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

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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Marketing Photography, Part II: Educating Your MarketPosted by drfl on July 21st, 2010

A Non-”Corn” Nebraska Landscape

Alain Briot, a successful photographer, especially in the print medium recently wrote an article regarding pricing fine art photography.  Within the article he proposes the following:

• Most people cannot tell average photography from good photography
• Most people cannot tell good photography from very good photography

I agree with Mr. Briot’s assertions, with the addition of the following:

The majority of people that can tell good photography from very good photography are photographers themselves and photographers rarely purchase other photographer’s work. From my experience with art shows I can tell you that about 85% of my conversations are with fellow photographers and revolve around how I got the shot or where I was at the time. An astounding 80% of those conversations are discussions surrounding equipment. Majority Result? No sale.

Following my extension of Alain Briot’s logic then the majority of individuals who would appreciate the efforts and beauty of great art is would never buy great art. In order to help your customer’s make their decision in your favor, you need to educate them. This is true whether speaking about a print, a stock item, or assignment work.

For example, I photograph a diversity of landscapes and nature surrounding the American Great Plains. I travel hundreds of miles to ensure that what I get is unique, but distinctly “Great Plains”. The majority of these images were captured in Nebraska. Through my website and various other channels, I am contacted by companies who wish to use photography captured within the state of Nebraska for their marketing. Often, an immediate assumption made by individuals outside of Nebraska, that the state is pretty synonymous with “corn” or “crops”. As a result, they ask me what stock images I have of corn. The number? I have 1 image of corn taken in Nebraska.  It is at this point that I usually try to help the agencies or purchaser understand that while corn is an important aspect of Nebraska, it is not the only aspect.  Indeed, close to a million people in the state of Nebraska never even see a corn stalk for the majority of the year.  That’s the majority of the populous of Nebraska.  On first blush, “corn” seems to be the winner, but upon deeper inspection there maybe a stronger, less cliched possibility.

In order to educate your market, you need to be fully knowledgeable on your images.  That means, if you captured an image of an animal, you need to know what kind of animal it was.  If you are capturing a landscape, you need to know where you captured it - Park name, city, county.  If you are capturing a plant, you should know the name of the plant.  Additionally, you need to know when it was taken - ie Month, year, time of the day, etc.  If it was during an event, you should know the details of the event.  All this means taking good notes and creating an encyclopedia of information.  People like to know the stories and information behind the images and so the more information you can provide, the stronger the educational experience and the more likely a sale. 

Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 17mm, f/13, 5 sec., 2-stop Hard Singh-Ray Filter
Jack Sinn WMA, Nebraska

Marketing Photography, Part I: A Quantity of QualityPosted by drfl on July 13th, 2010

When I was a young college student I thumbed through the works of Cartier-Bresson, Adams, and the like and assumed that once one became “good enough” at photography, the recognition and the money would follow.  I guess it’s the same motivation that causes high-schoolers to go “practice” for their eventual rock stardom in their parent’s garage banging on drums.  It is the belief that financial success is directly tied to artistic success. 

As with most photographers, I quickly found that this belief only served to propel me toward an eventual downfall for two reasons.  First, most of us do not realize until later we should not be the ones determining when we are “good enough”, and I was no exception.  Most of the time, in our minds during the formative years we imagine ourselves as stronger artists than we are in reality.  Given enough time and experience, however, we can come to recognize and honestly critique our true ability.  It is then that we can affect the appropriate change.  Some do not make it this realization.

Second, and more importantly, the world just doesn’t work that way.  As a parent, I realize why my parents gave me the various sage advice day after day as I matured a grew.  “Pack an extra set of clothes”, “always have $5 and be 5 minutes early”, and of course, the most popular, “the world isn’t fair”.  That’s right, for some people financial success is joined inexplicable to artistic success.  For those, the composition is strong and the lines lead the path that they must take.  Then there’s the rest of us.

