THP Tip #5: Getting Known (Web)
So to bring you up to speed thus far:
THP Tip #1: Portrait Photography and the topic was Bokeh.
THP Tip #2: Portrait Photography and the topic was on making your model/subject/client comfortable.
THP Tip #3: Portrait Photography and the topic was on communication.
THP Tip #4: Portrait Photography and the topic was on being professional.
My fifth tip will be on how to get yourself out there via the internet. I decided to limit it to the internet since I might make one on how to get yourself known without the internet. So I will go through the progression of how I slowly used the internet more and more to get my work and my name out there. Again, this is what I did, and by no means is the best way, just happened to have worked for me.
First I will just briefly talk about why you should do all this because by the end of this post, it might seem a little crazy to do all of the below. The more you have your name out there with your photos/blog/tweets, the more likely it is people will see your work. This is almost always never a bad thing. You won't become known if you only show your friends your photos on your computer every once and a while. You have to do more than that to get noticed by others.
Flickr:
So, what I did first was create a Flickr Account. It is an amazing way to showcase your photos to fellow photographers and anyone who is searching the words you tagged your photos with. Flickr is made up of people who also are photographers who are also sharing their photos. Therefore this makes Flickr a great community where you can share and learn almost everything. You can join groups based on nearly anything from a certain lens (e.g. a 50mm group), to a place (e.g. a town or city or park) to many many other things. This is great to share and view photos taken by a certain lens, or camera or in a certain place or of certain content. This helps you see what others are doing and helps you see potential. Now what I love about Flickr is that firstly, the photos are (hopefully) tagged with the keywords of the photos so if you search "D700" you will see all the photos on Flickr taken by the D700. So I can day dream how nice it would be to have such a camera. Haha but this is great for researching. I use Flickr as my research tool for everything photography related. Lets say I am looking for a new lens, let's say a 85mm f/1.4. I can search "85mm f/1.4" and see all the best images with that lens. I can see what the subject matter is usually with the lens, what the lens does well and what it doesn't do well. I can search discussion forums on specific groups relating to this lens. This can be very helpful sometimes. Sometimes the discussions are way to lengthy however you learn how to sift through it all. So Flickr can be a great way to find out how good a lens is roughly be seeing what photos people have taken with it. It is a good rough start to figuring out what you want to buy. I always research things meticulously before I buy them since most photography gear ain't cheap. Secondly, I have a "pro account" so I pay a annual fee to have extra perks. The best in my opinion is tracking all your views and such. Not so much to know "yes people are looking at my photos!" but more so to know what photos they are looking at. Knowing what photos people like to look at is helpful to know what photos people like seeing of yours. Sometimes people gravitate to certain things more than others. It is usually a little biased however. My female portraits get a copious amount more views than anything else on my Flickr. Thirdly what I like is you can send messages to specific members on Flickr. I did this once where I asked a member about the 17-55mm lens and if he enjoyed using it when he owned it. The really great thing is he lived in England so I would have no had the ability to know he existed or ask him about the lens if it wasn't for Flickr.
Flickr is a great place to start out. It can be free and this helps you learn and grow as a photographer if you take advantage of it. Ask questions, post on discussion boards, continually try to learn. It is also good because you can share your photos now with links to your Flickr account. I did that for years. It is great because then you can share your photos with people who are not photographers by sending people links to your photos. So all and all a very smart first move by any new photographer or by any amateur. Flickr for me however is not the best thing in terms of looking "professional" since it isn't your own site and it isn't made to showcase your work for a client very formally. But I will discuss this later, so lets move on.
