This has been great, thanks to everyone who participated. Here’s the five:
Heather – The good: Lovely design, lovely juxtaposition of images. The sun-kissed, back-lit look seems bang-on right now. Cranes are interesting.
Myles – The good: Simple and to the point. I thought the portrait was ok so I went to her website. I also like it told me that there was a new website and portfolio so if I had already been familiar with her work it would have told me there was now worthy material there for me to see.
Heather and Myles – The bad:
Heather – Coming soon? You must be kidding me. Sure I enjoyed your blog but I need a website. But you know that Tait and I think you will wait until the site is done before you send this promo, right…? Hope so.
Myles – Echo Heather’s comments here. You advertised new website and portfolio and none were present! You gotta deliver! This is a very common thing and equally as annoying as advertising there are new images on a site when in fact there are like 2 and one has to hunt for those 2 images. People always ask why there is burnout amongst checking email promo’s? This is one of the reasons. I see enough of these and I stop clicking to find new work even if you have a whole new site for me to see. The little boy who cried wolf is a good story to always keep in the back of your head.
Heather – Peter’s promo is a standard, expectable promo. I think this is just fine. Peter does fantastic liquids and here they are. I like that I see a few different shots. It’s straight-forward and that’s good. I think the lesson here is: if you are the best at doing a particular thing you should promo often so that you remain top of mind. I need to shoot liquids = I need to shoot with Peter Schafrick.
Myles – This is interesting for everyone to see as I believe it is a printed promo that Peter submitted via email. Not your usual tactic but one I think he did just to show us a promo (as requested) So essentially we are all viewing this out of context. Thing is, it still works. Why? Because as Heather mentioned it shows what gets him going. He loves shooting the liquids and wants that type of work so why not just come out and say it like this, I am great at it, hire me? The images are solid. Show creativity and production. Not bastardized by text of giant branded logo’s etc. Too bad I never received the printed version.
Copyright Peter Schafrick
Heather – The only bad I can think of is this first shot of Peter’s. I know this has been in Peter’s book for a while but I’ve seen the same type of shot from other shooters recently. If someone is “taking inspiration” from your work, that sucks and you can bitch about it all you want but you should not promo with it. A side note on the same image- if it’s been in your book for awhile, you might not want to send it out as a promo. Ideally, I’d like to see new/fresh work in the promo.
Myles – I agree with the fresh images comment. I think this is a gate fold mailer so it would be nice to get it then see individual shot mailers once every 6-8 weeks just to keep me thinking about him. As a PE I don’t have much use for Liquid shooters but if I were in the ad biz I think I would continually need solid still life shooters. You shoot liquid well (complete with the post work he does which is sweet) and I am confident you could take those skills to other products (which you see in Peter’s book) Personally I would have led with the Orange shot. It is much more graphic and punchy. I feel the cold tonalities of gray on gray in images is something that has past its due date.
Heather – The good: Nice shots of kids.
Myles – The good: Like Peter these two want to be known for a certain type of photography, in this case kids – and I think it is a great business to be in. As most of you who have ever shot children know, it is not an easy task and one I often have heard photographers say “AHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH” too. So if your good at it and you have the magic touch then run with it like Kinzie Riehm do.
Copyright Kinzie Riehm
Heather and Myles – The bad and the ugly: Those above shots were taken from the website and not the promo which is below.
Heather – As someone else mentioned in the comments earlier this week, this promo is not doing your photography justice. Without any prompting, Kinzie sent me this note, explaining:
We are relatively new to self promo and admit to being clueless. Although we have been working about 15 years we never advertised until the recession hit and the worked slowed. Big mistake. So we hired a consultant and a designer. They were both had different points of view on the promo which made it difficult for us. The designer wanted the text and although we weren’t sure about that we went with it. Is that a turnoff for you? We’ve been sending out epromos in this format for a little less than a year.
Yikes! Kinzie Riehm specializes in photographing kids. There are some nice shots on their site and this is a niche market. So… just show me some nice pictures of kids.
While I normally enjoy a little bit of writing about what you’ve been up to (see my notes re: Jonathan Saunders’ promos here), this promo uses cliche imagery and copy. Plus, the design is terrible! Throw out this template and take some cues from the (mostly) clean e-promos shared with us on Monday.
Myles – I agree the design is bad. What is the one thing advertisers know about children (and cute pets)? Humans are suckers for them. We eat them up in all of there cuteness and innocence. An ad could be telling me to drink anti-freeze and I would totally listen if it were a small giggling child who was telling me to do so. Forget the text, who needs it? Kids sell themselves so show me pictures of them. Lots of them. And if you know of a few clients (or potential clients) who shoot kids often (or need pickup of kids) then hit them up regularly. And the ‘Anticipation’ font scares the hell out of me. I know it is supposed to look like children’s writing but it comes off more like angry scribbles. My reco? A nice and smartly edited printed promo of your work – anticipate landing date and coincide an email blast with different images that links to website. Follow through with another email blast a month later on those who clicked through and then again and again and again. Keep reminding me you shoot photograph kids.
