“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.”
–Tom Fishburne of the marketoonist
Are you using your NANPA membership to market your photography business? There are some obvious and some not-so-obvious ways to do so. If you’re not, you aren’t maximizing the return on your membership investment.
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NANPA’s year-long 25th birthday celebrations kicked off at the Nature Photography Summit.
The world has changed a lot in the twenty-five years since NANPA was formed. Back in 1994, the first commercially-successful web browser, Netscape Navigator, was released. “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” was renamed Yahoo. Google was four years away and Facebook wouldn’t launch until 2004. If you had internet access, it was probably dial-up at 56kbps through Compuserv or AOL. Photoshop 3.0 had just come out and introduced layers. Microsoft Windows was new but your Pentium computer probably ran MS-DOS and had 4 MB RAM. Mobile phones didn’t have cameras and certainly weren’t smart.
Perhaps you’ve heard about the controversy swirling around The Vessel, a massive “sculpture” in the heart of Hudson Yards, a huge real estate development in Manhattan? It’s been described as an M. C. Escher drawing come to life and instantly became a favorite Instagram background for visitors to New York. You can learn more about it in the video above.
When you snag a ticket for admission to The Vessel, as in so many things in life these days, you agree to various terms and conditions. Nobody reads them, right? Well, someone did and found that, by buying a ticket, you were agreeing to terms that essentially gave ownership of your photo to the real estate development. The original terms stated that you were giving the company “the irrevocable, unrestricted, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable right and license to use, display, reproduce, perform, modify, transmit, publish and distribute such photographs, audio recordings or video footage for any purpose whatsoever in any and all media (in either case, now known or developed later).”
At one point or another, most photographers will embark on a personal project. These projects are ways to more deeply explore a personal passion using photography, whether that be documenting how a single location changes throughout a year, looking for variations on a theme, or recording the health and vitality of a species or habitat. Personal projects can be global or local, big or small, and most assuredly will provide a satisfying and challenging addition to your photography arsenal.
At NANPA’s Nature Photography Summit, February 21 – 23, in Las Vegas, you can take a deep dive into all aspects of personal projects. That’s one more reason to register and get yourself (and your gear) to Vegas this month. Sign up before preregistration closes at midnight, Eastern Time, on Monday, February 4th and take advantage of NANPA’s 25th birthday discount! Use promo code “Happy25” for $75 off a member, non-member, or student full Summit registration.
A great online course offers something bigger than technical knowledge: it offers time hanging out with YOU. It offers the chance to experience your world, to join you in the field, to see, first-hand, your unique approach to the photography process. Here, filmmaker Peter Hoffman is on assignment in California.
The world of online education is a new frontier for nature photographers and one that can be quite lucrative. But making money isn’t as simple as building an amazing course and setting it free on the internet. Plenty of thoughtful, well-designed courses go undiscovered every day.
So, before you invest your time and energy into building a course, I wanted to offer some ideas on how to ensure you don’t get lost in the ocean of internet content.
Still debating whether you should come to NANPA’s Nature Photography Summit and Trade Show, February 21-23 in Las Vegas? Here are five compelling reasons to pull out your credit card and start making reservations. And, hey, there’s still time to get pre-conference pricing . . . but only ‘till midnight, Sunday, January 20th.
2019 NANPA Lifetime Achievement Award winner John Shaw
Professional nature photographer John Shaw was the recipient of NANPA’s first Outstanding Photographer Award in 1997. This year, he’s being honored with NANPA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and will also become a NANPA Fellow. Registered for the 2019 NANPA Nature Photography Summit? You can see John Shaw interviewed by Kathy Adams Smith on Saturday, February 23, at 10:30 AM.
He’s written seven books and ten ebooks and his work has been featured in numerous books and magazines. He’s photographed on every continent and has been recognized by Nikon as a Legend Behind the Lens, as an Icon of Imaging by Microsoft and, since 2001, has been part of Epson’s Stylus Pro fine art print makers group. Last month we had the opportunity to ask him a few questions.
Portfolio reviews are an essential part of growing as a photographer.
Sign up for one at NANPA’s 2019 Nature Photography Summit and Trade Show.
A portfolio review is when a professional photographer, photo editor or agent examines and critiques your carefully-curated portfolio of top images. Reviews are often available at photo conferences, including NANPA’s 2019 Nature Photography Summit and Trade Show, where you can sign up for a portfolio review with one of more than 20 top-notch photography professionals. But, why would you want to do this?
© Michael Struble
I am often asked if it’s possible to make a living as a nature photographer. No matter whether you attempt to do it as a full-time professional or a part-timer to supplement income from an existing job, there are many things to consider. Nature photography is a tough way to make a living. However if you do it right, you can make it work.
Both full-time and part-time photographers need to remember and understand these concepts:
Full-time photographers can add these to the list:
What is the state of photography today? The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) forecasts have good news and bad news for photographers in general.
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook projects that the employment of photographers will decline by six percent over the next ten years. However, that number masks some major variations in prospects that depend on the type of photography. Demand for portrait and wedding photographers is projected to remain strong, but staff photographer positions, especially in the publishing world, will continue to decline. The Bureau projects that photographers employed by newspapers will drop by a stunning 34% over a decade. On the other hand, projections show the ranks of free-lance and self-employed photographers increasing by 12%.