Facebook Page:
Next I made a Facebook page after I started doing more portrait work. I wanted to tag/share the portraits I did to the subjects/models and have their friends see the photos as well. A Facebook page is a great way to connect with potential clients as well as other people in the business. Facebook is almost ubiquitous these days for everyone nearly has it. The ability to post and share photos or albums with people is a great way to advertise your photography. Taking portraits of a friend, tagging them and then sharing it with them on their profile almost guarantees someone else will look at the photo and hopefully your other work. The connectivity between everyone and everything on Facebook is a little scary but you might as well use it to your advantage. I use my Facebook page mostly for keeping friends up to loop with my photos. I also use it when I do events so I can post the photos and easily have people see them instead of trying to get a Flickr link to everyone which can be a pain. I don't try to do anything fancy with trying to get people to like my page. I know lots of photographers who do and it is a good idea however I like knowing most of the people on Facebook that are following my page are friends and therefore it is less formal and such. I don't need formal on my Facebook page so this works for me however it you might not want that. I will probably grow my Facebook page however right now I like it being low-key. People can have contests where you have to vote on a photo by liking it to win something. This way people have to like your page to like your photo which all gets uploaded on their profile and all their friends' home pages. Anything to get people to advertise for you like that is a great idea. So Facebook is a great way to almost virally spread if you do it right and want a large Facebook fan base.
My Blog:
Well I won't link you to my blog since you are already here. So this (My blog) was my third photography advancement on the internet. I created this for one main reason and it wasn't to really spread my name/photos. That happens anyways but I really wanted to give back to other photographers. I have had many helping photographers in my life to help guide me and give advice with gear and techniques and wanted to do the same for other photographers. I personally have read and watched countless things on photography. Some things were very helpful and some things weren't. Some things I read or watched were less personal and a little too much to the point that something was missing. It is nice to have someone just give you the run down on something however for me it is nice to almost read or watch someone giving photography information that is more like a dialogue. I think it is easier to learn if it is more of a conversation so that the information is all there from their personal thoughts and stories about it, to the tech specs or basic fundamentals. So for me, all of my english teachers have always said I am a very informal essay writer because I write essays like I would a speech. So that is how I write my blog. I write it as if I am just talking to you since that is how I communicate best. I think it is the best way to go however I will bet money on the fact I have grammar and spelling mistakes riddled through this blog I am sure. But I am human so c'est la vie.
Now, what does a blog do for you? It allows you to help people like I hope mine is doing. This allows people to follow not only your photographs, but you as a photographer. This is a great thing and is a little more personal. You can explain your photos or tell behind the scene stories. All this engages viewers with your photography much more than just your photographs. A photo says a thousand words yes, but it is also nice to hear a little about the experience. I guess I think of it as if you were showing your work in a gallery and talking to viewers in the gallery about your work. But most importantly I think a blog allows you to connect yourself by more than just photographs, but with ideas and thoughts with the photography community. Photographs are great to share, but if you share knowledge, you'll hopefully be helping all the photographers out there. And if other photographers do that as well, win win. And for the other things I use my blog for, well you can go and look at it all since you are here. However I advise you finish this post first.
Lastly, about blogging, is that the site I do it though, Blogger.com, is great with keeping stats on your blog. Views are nice however I really really enjoy seeing where people view my blog from. I think it is amazing. So if you are reading this from outside Canada, I really appreciate it! And to all those Canadains reading this I appreciate it as well, but its neat to see that someone from Iceland or Tunisia is reading my blog. I currently have 82 countries that have viewed my blog. Anywho, that's just me but I think it is neat seeing all these countries reading my blog.
Model Mayhem:
I started to do more and more portraits as I was attending university since I had more people to photograph than stunning landscapes. So I created a Model Mayhem (MM) account so that I could have a profile up to showcase my portraits as well as find other people in the area to work with. MM is a website that is kind of like a simplified Facebook for portrait photography. You can find models, makeup artists, photographers, retouchers... and the list goes on. It is a good place to showcase your work specifically to the people that can be your cliental. It is a great way to find models. You can search by many requirements like experience or height or age etc.
There have been a couple of models I have been in contact with via MM however I have found it is easier for me to plan and work with people I know rather than someone I don't. A lot of the models that I have been in contact with don't always follow through. Not sure if I am asking the wrong models or the wrong models are coming to me but it happens. I will be moving to another city soon and will use MM if I have time to maybe setup some shoots and see how that goes. It might just be the area I am in does not always have the most invested models. Who knows.
I would say MM is very worth it and is a great tool however I might not be in the right area or finding the right people. So right now I only slightly use MM however that is by no means MM's fault. MM is a good idea if you are into portrait photography and need to find models or MUA etc.
