Business Trends

The highest goal of presenting your portfolio is to move yourself from the big pool of "unknown" photographers to the pool of "known" photographers clients are likely to hire. To do this, help the clients hire you! Don't just passively show your portfolio. Find out what your prospective clients do and what they are looking for and present that...

Nick Vedros (www.vedros.com) graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in Photojournalism in 1976 and then quickly found his true passion in the world of commercial photography. From his Kansas City-based photo studio, Vedros has won top honors from the ADDY Awards, Effie Awards, Archive International, Communication Arts, the Top...

At every workshop and class I teach the subject and question of copyright comes up. I deal with copyright as a photo rep on every photo shoot I negotiate. Some photo clients know what type of usage they need to purchase and some do not. Some photographers can negotiate copyright usage without hesitation, but many photographers still have questions about the basics of copyright law.

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“Imagine that you shoot something ‘fine art’ or ‘personal’ that you yourself think no one will ever want to use commercially.

You don’t bother to get a release…”

There are legal issues that concern all photographers—copyrights, contracts, and the law concerning privacy rights (model releases). In this article we’ll go over these matters with a panel of experts in the field, but of course not every issue can be covered completely, so I’ve included a host of web resources for further exploration and education.

Promo pieces for selling your photography should be specifically planned for personal correspondence directed at your targeted audience. In-house printed promotional materials have become increasing popular as the technology for the design and printing has increased and the cost of production decreased. This type of promo piece is not for direct (mass or bulk) mailing. The in-house promo is used...

The book publishing business is experiencing huge upheavals and transformations of late. “Physical” bookstores are closing, and for many photographers eBooks are an exciting option. While eBooks may become a preferred delivery system for creative content, with them come questions about creation, preferred content, and, perhaps most importantly, how to market your work. In this article we’ll look at how three photographers are working through this change and how it has altered the way they show their work to the world. Thanks go to Jeff Colburn, Bret Edge, and Guy Tal for their expertise and wisdom in this regard. Please check our links and contact information at the end of this article to see their work, and more.

How do you define photographic success—by making money or by creating works of art? If both appeal to you then there is a way to reconcile what might seem by some as polar opposites: doing both by selling your work as fine art images.

Everywhere you turn—from assignments, self-assignments and from personal work—you can create opportunities for fine art images. Creating fine art photography can add a revenue stream to your commercial photography business. While the goal of selling images as fine art might be seen as unreachable, in fact the marketing and self-promotion methods and techniques for commercial work and fine art are very similar.