Chaos theory may not yet be proven scientific fact, but it provides a pretty good blue-print for marketing one’s skills as a photographer in the twenty-first century. We can’t say we’ve gotten a job in Australia because a butterfly beat its wings in the Amazon, but we (and numerous professional colleagues) have found some wonderful, serendipitous opportunities through the miracles of chance. Finding work has always been something of a miracle for photographers, but the brave new world of the Internet has intensified the competition and at the same time opened a near-infinite number of doors for self-promotion and marketing. You’re reading one right now.

It used to be that if you succeeded in placing your work with one or two agencies, you were an established photojournalist with a fair chance at success. That’s probably not true anymore. Today, in the “Lexus and Olive Tree” world of globalization, you are competing with everyone, and the only way to do that is to market your images everywhere. Okay, you’ve got a website, but how do you get editors, art directors, and art buyers to look at it? This is where chaos theory comes in. You have to assume that work will come your way from many different sources, and that you should place your work in as many different venues as possible. Unlike the old world in which most buyers went to one or two large agencies to seek images, you will never know who is looking at any given site at any particular point in time. The secret is to remember that at least one person is looking at every different site out there. Every time you post a photo on a particular site, however, you are making a “brand” decision that says something about the vision you bring to photography.

If you happen to get a great picture of a heron in flight and post it on a “bird” site, view-ers may contact you for other bird photos; if you post a photo to a site devoted to sports photography, visitors to that site are likely to assume you are a sports photographer. If, however, your heron photo or your sports shot steers them to your great website, which showcases your best photos and explains your vision, you may luck into the perfect marriage of client and photographer. It’s the marketing equivalent of a butterfly beating its wings in the Amazon causing a tidal wave to strike Australia.

We are currently looking at several of the larger, “prestige” agencies like Getty Images. Each of these does an excellent job of representing and showcasing the work of professional photographers. And, while they are very much at the forefront of Internet marketing, they still retain many of the customs of their forebears agencies, such as Black Star and Image Bank.This makes them comfortable to work with, and since they are in the business of representing photographers, it requires little imagination to understand what they can do for your business.

Our next suggestion takes a greater leap of faith.Does it make good business sense to share your photos on a site like Flickr *? We think it might under certain circumstances. We keep hearing (from reputable sources) of photographers being approached by picture buyers who saw their work on Flickr and want to license it. We think this provides photographers with an opportunity to highlight experimental or personal work that falls outside their traditional categories. We plan to post some of our personal shots on Flickr, and we’ll keep you informed on the response. Since we do make our living as photographers, we will exercise the copyright option of posting them with “All Rights Reserved” and, we will upload very small files only. So, look for us soon next to Aunt Sue’s pictures of Little Johnny’s first communion and Grace’s photos of Della, the Puppy Princess.

* FlickrNation.com is the home for the FlickrNation podcast and news about Flickr. This is an unofficial site.


© KEENPRESS - Sisse Brimberg & Cotton Coulson [contact] [bio]