About.me:
I was advised to make and About.Me account because I had so many websites and things like that to manage. So I made one and it has been interesting to have. I am not exactly sure how helpful it is but it is nice to have a website with a big photo of yours on it. About.Me is a site which is basically an online business card. You have have a photo on it, your e-mail, links to your sites like your blog or flickr or whatever. It is just another way people can find your photography.
The main reason I use it now is if there is a photo I took from a recent shoot that I really like I will post it on there. If it is a portrait then I can send the link to the model and they always like seeing their photo nice and big on a website. You don't need to really do much other than rotate the photo once and a while and keep it up-to-date so it has your most recent contact information etc.
Twitter:
Hahaha so I actually had to make a Twitter account for another reason and when that commitment was over I decided to change it over to a photography. It is a great way to have people follow you and you follow other people you are interested in, be it other photographers or models. Twitter is a pretty simple thing and it doesn't take much to do it. I don't tweet too too often because I keep it related to my photography. I only tweet something new like a blog post, or flickr upload or exciting news with my photography.
It is a good way to stay in the loop with technology as well only if you are following the right people of course. Currently I don't have tons of time to really devote myself to Twitter but it is a good tool to advertise and connect with people. So if you want to connect with me on Twitter you can follow the link above or @TomHoustonPhoto.
A Website:
The last thing I have made is my photography website. I bought the domain name and used Pixpa to create the site. So it is my own website with my own domain name and I love it. First, I got it so that I can actually look professional instead of using MM or Flickr to show people my photos if I didn't have my iPad with me. I made my site clean and simple which is great to showcase your work. I like MM and Flickr however they are not there to solely showcase your work, and therefore the site is more complicated than I want to just show someone my photos. I can design the site with a good amount of flexibility however Pixpa won't let you do everything. I find the amount you can customize works for me. It is a great way to advertise your photos and your name by having your own website. Also the site allows you to have private galleries which I think is amazing. I can put up riskier photos or put up photos for a client to show them without everyone else seeing them.
In terms of how easy it was to set this all up... I would say it was fairly difficult. I do know my tech however I don't know my website stuff. I tried to attach my domain name and all that jazz and I don't think it worked. I just had a search bar for the web as my website. That was all. So I tried e-mailing the Pixpa support people and I didn't get a response and still haven't to this day haha. So I didn't really want to wait for a reply because I was paying for all this and there isn't much of a point to pay for nothing. I posted on the Facebook page for Pixpa stating my issue and my account name and they resolved the problem in about 3 hours of my posting. This was great. Much better than e-mailing them since I never heard back from them. I also wanted to get the stats of my site sent to my google analytics. I e-mailed them however nothing was returned so I wrote on the Facebook page again since that seemed to have worked the first time and it worked again. However this time they told me to e-mail them next time. I didn't raise the issue I already had with both of my previous issues with my e-mails not being responded to with Pixpa on the Facebook page so I just left it at that. So my dealings with them have been par. I would say their e-mail help thing doesn't do anything however going directly to them via Facebook did work. So they fixed my issues so therefore I have no issues with it. I am happy since my website works haha.
I really like having my own site because it is clean and crisp and branded by only my brand except for a little pixpa thing at the bottom of my page. You can pay more a year/month to get them not to have their logo on the bottom of your site however I don't need to spend more money on that. So all and all I really like knowing that it is my own site and not just my photos uploaded to Flickr or MM.
Summary:
So Flickr is a great start for anyone since it is a good community to be apart of and great to show your work on the internet. A Facebook page is a great way to get known and stay connect with people. Also a great way to get people to advertise for you. A blog is a great way to share ideas and advice and such. It is also good to connect on another level to people who follow your photography. Model Mayhem is an amazing way to connect with people and showcase your work with people in the same field of photography. About.me is fun and it is cool to have a big photo on the web to show off your work and links to all your sites. Twitter is a great way to connect and update people who follow your photography. And Lastly creating your own website is an amazing way to be professional when showing your work in a clean and simple site.
One disclaimer I will say is that the more places you have your photos the more risk you have of someone trying to steal your photos. You can limit this with watermarking and uploading low res photos. I do upload low res sometimes however I do not water mark. I find watermarking takes away from the viewing experience of photos and I don't need to have my name on all my photos. I find it is a little too much.
Hope this helps!
