Maria Piscopo

As a photo rep, I have always had great admiration for the portrait photographer. You are catching people at their worst (“I hate having my picture taken!”) and at their best (“Yes, this is really who I am!”). Whether it is a toddler, high school senior, or CEO, you are responsible to keep people calm, work fast, overcome technical and travel obstacles, and manage all the details of composition and lighting. In this column, we talk about all these issues as well as marketing your portrait photography business, the skills required for business success.

Getting work as a travel photographer has never been easy. Today, factors of the economy and technology have added obstacles that require even more knowledge and planning. The five travel photographers we interviewed work with clients ranging from editorial to corporate and advertising.

It is true that documentary photography dates back to the Civil War but most photo history textbooks credit the era of the 1930s to the 1950s when photographers such as Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Alfred Eisenstaedt raised the public awareness of photojournalism and became famous for their magazine and newspaper work.

In this column we look at some of the business aspects of fine art photography: getting established, finding clients, looking for gallery representation, marketing techniques, and finding your style and direction. Special thanks to this month’s contributing photographers: Sean Bagshaw (Outdoor Exposure Photography, LLC), David Bowman, John Granata (John Granata Fine Art), Robin Hill, and Cheyenne L Rouse.