The one thing we have failed to talk about is frequency. There are hundreds of photographers all trying to get work and if you want to stand out your work has to kick ass and speak directly to your client AND that client has to remember you! One promo mail out (email, snail mail, smoke signal whatever) will not make you memorable. I am sorry to have to tell you but unless your last name is along the lines Scholler, Leibovitz or Meisel you have to keep reminding us of who you are. And yes – It is getting more and more difficult to get your work seen by those who hire (in advertising and in editorial) and in these budget constrained times more often then not clients will take the tried and true safe route (to them I say Boooooo. Now is the time to take a risk and stand out) but persistence is key.
Myles – The good: Ryan submitted a single shot. I am not sure if it is a printed piece or digital promo. What I do like is the shot itself. Ok, I have seen quite a few images of guys running in athletic gear but there is a nice play with contrast and lighting here. I believed I went to his site after viewing this (ok I went to everyone’s site who submitted) so it got me to where I think he wanted me to be.
Copyright Ryan Nicholson
Myles – The bad: Who are you? There are no identifying marks on this image as to who you are and how I can contact you. Even if this is a one of (I think it may be part of a series) I need a way to track you down. This is crucial in every piece of promotional material you send out. Blind teasers may work in advertising but unless they are done very, very, very well they rarely work as a promotional device. I am singling out Ryan’s piece for this but there were others – Daryl Banks looking at you here. And before anyone gets up in arms remember I did ask for actual working promotional pieces. So essentially what was submitted is what you are sending to clients or possible clients. Identify yourself!
Myles – The good: Steve identifies himself, let’s you me know what he shoots and includes all of his contact info. Perfect. If I see the promo and I like, I know how to contact him stat!
Copyright Steve Carty
Myles – The bad: Problem is I don’t like what I see! There are hundreds of promos very similar to this – single image, basic design = simply forgotten. (Steve was not alone in this dept. There were two to three different iterations of this simplicity within the submissions) The promo and the photo have no edge to them which I think is the anti-thesis of his work. As much as you all may not like it, in this day and age of “Everyone is a photographer” you have to stand out. Steve is a successful photographer who has been shooting for many years but I would not know that if I got this in the mail. When every Joe Blow with decent Flickr subscription numbers send out basic promos they dilute the value of your marketing pieces. Simply put sometimes simple is not better. Don’t be afraid to stand out.
All in all everyone I think this was a great excercise and we saw some great work and got to meet new people. Were there flaws in this? You bet! It was so on a whim that it would have actually been nice to give people heads up time to send us printed promos if they had them or proper emailers if they made them. So to all those who answered the call (even those who were late) Thanks! We will be doing this again.
The blog will be slowing down a bit this week but comments and conversation will be continually monitored and updated. HMAb
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, I wish I was around here last week. Either way, I’m putting a new promo together right now so there’s lots of great pointers here and some really cool promos.
Thanks for the feedback Heather and Myles. Duly noted, I haven’t yet sent this promo out for exactly the reason you mention.
Heather/Myles… thanks for a most interesting exercise and feedback.
Myles, you haven’t and won’t likely see a mailer promo from me because my mailers are targeted at ad agencies almost exclusively. No offense. (Although you were sent an email promo of each of these images).
The jpgs I sent over were a series of separate promos — not a gatefold — a single image one side, logo spread on the other side. Each mailer was followed by an email promo, and the images were also in LeBook and AtEdge.
Heather – always interesting to hear that others are shooting similar work to one’s own. Luckily my knife image was sent out many many months ago, followed by the whiskey then the orange. But I’m always the to last to hear about such things…. since I’m not on the mailing list of other photographers.
PS: I think a slap on the wrist is due to Tait Simpson for submitting a promo that has not been sent out yet. Free advice before finalizing your marketing material?? You owe Myles and Heather each a framed print of their choice. ;-)
Cheers!!
Thanks for the input and advice. I did include my contact information on the printed pieces of this image that I have used as “leave behinds” for portfolio showcases. I thought it would work better on the web without the text which was the wrong choice. Lesson learned…thanks again.
Thanks for the great insight Heather and Myles. You never really know how your promos are being received. Our feedback has been positive so far, but we’re always looking for ways to improve. Our designer’s goal was to set us apart with something different and we believe she was successful there, but perhaps not in every aspect. We are absolutely open to redesigning our promo (with less text). Our print promo is actually a lot simpler with one image on the front and our logo, and a couple thumbnails on the back with our contact info. We’ll keep you updated with any changes. Thanks again for doing this. It’s been interesting seeing what other people are sending out.
-Ken and April
thanks so much for this feedback. i always run into the problem of being pigeonholed into that “urban” guy who shoots hip hop… i’ve really been pushing my fashion for awhile, shooting alot of fashion editorial as well as continuing to push my editorial portraits.
i always think people have seen my portraits. i just want those to know that i have a strong fashion asthetic as well. i send specific promos to specific people of course. i chose this one for this. its the cover of my fashion book and the flick i was hot on that day.
i’d pay for a promo consult.
Carty.
Heather and Myles, I had not visited your blog before the promo call so I missed out on submitting, my loss. I’ve been reading through your remarks and some of the comments. This was really great. I found your notes to be educational and the whole exercise well, generous. It’s really great to see you building a dialog with the photographers. I hope you’ll do something like this again sometime. – Michael
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