When speaking of most commodities and goods, traditional marketing literature tell us that there are two basic production paths, quantity (i.e. McDonald’s - Billions of hamburgers served), and quality (i.e. Lotus - Seen a handful in my life).  The world of photography was traditionally no different.  There have been and continue to be stock photographers dedicated solely to the pursuit of quantity.  There is a set procedure, a list of subjects, a description of settings, and then the capture and processing.  Mechanical, efficient, and historically cheaper.  Then there were the singular experience quality photographers, waiting years for the correct celestial events, the perfect weather conditions, and spending countless hours setting up and finding the strongest composition, all to elicit the desired mood or story - historically more expensive.

That was the photography world of yesterday.  Today, digital cameras and the Internet has changed everything.  The issue of quantity is no more.  With the tens of thousands of individuals taking photographs and posting results on the web, almost any type of image becomes imaginable.  Even non-professionals can capture extraordinary images whether by choice or by chance.  Communication between photographers, writers, advertiser, publishers has become instantaneous.  Ideas and visions collide and mutate and then spawn new ideas and visions. 

How does a photographer who wishes to “make it” really do “make it”?  Through building a Quantity of Quality.  Not only must this work be consistently high-caliber, but it must also be improved upon indefinitely.

So what does that really mean and how does one consistently produce and thus improve upon this quality?

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Everybody Loves Keywording PhotographsPosted by drfl on May 12th, 2010

Okay, I’ll admit it, I hate keywording photographs.  I don’t know what it is, but I have a hard time coming up with words that others might use to find my photographs using search engines.  And it is a necessity, in today’s graphical world, photographs are still reached using keywords and descriptors.  I doubt anyone remembers a browser named “lynx”, but it used to render the World Wide Web completely in text.  If you were to use that today, I doubt that very much information would be accessible outside Wikipedia, but that is exactly part of what leads to Wikipedia’s success: Lots and lots of lovely text for those search engines.  My family and friends who may read this probably know that I am usually not at a loss for words, but when it comes to my art, I want it to speak for itself, not be defined by a series of phrases.  But, I know that its an excuse and every so often I vow to change this.  Today is another one of those days.  Its been raining quite a bit in Nebraska and as such I haven’t made it out to photograph.  Additionally, my web statistics showed a pretty good drop in traffic in February and March, so I need to drive more traffic.  A perfect time to sit down to the daunting task of keywording and building some good information around the images.  Oh, and one more thing, all that neat text needs to be spell checked. Keywording, an evil necessity for photography!

Of course, I’m starting this process with today’s image, “Curves and Clouds”, please enjoy that added info!

Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 30mm, f/8, 1/8 sec.
Gateway Arch, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri

February 2010 Computer Desktop WallpaperPosted by drfl on February 1st, 2010

With a new month comes a new free wallpaper!  This month’s selection is “Cold Fire”.  To use the computer wallpaper for February 2010, click on the image that correlates with the resolution of your monitor and then right-click on the subsequent image and choose “Set as desktop” (or wallpaper).

1024×768

1280×1024

1440×900

1600×1200

1920×1080

DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge’s “Art of the Wild” ShowPosted by drfl on November 5th, 2009

I will be displaying my work for sale at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge’s “Art of the Wild” show on November 21st and 22nd. I am offering a diversity of different size prints with mats and some with frames. I will also be selling and signing my new book, “The Quiet Beauty of Nebraska“. If you are in the area, stop by and say “Hello!”.

Information about the refuge:
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge is located 25 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska on U.S. Highway 30, between Missouri Valley, Iowa and Blair, Nebraska. The visitor center is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily, except federal holidays. For more information contact
712/642-4121 or look us up on the web at http://midwest.fws.gov/desoto.

Technical Details:
Canon 50d, 300mm f/4l + 1.4tc, f/5.6, 1/2000 sec.
Double Breasted Cormorant, DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, Iowa Side

This photograph is available on my website at: High Flying - Double Breasted Cormorant Takes Flight