A Question for Photographers & Educators

DSLR VIDEO HELPS EMERGING PHOTOGRAPHERS TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD

by Alex Murchison, professional instructor and image-maker at the Holland College Photography & Digital Imaging program in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada

During 2007, I began to think about how digital video would impact my program and my graduates. Video had existed as part of Holland College Photography when I took it over in 1994 but I soon dropped it. I found the quality of both stills and video suffered in a two-year program. Now it was back again in the digital era. Could we include it in the already crowded curriculum? Should we include it? Would we again make poor video and weak stills? How could we include it in a meaningful way for the students? Yes, there was Vincent Laforet with the MarkII and a number of other photographers and filmmakers making big impressions with DSLR video but where did we fit? Lots of questions and not a lot of answers that came to mind.

I think the insight for me was as I reviewed our self-promotional projects: competition entries, business cards and postcards, portfolios and related marketing. We don’t do much web site work in the program for the same reasons I dropped the previous video courses, yet we obviously advocate for strong web presence. What I envisioned for them was a self-promotional video project, shot in teams of two/three, each shooting as directed by the other. The student (subject) of the promo video has to edit, select and source music (copyright in mind) and one of the most challenging aspects for students, “the voice over.” Could it work? Part of my own education includes three full-term studio courses in video and I have always maintained a moderate level of interest and practice.

This is our second year actually producing the assignment and for 2013 we will add a full day workshop with a filmmaker on top of my sessions. We have fairly basic gear and no major “rigging” for the cameras. Basically: several 5DMIIs, 60Ds, assorted lenses, dolly, Glidetrack HD base kit, some microphones, Photoshop, iphoto and imovie. We have some hot lights and I am thinking of adding several LED panels in the near future.

Written out briefly, it does not seem like that much of a eureka moment but I believe the results are speaking for themselves. Not only do the students gain a basic level of DSLR video experience (about 100 hours of work per student) above the “ambient” student video so often seen, they have a promotional piece. The sessions go beyond how the “video controls” work on the camera and delve into film technique helping to create a multi-level assignment. As a colleague said to me recently “the videos are the product of the product.” They fill out the dimension and personality of these emerging professionals and in an age where everyone is a photographer, this is one more thing to set them apart from the crowd. The videos have already helped students to secure quality work-term placements from Toronto, Canada to New York City.

YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/user/hollandcollege1234

Alex Murchison is a professional instructor and image-maker at the Holland College Photography & Digital Imaging program in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Alex has managed successful careers in both Halifax and Toronto, Canada and has been teaching full-time since 1994. Favorite imaging options include: B&W film, Polaroid transfers (including shooting at the NY Polaroid 20X24 studio for a day), digital composites and digital video. For further information, feel free to email Alex at: amurchison@hollandcollege.com

Clean, Modern Website for Photographer Jordan Hollender

This website for photographer, Jordan Hollender was submitted to us by designer, Diane Collins. She says, ” [it's a] clean, modern website that focuses on the images. We included a “show more images” option for some photos. This allows the viewer to look further into a shoot if they choose, giving them more control over the content they’re viewing. Save to lightbox option and download watermarked image option.”

http://www.dianecollins.com/
http://www.jg-design.pl

Getting A Response from AD’s – Derek Shapton’s Promo Success

Photographer, Derek Shapton recently got in touch with No Plastic Sleeves to share his latest promotional piece. And it’s a great idea! Not just because it’s clever, different and useful, but also because it achieved it’s goal – getting Art Director’s and Creative Director’s to notice and respond. Let’s face it. Bottom line – that’s what it’s all about. And the truth is, a great looking image on a postcard just isn’t usually enough to get you there.

Derek says,

“I had a meeting a few months ago with the studio partners, and when the subject of printed mailers came up, I politely expressed my views; I think my exact words were “Forget it. Not doing one. Waste of money. Too bad I can’t just print some shots on Kleenex, that way they’d at least be useful on their way to the garbage…” — and that was the Eureka moment. Yes, it’s true, I’ve done a promo – but not a mailer. I couldn’t find anyone who printed on Kleenex, but we came up with the next best thing.”

“The shots were conceived of and taken specifically for the tissue boxes — it was a hilarious and messy day of photos — and I consciously tried to do things a bit differently. I wanted the images to tie in conceptually with the promotion itself, which is something sadly lacking with most promo efforts…”

In an email to me, Derek added, “The great response continues, it’s the first promotion I’ve ever done where AD’s have actually gotten in touch to thank me for sending them something!! Also, because the list was so tightly focussed, we’ve actually had people who didn’t get them emailing to request one!!! Rather unprecedented and quite gratifying.”

Recently, Derek wrote a post on his blog, titled, “Hey Art Directors! (An Apology)”. You can read the entire post here.

Expert Advice for Working in Motion by Paul Stanek

Paul Stanek is the photography director at Wonderful Machine. He’s also an experienced motion picture editor. Recently, Paul got in touch with me about a wonderful music video project that he’s just finished for Chris Kasper’s song, “Walking on Water”. This was so good that I thoroughly enjoyed watching it multiple times and have shared it with many friends and colleagues (including all of you out there!). Paul says, “It’s heavily animation-based, but at its core was shot on a 5D Mark II in front of a “makeshift greenscreen” seamless background and lit with a couple of hotlights. I’m excited to demonstrate a rather extreme example of the potential uses of HDSLRs to help foster/inspire the large surge of photographers moving into motion work.”

Paul has also recently written a new article sharing his expert advice for working in motion. He says, “I’ve got an “Expert Advice” article coming out in this month’s [Wonderful Machine] newsletter which provides some advice for photographers getting started with video.”

Paul was nice enough to share a sneak peak of the article with me. Here are some quotes from it –

“At their roots, the still and the moving picture are intrinsically linked. They always have been, they always will be. In the most literal sense, they shared the same primary medium for decades: strips of emulsion-coated plastic. In a more conceptual sense, photos can convey movement and narrative that spans beyond the frame, and film and video can be used to creatively extend and study a single fleeting moment in time.”

“Since the advent of the HDSLR, I’ve watched (and participated) with much excitement as legions of photographers have made forays into video using the expanded capabilities of a tool that they’re already proficient in. There’s been enough promising work stemming from these explorations that a new, hybrid genre of “motion photography” has exploded into the industry. ”

“Practice storyboarding. A storyboard is an illustrated and sequenced shot list. Each panel should contain as many details as possible about scene content, lighting schematics, and camera operation direction (often shown in the form of poorly drawn, yet effective arrows).”

Editing Your Reel

This is one of the better reels I’ve seen to date. It’s for photographer Luke Copping. It’s important to note that he worked with a professional film maker/editor (see below) – and it shows.

What makes it work so well? Let’s start with the audio track. It’s dynamic and a bit edgy without being overpowering. It drives the rhythm and pace of the visual imagery, which syncs well to it – sometimes shown at a slower pace (providing a nice counterpoint), but always on beat. The timing works. The reel shows many images, but they stay in the frame just long enough to appreciate them – some longer than others so it doesn’t get monotonous and continues to capture our limited attention spans. Notice that the images are typically shown with a slight motion on them, instead of hanging still and static in the frame. This helps to keep the momentum and rhythm/pace moving smoothly and fluidly through the sequence. Images “stick” only for emphasis. And of course there’s the sequence itself – bringing us through an impressive body of work in a compelling way. There are a number of transitions too (like zoom, cross dissolve, slide) but they all work well to enhance our viewing of the imagery instead of distracting from it.

Signal – Luke Copping Photography from Luke Copping on Vimeo.

A promo reel of my still photography work edited and remixed by Solomon Nero

www.lukecopping.com

Making it Personal

Choosing subject matter that’s meaningful to you almost always inspires. Such is the case with photographer Josh Kohanek’s latest promotional piece, which corresponds with a new body of work he has just completed. Josh recently shared this promo with me and said, “The imagery was shot on a Minnesota organic farm. The project is close to my heart – and I feel really emotionally attached to it.”

View Josh’s new farm series on his website.

*It’s a good idea to use a personal salutation and write a personal note.

It’s Important to Have Goals

Have you ever heard the phrase “form follows function”? American sculptor Horatio Greenough is credited with the phrase, but it was the American architect Louis Sullivan who made it famous. The phrase became the guiding principle of modernist architects and industrial designers during the 20th century. It means that the structure and appearance of a thing should reflect and support what its purpose is – essentially defining and measuring decisions against the goals of a project.

