Traveling the Journey of Light | Photoblog Thoughts, feelings, and techniques behind the photography of Derrald Farnsworth-Livingston

Marketing Photography, Part IV: Bringing it Back to BasicsPosted by drfl on September 1st, 2010

In another role, I’ve had the opportunity to attend some good traditional marketing seminars.  I think the biggest thing I took away from all the plans, ideas, strategies, etc. is one simple tenant:

Spend at least 10 minutes a day on marketing

Did they qualify what to spend that time on?  No.  Did they say if it was traditional vs. social vs. online?  No.  10 minutes.  The rest is up to you.

It’s simple and surprisingly effective.  When I made the decision to really begin marketing my photography, I decided to follow this advice.  At the time, I had a webpage.  Not a lot of content changing there, but it was a start.  I started my blog.  As I forced myself into 10 minutes, my blog posts increased and so did my traffic. 

Good, but it could be better. 

I traded links with other photographers.  I emailed people that I thought might benefit from my photography.  I sent letters (yes, snail mail!) to publishers.  I got a twitter account.  I guest blogged.  All these things increased my page views.

On days that I follow this simple rule I notice a steady increase in interest/hits/sales/etc.  The hardest part for me is deciding how to use my 10 minutes.  There is so many different avenues one can take to market and the landscape is only growing.  I’m careful about how and with whom my name and brand is attached.

So what is next for me?  Facebook.  Before now, I resisted setting a page mainly due to time.  My 10 minutes on some days added up to hours of work and I wanted to maintain a level of quality on what I was doing.  Additionally, I didn’t want the time I spent on marketing to overtake my photography goals, but sometimes the marketing goals must come first to finance one’s photography goals. 

Tomorrow I plan on discussing my Facebook implementation.

Technical Details:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/5 @ 300 mm, 1/500
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, Nebraska Side

Marketing Photography, Part III: The Art of Keywording PhotographsPosted by drfl on July 27th, 2010

In my May 12th post, “Everybody Loves Keywording Photographs” I mentioned that keywording photographs is usually a tedious albeit necessary exercise to help categorize photographs and allow others to find them via your website or search engines on the Internet.  During the past two months I have revamped my website with the focus on expanding my already existing keywords and made some notes.  Today, I’m going to give some tips on what you should do to maximize the your the keywords associated with your photography.  For this exercise, I will be using the image above, “Mist and Melancholy” to help illustrate what keywords should be associated with this image.

While answering each of the 11 questions below, we need to keep four things in mind.  Primarily, we will want to be as specific as possible.  If something has a proper name, it should be used.  Secondly, we will want to explore as many synonyms as possible within each question.  Thirdly, if the plural of the subject differs significantly in spelling we will want to make note of that as well.  Lastly, spell check everything!  A mispelled word will rarely help in searches.

Keep in mind that if your keywords are too vague or inaccurate people will not think that your keywording is reliable and will be frustrated when they do not find the image they need.  Additionally, we want to use only the terms the majority of individuals would use when searching.  It is possible to go too far in keywording and have obscure words which few people would actually use.   Using such terms reduces the effectiveness of the words that you have chosen to describe the photograph. 

The questions come after the jump - be sure to click on “Read the rest of the entry”!

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A Lamentation to the Unprepared (Namely Me)Posted by admin on February 3rd, 2010

Coyote, why must you vex me so?  How did you know that my 1.6 crop camera, and large lens were in my car across the large frozen lake?  Why must you continue to walk towards me?  Is it a sign of defiance, knowing that I cannot capture you as large as life?  Why? Oh why?  No, don’t disappear into the woods, stay and play on the solid water while I go and get my gear… 

As much as I hate to say it, I was utterly unprepared for this coyote encounter.  For years I had a trusty green photo backup that managed all my gear.  In it I would carry my full frame camera, a crop camera, and an assortment of lenses, including my 300 f/4l and 1.4 tc combo.  About 3 months ago, my photo backup zipper broke and I have been using an awesome shoulder case that I mainly use for brief excursions, but it only carries my full frame camera and shorter lenses.  Normally, I had been carrying my 50D + 300 f/4l + 1/4tc (672mm effective) combo by hand, but as I was to cross a frozen lake I didn’t want to chance falling and dropping it.  Sure, I’ve got my eye on a new backpack, but like many of us, I have decided to cut back on “unnecessary” expenses.  Besides, it’s been a nice treat on my back and knees paring back a bit and carrying less, so all I had was a 5D Mark II and a 70-200 f/4l lens (100% Crop Above).  A lesson to all that read, heed the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared”.  And Still…

Coyote, why must you vex me so?

Growing an Artist-treePosted by drfl on January 14th, 2010

The tree is symbolic of an life of artist. The trunk is the base, the basics, knowledge and experience of the craft. The branches symbolize our various creative endeavours within that craft. Some of those branches are older and stronger and support many smaller branches, some are new and budding, while others are dying. Sometimes we must trim away those dead sticks so that we can encourage new growth. As the years pass, we may try to guide the path of these branches, but often there is a randomness that we cannot predict.

Our inspiration waters and feeds the artist-tree. Sometimes it rains and beautiful buds burst into being. Sometimes its winter and the tree waits quietly for the spring thaw. If we do not tend to the tree, it withers and the branches become brittle, but hopefully we can return and resume the care to save its precious nature.

Nurture and love your artist-tree. Let inspiration wash over it and allow the creative branches to reach to the sky. And remember: visit it often.

Technical Details:
Canon 50d, 300 f/4l + 1.4tc, f/6.3, 1/160 sec.
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge

Photo Friday: Morning RelaxationPosted by drfl on December 4th, 2009

Taken the morning of the second day of the DeSoto show, the sun’s light was filtered by some interesting cloud patterns. For just a few seconds at a time the rays would cut through.

Technical Details:
Canon 5d Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 17mm, f/9, 1/10 sec., Singh-Ray 2-Stop ND Grad, Singh-Ray 3-Stop ND Grad Reversed
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, Iowa Side

This photograph can be viewed on my website at: Morning Relaxation - Sunrise Over DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge

Returning to One’s Roots by Using a Point and ShootPosted by drfl on November 24th, 2009

Over the Sea of Grass

When I was a young lad I had a 35mm Kodak camera that I had won at a contest in Montana.  About once a year my family and I would go on a trip, usually to a national park and I would be sure to pack the camera.  I would take several rolls of film and I would ultimately end up exposing most of it in the first couple of days and then I would have to ration the rest for the remainder.  During the time I was scurrying up on rocks and running up to lake shores to snap a quick photo, I had no idea that one day that would turn into something greater.  My only goal in those days was to capture the beauty around me so that I could be reminded of it later.

As time has progressed, so has my equipment.  During college I used a completely manual Pentax K-1000 to capture almost solely black and white images.  I did quite a bit of dark room work in those days, rolling and exposing my own film, and creating prints until the dead of night with only a singular red light for illumination.  I learned of different lenses, apertures, and shutter speeds.  I first used a tripod and a medium format camera.  Needless to say, the quick point and shooting slowly morphed into more deliberate, careful shooting, I had become a “serious” photographer.   Besides, now I had a grade depending on it.

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