Category Archives: Business

Self-Promotion Tips & Tricks

One of the most important things you can do as a photographer is interact with the general public a.k.a. your audience. Often you don’t have a lot of time to sit down with them, have a nice chat over coffee, and explain what you photograph, how, and why. You need a memorable leave-behind that will intrigue them enough to get them to come back to your website or blog (ahem!), look at your work in depth, and interest them in hiring your services or buying your work. 

 

business card portfolio box, by Moo
business card portfolio box, by Moo
 
I’ve made multiple attempts at business cards of various designs. They’ve all been reasonably successful, but I think a lot of them have been too busy, graphically speaking. I saw an ad on Facebook with a promo code for Moo, who print business cards with a few unique touches, and decided I’d try them out. One of the features they offer is the ability to print many different designs in small batches- you can do one design for your text side, and upload up to 50 images to put on the back. Print runs start as small as 50 cards, so you could end up with all your cards being unique.

travel portfolio
travel portfolio

In this case, I wanted to do two different lines of cards, to promote my portrait work and my travel photography. I uploaded ten images from each of my relevant portfolios and had a run of 200 cards printed. Above you can see the travel portfolio in the mini card holder box that came with the cards. The card box makes a great display piece for on a table or desk. 

 

portrait portfolio
portrait portfolio
 Here is the portrait portfolio. That’s another benefit to the Moo business cards- with the multiple designs, you can carry an entire portfolio in your pocket all the time. 

 

business card profile
business card profile
 
The third quality I really appreciate is the paper stock options. I opted for the premium heavy-weight paper stock with a middle ply in an accent color, in this case black. It’s yet another characteristic that can set your cards apart from everyone else. 

Wether you’re handing out cards to individuals or making a mini presentation portfolio to mail to a potential client, Moo cards can help you stand out. You can get more information about them by going to Moo.com. In addition to the square cards, they have traditional rectangular cards, mini cards, and other promotional products on a range of paper stocks to fit a wide range of budgets. 

Professional Photography and “Spec” Work

It’s all too common for people to ask professional creatives to do work on “spec” – provide me with free samples and if I like them, I’ll pay you in “credits” or something else, or maybe never. This video does a brilliant job of satirizing a very serious problem for creative professionals.

The original article I found it from is on Petapixel, another great photography website and well worth your read. Despite the sound of their name, Petapixel is actually not strictly digitally obsessed and does run articles, including positive ones, about analog photography.

Petapixel – Creatives and Spec Work – by Michael Zhang

In short, if you’re a creative professional, you’re probably asked on a regular basis to provide not just a portfolio in advance of a contract signing, but actually asked to do the work first. Just say NO to this kind of work – it hurts all of us because it builds the expectation that clients can get creatives to work for free. Would you expect to go into the bakery and get to eat an entire loaf of bread before deciding if you liked it enough to pay for it or not?