If you’re thinking about a new promo, redesign of your portfolio or website or even an entire re-brand you need to carefully analyze the project’s goals. And of course if you’re starting from scratch, goals are the place to start. It’s a lot easier to accomplish something if you know what you want to accomplish. Having specific goals provides a means to measure your decisions for what’s right for the project. You can ask yourself, “Is this the best way to accomplish x,y and z?”

Photographer Micah Albert just went through a site redesign and marketing effort. In order to do so, he set out some specific goals for the project and was able to hit the mark for each one.

Promotional Strategies: Collaborations that Pay Off

It can be expensive and time-consuming to print your own promotional materials (not to mention all the headaches!). Paying someone else to do it typically costs a lot. In comes a smart idea from Craig Varjabedian, a fine art photographer, living and working out of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Years ago he began a collaborative effort with Cottonwood Printing Company, a high-quality printer in Albuquerque, NM to create a series of joint promotional pieces that each could use.

Craig says, “[The projects] have ranged from notecard sets, calendars of various sizes, posters and postcard sets in both black and white and color. Each project is personalized on press; that is to say the printer imprints part of the run with his name and contact information and prints another part of the run with my name and contact information. The division of labor is such that I provide the images and design the various pieces, Cottonwood Printing prints the pieces and provides me a quantity of each piece for my efforts. Its WIN/WIN for both of us. I have had the privilege of working with this great firm for over 15 years now and because of the strong positive responses we both receive from the various promotional pieces, and the fun we have working together, we plan on continuing our efforts for some time to come.

Just in time for Spring Break: An “Ab-tastic” Promo

This promo comes to us from photographer, Ryan Donnell. He says, “The 17 x 22 inch poster, printed on newsprint, features some of the beefcakes that I photographed for Philadelphia Magazine back in 2010. The images ran in the 2011 Best of the Shore issue in a photo essay about New Jersey Shore lifeguards. And, hey, who doesn’t mind looking at 22-inches of ab-tastic men and imagining you were on the beach. Credit where credit is due: printing on newsprint was really Dave’s idea [his assistant]. Awhile back, Dave was telling me about experimenting with sending different media through his inkjet, including newsprint, and I immediately thought it would be the perfect timeless medium for the timeless image of a shore lifeguard.”

Noah Webb’s New Site

It’s clean, functional, focused on the work and through the use of Noah’s brandmark has some visual style. The navigational categories are simple and easy to use. The clean white space allows one to focus on the image without distraction. The site also takes advantage of current web trends – utilizing CSS3, dynamic type and integration with an easy to use content management system.

http://noahwebb.com/

A Magazine Promo w/ Style

This is an impressive promo from photographer Luke Copping.

It appears very well thought out, designed and executed. It’s got style and does a great job featuring his photographs. Luke worked with the talented designer, Nubby Twiglet to realize this 58 page perfect-bound magazine.

In Luke’s own words –

“I am always looking to change things up and add different elements to my marketing mix to keep things fresh – partly to move away from the too many generic e-blasts / too many generic postcards burnout that a lot of photographers get stuck in, and partly because I just love making cool things and sharing them with others.

To kick off 2012 right I wanted to share a project that I have been crafting with the help of the phenomenally talented Nubby Twiglet (Who I have worked with on my identity and branding projects for a couple of years now. I never cease to be impressed with how well her design and layout work complements my photography), a 58 page magazine that collects some of my personal favorite images and series. I have used the MagCloud service in the past in my work with Auxiliary Magazine and always been impressed with their quality, which has just gotten better and better over the years, so they were the clear choice for me when it came time for me to print the small runs needed for my publication."

More and more photographers are working on their own and collaborating with designers to produce their own magazines. As Nubby Twiglet puts it, "With on-demand self-publishing becoming an increasingly affordable option, photographers can self-promote in ways that seemed incredibly out of reach just a few short years ago."

About the design, Nubby says,

"Photographers know their work better than anyone and after Luke had selected his top images and mocked up a dummy issue, I started playing around with layouts and type-driven introductions for each themed series.

I’ve worked with a lot of photographers and my number one goal as a designer is to never overpower their work. I believe that less is more. Great photographers’ work stands on its own and the accompanying branding should accentuate it, not distract. Because of this, I kept the layouts and overall design fairly minimal. "

Brand as a Well Oiled Machine

Josh Letchworth’s new re-brand is distinct yet unobtrusive and sophisticated, yet approachable. The re-brand includes a new logo, website, portfolio, email and print campaign. As Josh puts it, “After a long year, I can now look at my brand as a well-oiled machine that makes sense in every facet.” In doing so, he worked with Amanda Sosa Stone as his consultant.

Amanda says, “When Josh came to me, I was excited to have the opportunity to work with him. I knew his work and style and understand how much VALUE he had. He had a killer existing client list and great client rapport. He had a lot of GREAT things going for him. Because he was so busy taking care of his clients, he never took the time to work on himself (which is a good problem to have). Working together we needed to identify what was missing…the two things we identified were: a good edit and consistent branding elements. We worked VERY hard to develop an edit (going back and forth until it felt right and authentic to Josh’s vision). With a strong edit he was ready for brand revisions.”

At Night: The Making of from Handsel "Ian" Reid on Vimeo.

Enter the HOW Promotion Design Awards

Calling on all you fabulous Photographers, Designers, Illustrators, Students check out the –

HOW Promotion Design Awards
Deadline: March 1, 2012
ENTER NOW

“Could your promotional design skills sell dentures to the Tooth Fairy? Show off your abilities—and let HOW promote you for a change.

If you win, you could see your work published in HOW’s October 2012 Self-Promotion Annual—a key resource for clients looking to hire talented new designers. The Best of Show winner also scores a free trip to the 2013 HOW Design Live, including round-trip airfare, hotel and Conference registration.

Enter your most persuasive, memorable work in a broad range of categories, from designs created to promote your own business to student projects, personal promotions (invitations, birth announcements and more) or client work. ”

http://www.howdesign.com/design-competitions/promotion-design-awards/

Fun Promo by Winnie Au

Fun and playful holiday promo by photographer, Winnie Au. The cards featuring furry friends will surely appeal to many of her clients. Check out her exclusive dog portraits site at http://dogportraitsbywinnie.com/. It’s a smart idea to have a site totally devoted to this particular niche of her business.

A personal and heartfelt holiday promotion

Photographer Clark Vandergrift created this beautiful video as a means to reflect upon the loss of his mother at Christmas time. He says. “My middle son Morgan (8 years old) and I shot on 5 separate days for lighting consistency throughout the story (the edit and sound design was another week in the making). It was cathartic for both of us to shoot the film and feel the motivating force behind it. I originally intended to only show this film privately to family and friends. But I was encouraged by a colleague to make it public… of course upon doing so I needed a license for the music. Special thanks to Nan Wilson and Wieden+Kennedy for the license. ”

He then created a printed mailer with a QR code on it that sent the recipient to the video.

The Stars Above from Clark Vandergrift on Vimeo.

Why Bloggin is Good for You

A blog is good for you. I don’t mean in that chicken soup for the soul kind of way. (Although there’s something nice about sharing your thoughts and stuff you’ve made with others.) But what I really mean is that a blog can be good for you professionally. If leveraged, it can be a great asset to your marketing efforts.

Blog vs Portfolio Site
Typically, the work featured on your website is categorized, formatted and displayed within a particular gallery structure. It’s often static for a period of time. And that’s great and appropriate for your online portfolio. But sometimes, you just want to show something you’ve made and maybe even talk about it and provide a little more info about the work, the process and/or yourself. A blog provides a quick and easy way to do that. Your portfolio site is like a gallery, but your blog can be opening night. It’s an opportunity to show yourself, talk about your work and have a conversation. You can post stuff when you want, in lots of different formats and sizes and talk about it or not. It’s active, casual and organic. And a great way for a client, art director or anyone else to get to know a little more about you – what makes you tic, what you’re passionate about, what’s going on inside your head. Think about it this way, a portfolio site is often all buttoned up while a blog gives you an opportunity to let your hair down.

Tips for Leveraging Your Blog

Keep it Fresh
The expectation for a blog is that it’s current and active. So if it’s it not, it could give the impression that you aren’t either.

Be Yourself, But…
You should feel free to be yourself on your blog, but keep in mind your audience. That may limit your ability to speak as, ahem, freely as you may want to.

