PhotoShelter

If you're attending South by Southwest this year, come join Taylor Davidson and myself for a "core conversation" provocatively titled "Everyone Can Be a Professional Photographer."

by Grover Sanschagrin

Everyone loves coupons. They offer the thrill of the hunt and the satisfaction of walking away the proud owner of a genuine "bargain."  I can remember my mother cashing in stacks of carefully cut coupons at the grocery store and how proud she was that she was not only saving money but somehow "beating the system."

At the risk of shattering those precious childhood memories, I don't think she was actually "beating the system" at all, but rather cashing in on a feel-good marketing tactic created by the system itself. She got her $0.15 savings and a sense of victory, the cereal makers got their $1.35 and moved a box of frosted flakes. Win win, right?

A few weeks ago, we made it possible for photographers to create coupons for their images allowing them to offer additional incentives to buyers and drive more image sales.

Since then, members of the PhotoShelter community have come up with some pretty creative ways to use these coupons to create that motivational "beating the system" feeling for their own customers.

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7 Really Clever Ways Photographers Use Coupons to Increase Sales

1) One-Day Discounts on a Special Theme
Sara Wolfram is a wedding and portrait photographer based in California. As soon as the coupon feature was announced, she set up her first promotion.

"I launched a special "Valentine's Day Discount" for all my family photography clients, to help motivate the slower buyers that I've been waiting on for orders," she said. "It was so easy - I didn't have to worry about configuring anything in the PayPal/shopping cart area, I just filled in a few blanks in the Coupon area and... Voila! I sold $375 in photos in one day! I love it."


2) As part of a follow-up "Thank You" campaign
Kevin N. Murphy, a portrait photographer in Seattle, jumped on the coupon feature as soon as he learned it was available.

"I emailed a client a 10% off coupon as a 'Thank you' because they had gotten in touch with me that day about their pictures," he said. "Within an hour of emailing them the coupon code they had placed a $100 order!"

Murphy said that he had shot their portraits over a year ago but the customer never finished with the ordering process.

"I don't think there was really any problem, but in a family with two kids something had always interrupted them," he said. "The coupon was just the nudge they needed to complete their order."

To close out the week, we're rounding up a few very special kudos to members of the PhotoShelter community...

Images Without Borders over 100 photographers have pooled their images for sale as prints to raise money for Doctors Without Borders, and in particular, the Haiti relief efforts.  They've accepted image submissions from a diverse and exceptional group of photographers, including a lovely selection of iPhone photos.  PhotoShelter donated a multi-user account to help the group manage submissions from multiple artists, display their website, and sell prints with our e-commerce platform.  They've already raised and donated $2,000 to this worthwhile cause.  How can you help?

1)      Contribute images
2)      Buy a print
3)      Share their story. Embed their gallery slideshow into your blog (click the arrow to grab the code from the bottom right corner) and help spread the word.   



IMAGES FROM HAITI TODAY - Images by Images Without Borders

Images Without Borders was created by PhotoShelter member photographers Stacy Ericson and Laura Bergerol and they've worked incredibly hard to gather photographers via social media to help make a difference. 


Congratulations to Paris-based documentary photographer Tomas Van Houtryve, who garnered the Freelance Photographer of the Year Award from Pictures of the Year International (POYi).  Among Tomas' portfolio highlights was his daring journey deep into North Korea, posing as a chocolate salesman to get inside.  He emerged with some incredible photos of a world few ever see.  Read more at pdnonline.
 

Congratulations to Washington, DC based documentary photographer Louie Palu, who has won the 2010 Alexia Foundation professional grant of $15,000 for his proposal to document civilian life and culture in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the birthplace of the Taliban.  Read more at pdnonline.

    
Congrats to PhotoShelter members who were selected among the PDN 30, 2010, including documentary photographer Matt Eich and freelance photojournalist Danfung Dennis.


Hearty congrats to freelance photojournalist and web designer David Brabyn, who was the first PhotoShelter member to get rewarded through our new Refer-a-Friend program after we announced it this week.  Always nice to see PhotoShelter members introducing other photographers to PhotoShelter customization.



Finally, a few images that caught our eye this week from PhotoShelter photographers.
 



 

A breathtaking backpacking moment by Oregon based freelance adventure, lifestyle and environmental photographer Justin Bailie.

 



A tasty weekend snack - possibly the best looking soon-to-be bacon, lettuce & tomato sandwich we've ever seen, by food photographer Jennifer Davick.




And a beautiful live action ballet moment in sepia, Swan Lake by the Royal Birmingham Ballet, captured by UK performing arts photographer Patrick Baldwin.

Have a good weekend!



Have some exciting news? Just win an award? Doing something cool you'd like to share with the PhotoShelter community? Send us a link and you just might end up featured in our Friday round up. Giddyup!

Help us learn more about how you use PhotoShelter, win a $500 Adorama Gift Card and more

*UPDATES ADDED*

If there's one thing we've learned over the past few years, it's that photographers use PhotoShelter in a myriad of ways. Stock photographers like the power of being their own agency with unattended sales of their rights-managed and royalty-free images. Wedding and event photographers love creating galleries and having an automated print fulfillment solution through our three printing partners. Commercial and editorial shooters dig the high-resolution file distribution capabilities. The SEO and social media features have become increasingly popular. More than just a website, PhotoShelter has become like a Swiss Army knife, nay, a Leatherman for photographers.


A few of the photographers who have shared how they are using PhotoShelter. Top Row (L-R) Rob Tringali, Shelley Alger, Andrew Collings, Elizabeth Carmel, Chris Hornbecker, Jim Goldstein. Bottom Row (L-R) Dave Walsh, Hans Halberstadt, Lisa Dearing, Scott MacDonald, Tanya Bright, Josh McCulloch


Show us yours
We'd love to get a better sense of how our best customers are using PhotoShelter. We get to see so many website examples every day, but it's hard to know what's happening behind-the-scenes unless we hear it directly from you.  We want to get to know more members who are utilizing PhotoShelter in exciting ways to share it with the PhotoShelter community, and maybe even share it with the industry press as well.  So we've decided to make it very rewarding for you to share your story with some juicy prizes.  Welcome to SHOW US YOUR PHOTOSHELTER.  Here's how it works...

What you do:

1. Post a new article on your blog.  Talk about yourself.  Include what you shoot and details about your most recent work. Discuss how you use PhotoShelter and what features you find most helpful.  Feel free to include your images, graphics or even video.  Examples are welcome!
2. Send us the link at mystory@photoshelter.com

What we'll do:

1. We'll select a few blog posts that best illustrate the diversity of how people are using PhotoShelter  on March 31, 2010. Our favorites will get cool gifts like a $500 Adorama Camera Gift Card, 100GB of additional storage free for your PhotoShelter account, and a brand-spanking new copy of Apple Aperture 3.
   
2. We'll link to your story from our blog, to share some PhotoShelter SEO love.
3. We'll share your story with our communities on Facebook and Twitter.            

Earn Account Credits with Refer-a-Friend
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Some of you have already been tremendous in recommending PhotoShelter to your friends and colleagues. We are very appreciative. And now we want to reward you with our new Refer-a-Friend program.


We love you too. Take this paper heart...and some account credit too!

Here's how it works:

• When you log in to PhotoShelter you'll see your new Refer-a-Friend code and your own referral link. Learn more.
  
• