1. Submit your stock images to one of the many online stock agencies such as IStockPhoto. Stock companies allow you to build a bio page, and list links to other sites and information. Use this to selectively promote yourself to people that enjoy your work.

2. Send a press release to your local paper submitting a story idea. Newspapers, television, and radio shows are always on the lookout for a good storyline. Provide them with a story that’s relevant to the season, and makes for good news.

3. Visit a local networking group and offer to photograph the group for the website. Many of today’s networking groups have a website to promote their services. Adding photographs provide a personal touch, and will allow you to capture attention as a photographer.

4. Send out letters to your past clients with a new promotion. Your best client is a past client. Make them an offer they can’t refuse.

5. Visit a local chamber of commerce and sign up for the next networking group. Your chamber of commerce offers a variety of groups for you to network with. Choose a few groups and visit them to make a handful of new connections.

6. Find a complementary business willing to hang samples in their offices. Provide them several framed images at no cost. Because these images will potentially hand in the office for many months, make sure you use your best work, and provide top quality in both mounting and framing.

7. Post a comment on an online message board. Make sure you provide a link back to your website, yet don’t blatantly sell your services. Provide good quality content, and show you know your industry well.

8. Call three prospects and promote your business. Think back over the past couple of weeks to the connections you’ve made. Choose the three that have the best possibility of becoming a client, and connect with them over the phone.

9. Create flyers and hand them out at a networking event. Make your flyer short and to the point. The purpose should be to make them connect with you, either by brining in a coupon, or visiting your website for more information.

10. Write an article for one of your association newsletters. Most trade publications have a shortage of quality material. Offer an article to use, and use it to educate your association members.

11. Add more content to your website. Websites are meant to change and grow. Make adding content to your website a weekly task.

12. Run a contest. Whether you set up a cutest baby contest, or offer a toys for tots promotion, get your customers involved in your business.

13. Take out a classified ad in a trade publication. The least expensive method of advertising in a print publication is in the classifieds. Try out a new promotion, or use it to gain leads.

14. Join a social networking website. Social networking groups exist both online and locally. Try one online, and expand your business beyond your local area.

15. Participate in an online forum or chatroom. Thousands of forums exist on any subject you can imagine. Find a place where potential clients visit regularly, and chat away.

16. Make a magnetic sign for your car. From a simple magnetic door sign, to an entire car wrap, make your vehicle a moving advertisement.

17. Call in to a radio talk show. Dozens of radio stations exist both locally and online that reach your potential customer base. Create a message, and start talking.

18. Have a photo party, and get several clients together in one location to try something new. Instead of having one portrait sitting per day, this would guarantee you several. And getting friends together would help your sales increase because of the excitement.

19. Create shirts and caps with your logo and website information. Instead of wearing a big companies logo, create your own. Make sure your family and employees all have a few too.

20. Set up a booth at a local fair or expo. There are expos for every target audience. Find one that matches your demographics, and find some new clients.

21. Volunteer for a community project or non-profit fundraiser. It’s always fun to get involved. This puts you in contact with other business owners that may be able to promote you – and allows you to give back at the same time.

22. Offer to teach a photography class at a local school or recreation center. Many people have the desire to take better photographs. Create a class that shows the basics in a fun way.

23. Teach a class at your local library. Whether alone or with a complementary business, your local library can provide you with a room, resources to advertise the class, and a whole new potential customer base.

24. Create a portrait special at a local toy store. Kids love toys. What better place to capture quality portraits with a natural expression.

25. Set up a special, limited edition weekend. Use a local landmark as your background: snow days in the park, sand castles on the beach, and holiday magic in the city are just a few examples. Be creative.

Photo by Alena Nikiforova

Have you ever photographed a person, any person, just a human being? I think, surely yes. Today we are going to talk about the relationships between a photographer and a model. If one said it is very easy to shoot anybody, I would send a gob in his face. To get a nice picture of anyone, you have to establish a mutual contact with a person. Making relationships is not obligatory, though a model should believe and trust you. A nice girl will smile, a brave man will show respect and the eyes of a little funny boy will be full of trust.
Everyone can be astonished, pleased, sad or, maybe, indifferent. Those are our emotions and if the one is concentrated on the session, he is able to change his emotions. So, the concentration – is the key to success? Definitely yes, you can’t control yourself, if you are thinking of nice daisies or zombies in a studio or at any place. The concentration of a model – is what a photographer should achieve. You won’t catch that astonishing smile, pretty chicks, loving lips in the case you are not working with the model. People also become indifferent, when there’s too much of irritation. Every photographer should be kind and careful. A real photographer is a man of tact: never shout, never quarrel with your models, and never show your teeth. Saying compliments, noticing small details, having discussions, in which model is interested will help you shoot in more intimate consequences, and that is what helps a person show her inner world, the one you need and try to capture.
To me mind it is very necessary to establish an eye contact with you model. Your eyes should the eyes in which the one can only see the trust and respect. If your model trust you, that means she (he) can show what she is made of. Stay careful with your model, do not break the eye contact, when he or she explains you smth, that will mean you are not interested in the person, even if you are.
I expect this article to be useful, at least for someone of you guys. Thanks for reading. Good luck.

]]> http://nomorebrains.co.uk/relationships-between-model-and-photographer/feed/ 0 http://nomorebrains.co.uk/to-see-and-preserve-the-moment-nobody-else-sees-and-to-let-everybody-else-see-it-too/ http://nomorebrains.co.uk/to-see-and-preserve-the-moment-nobody-else-sees-and-to-let-everybody-else-see-it-too/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 02:18:43 +0000 mr. getz http://nomorebrains.co.uk/?p=2180 To me, there are three types of photography, two of which can be considered art. The first type, which is not art, is that which has no thought attributed to its meaning – it is a simple aim and press the shutter affair. Of the types which have artistic merit, one portrays idealism; the other portrays reality. Idealistic photography may or may not have the scene altered by lighting, backgrounds, after-editing, etc; what all idealistic photography does is portray the scene as we romanticise it to be. It requires some mental ability to be able to think about a setting and decide what it should be, in an ideal world. In that sense, idealistic photography – and every other sort of photography – is also expressing the feelings and opinions of the photographer.

The most interesting sort of photography is the sort that portrays the dirty reality of the world. These photos may also be altered, but they are altered in such a way as to enhance what was originally found, and not add or subtract to it. These photographs not just rely on their sense of timing to capture the moment, but also their understanding of their subject to also capture the mood, the feeling, and the essence of being there. They know how to use their equipment to achieve exactly what they want. They know how subtle change in subject arrangement or composition changes the meaning of the photograph. They know how to use black and white, how to isolate subjects, even in busy backgrounds. These people see the world, and capture it in a way that most people do not even stop to notice. Without them, there would be precious little record of being there. Photographers who were masters of this art include of course Henri Cartier-Bresson; Robert Capa (both founders of the Magnum agency); and more recently, people like Alex Majoli who use the new properties of digital equipment to further enhance their images.

But still people ask, is photography really art? Undoubtedly it requires technical skill. Art is a person’s interpretation of a subject, his feelings, his thoughts, his opinions – an encapsulation of the person’s experiences and ideas. In that way, the very best photographs reach this level of art. They capture a moment, a place, through the eyes of the viewer. They also share that view with an audience – something no snapshot can ever do. Argueably, making a masterpiece photograph is more difficult than making a masterpiece painting or other piece of art – for the simple reason that not all of the elements in your composition are under your control. The photographer has to be able to see the story – and adapt it to his or her vision – almost instantaneously, and be able to anticipate the peak action. He does not have the luxury to create over a long period of time. One image, often only hundredths or thousandths of a second; a blink of an eye on any timescale, a moment that would otherwise be missed.

I have been asked many times, ‘what is the best camera?’ The answer of course is always that it depends very much on the user. Forget the technical aspects, counting megapixels and rating ISOs. The best camera for you is the camera that lets you capture your vision the way you want it, and doesn’t get in your way. A good photographer will be able to adapt to many cameras, though many cameras does not necessarily make you a good photographer.
How does one view a photograph? Photographs should be able to tell the story all on their own, without supporting text. If a photograph cannot do this, then in most cases the photographer will have failed. We could see long before we could communicate with speech or text; in this form, an image is one of the most primal ways of sharing information, emotion, thought. It is no different today. Even though cinema and televison are more popular than books – perhaps because they require less imagination on the part of the audience – no less imagination goes into their production. Visual media just allows the artist to communicate more of his perspective to the audience.

As a viewer, you should at least give the photograph enough time to speak to you. That should be fairly instantaneous. Look at the details. Object placement is never accidental – even if all it does is fill up part of the composition and balance out the image. Often there are very subtle details hidden in the photograph which can tell stories all of their own, much like subplots in a novel. This is one of the reasons very large prints are the best way to view photographs.

With the increasing popularity and accessiblity of photography in the digital age, a whole new generation of people, much larger than previously, are starting to record their view of the world around them. There is no right, there is no wrong. There are a lot of very good photographers who have been given the chance to share their art with the world thanks to technology – I cannot complain or begrudge new entrants, because not long ago I too was one of them.
But what seperates the artists from the snapshooters is the deisre to go further, and to make sure your audience sees in your photograph what you saw in the scene. Sometimes lack of doing this is down to ability, sometimes it is due to carelessness. Always make sure the feeling is there. Forget about the technical aspect; if the feeling is there, the image is there, the emotion is there – who cares how grainy it is or how many pixels the image has? Of course, the more the better, but these things become secondary in the face of the primal message.

This is my manifesto of photography. To see and preserve the moment nobody else sees, and to let everybody else see it too.

Ming Thein/*photohorologer MING, April 2007
Professional editorial and studio assignments undertaken

“the most physically and sexually appealing image of the model possible”

But, do they need to get naked for “glamour photography”?

Standards of glamour photography have changed over time, reflecting changes in social acceptance. In the early 1920s, USA photographers like Ruth Harriet Louise and George Hurrell photographed celebrities to glamourise their stature by utilizing lighting techniques to develop dramatic effects.  During World War II pin-up pictures of scantily clad movie stars were extremely popular among US servicemen. However, until the 1950s, the use of glamour photography in advertising or men’s magazines was highly controversial or even illegal. Magazines featuring glamour photography were sometimes marketed as “art magazines” or “health magazines”.

For me glamorous picture, is when a girl is not showing the naked body and radiates unbelievable  sexuality. And Idol of this style for me is Emel Bayram aka memelsteak, look at her best shot (ihmo)

girl is awesome, maybe she is naked, but i don’t see it, i don’t need to see her naked body, she is so sexy in the way she is.

But if you go to deviantart glamour portraits, most of pics gonna be naked.