Give Us More
This should be a place to take a peak behind the curtain. Show people more about what you do and how you do it. This could include process shots, personal projects, “behind the scenes” images or video, and other random tidbits.

Be a Show Off
Show off your new work, recent promo, or just that shot you took or thing you designed and love. Mention if you’re in a show, won an award, or participated in some event. Go ahead, talk about yourself, it’s ok.

Connect It All Together
Obviously, connect your blog to your portfolio site and vice versa. Make sure there’s a way to contact you from your blog. Think about connecting to your social channels, like tumblr, facebook, twitter, youtube, etc.

Getting Started
If you’re new to all of this it’s pretty easy to get going. Here’s a great resource I found that goes over the basics. http://the-best-web-hosting-service.com/blog/2011/08/how-to-start-a-blog/

Some Great Examples

Tom Kershaw
http://www.tomkershaw.net
It’s great to see such a talented and local photographer. He really utilizes both his portfolio website and accompanying blog. Both work well together to showcase his work. His blog is set up as a “photo feed” and always fresh with new work. His portfolio shows the curated final images in a more structured manner.

Tom says, “On my blog I post photographs documenting life experiences, places I’ve been, people I meet and events I attend. Also it’s a place to put work not worthy of my portfolio. For example when I do a photo shoot, I may post four or five of the final selects on my blog whereas the portfolio would only get the best one or two. You could argue that you should never publish anything other than your absolute best work, but I think it is nice to see alternates and experiments as it tells more of a story overall.

A good example of this is this shoot I did:

http://www.tomkershaw.net/#2525489/Black-Lipstick-Curls

http://www.tomkershaw.co.uk/blog/2012/01/03/black-lipstick-curls/

You can see I didn’t select any of the full body shots for my portfolio, but they were still interesting so I wanted them to live on my blog.

I keep the design of my portfolio and blog fairly neutral and similar to each other, but I go back and forth with this. Sometimes I think it might be nice to have the blog predominantly white so it is almost the inverse to the portfolio. ”

Ryan Hughes
http://ryanennhughes.com/blog/
Ryan Hughes uses his blog to mention a feature in PDN, show “behind the scenes” video & photos, and more. In both this example and Tom Kershaw’s, both the portfolio website and blog share similar visual features. This consistency helps to orient the audience and visually connect the two.

Reena Newman
http://blog.reenanewman.com/
Reena Newman’s blog, The Hungry Photographer gives Reena a spot to talk about the work, tell stories and share a bit about her process, challenges and successes. It’s a great way to get to know her as a photographer.

Jessica Hische
http://www.jessicahische.is/obsessedwiththeinternet
Jessica Hische’s blog is an important part of her brand. She’s a typographer, designer and illustrator and has made a name for herself creating great work but also talking about it. She’s often asked to speak at conferences and workshops. Her blog is full of articles, examples and musings.

Josh Letchworth
http://joshletchworth.com/blog/
Amongst other things, Josh shows “behind the scenes” video footage on his blog, such as the shoot for the Nike BMX team out in LA.

An entire website/portfolio/promo overhaul

Photographer Nicolle Clemetson recently did an entire website/portfolio/promo overhaul. It was also featured on LiveBooks. Check out her website at : http://www.nicolleclemetson.com/

“Do Something Different” by Melissa Hennessy

No Plastic Sleeves is very pleased to welcome Melissa Hennessy as a guest contributor. Melissa has no shortage of hats. A former photographer, with a brief stint as an agency account exec, she has 20+ years in the photography & advertising industry. The last 8 years have focused on building relationships with creatives & promoting the select group of artists she represents. http://www.hennessyreps.com/

Do something different:

Like many agents & art buyers, I receive multiple types of promotions, both in email & printed formats, and the occasional pdf of a photographer’s portfolio. But recently, one of the artists in my group -Andrew Reilly – asked about creating a video of his print portfolio with edgy music that paralleled his style, but wasn’t shot from above, a la page turning style. Andrew had been using theAgency Access option to embed video within an email campaign to send behind the scenes videos of his work, but was looking for a way to create a more dynamic piece that highlighted a set of images with an edgier feel to them. “The piece was cut to music that pushed that concept and has been one of my more effective email campaigns in the past few months” We started showing it on the iPad at agency portfolio reviews & found it immediately had more impact than flipping through the printed book. See Andrew’s video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krjGFoGoGmQ

My curiosity peaked & we scoured You Tube, thinking others have done the same & found similar concepts with photographers Ben Watts, Christopher Wray-McCann, Margaret Malandruccolo, and agent Norman Maslov.

