abusing adjectives and maybe blogging my images without an accompanying write-up.
Thank you Joel. I think it’s great when photographers share the process of creativity, especially about their shoots. I get tired of every photographer expressing how amazing their clients are. Try to find the things that are different and unique about the couples you work with. Share that in your blog posts. I enjoy reading the things that you would not know from looking at photos alone. The things that show you really connected with your couple and appreciate their unique personalities.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I sincerely appreciate it!
Randy, your blog is great… I’m glad I stumbled upon it.