The piece I found on Ben Watts called “Lickshot” is actually his second, a follow-up to his book Big Up. Lickshot is a 58 second, highly personalized visual scrapbook and travel diary that reflects the incredible variety of Watts’ photographic subjects — high school ice skaters, Brooklyn biker gangs, and lounging sunbathers to world-famous actors, supermodels, and todays hottest musicians. The idea came from wanting to show more collage/in-your-face pics that emphasized his use of bold color. Watts has also received positive feedback & is working on a 3rd piece.

Wray-McCann’s piece is called Snap & you can view it here: http://wray-mccann.com/snap/.

I asked Christopher how the idea surfaced:

“I’ve been working with motion more and more over the past couple of years, and this past summer I had the extreme good luck to meet the amazing editor, Josh Bodnar (he won an Emmy for creating the title sequence for “Dexter”). Josh told me that he really liked the narrative / cinematic aspects of my work and mentioned that one of his hobbies is “Mid-wifeing photographers into filmmakers”, and suggested we make a video together. He asked me to pull 150 images that I really loved, & he’d take them back to his studio and play around with them for about a week. He said, “When I’ve got something I like, I’ll send it to you. You might love it, or you might hate it, but we can take it from there.” One week later he sent me the piece and I was blown away. I loved it. I basically decided not to change a thing.

“I think it’s a given to say that in the world we work in, things are moving faster than they ever have before. And keep getting faster. The sheer volume of images at people’s fingertips naturally shortens attention spans. At the same time this means that anything you create has the potential of a global audience. What I find the most satisfying about the video we made is that is a fantastic overview of my work. I think it gives a solid impression of my approach to photography and life in general. In 41 seconds.”

“The response has been overwhelmingly positive. For the creatives who hire me, it’s a buyers market. There are so many photographers to choose from, and at a certain level professionalism, individual creativity, and extensive experience are a given. But the most satisfying comment I’ve heard from several creatives I’ve never even met is that this video gave them a sense of what it would be like to actually work with me.”

I asked about the music used in the videos & all of the photographers did get permission to use their titles. There are also royalty free sites online with ample music selections. In addition to music, Los Angeles photographer Margaret Malandruccolo includes her own voice over in her video , describing her drive & passion to create pictures.

Whether created for a photographer’s own promotional piece, or as a “greatest shots show“, like the one created by agent Norman Maslov , these video scrapbooks are a unique way to weave one’s personality into a non-traditional overview of an artist’s work & let the video tell the story. With so many promotions coming through multiple channels, each of the above examples provides an entertaining way to get the viewer’s attention. Printed books, direct mail, sourcebooks, etc. are still all viable options in the creation of one’ s brand, and video is one more layer that goes beyond the static, two dimensional medium.

http://www.andrewreillyphotography.com
http://www.wray-mccann.com
http://www.benwatts.com
http://www.maslov.com
http://www.mmphoto.com

Melissa Hennessy
hennessyreps@comcast.net

Mark Katzman: Thinking Inside the Box

The Marriage Between Digital and Print Yields a Commercial Photography Portfolio for Today’s Changing Climate

“St. Louis, MO, 11/10/2011. A nagging question on the minds of commercial photographers and reps these days is how to present work. Do you go for the tactile experience of the printed book or the dynamic and vivid display of an iPad? How do you get the best of both worlds? Lifestyle photographer Mark Katzman has come up with one answer: Think inside the box.

Katzman’s most recent portfolio foray is an elegant combination of an immaculate, hand-printed book and an iPad – both integrated into a single hand-crafted object so beautiful that is screams to be touched. Carved from a block of solid Walnut, the box houses an iPad within it’s pencil-thin cover, while a hand-printed book is bound seamlessly and elegantly into it’s wooden body. ”

For a look visit: http://www.markkatzman.com/#/client/ipadport/0

Contact Us

Drop us a line.

Danielle Currier
danielle@noplasticsleeves.com

Larry Volk
lvolk@endicott.edu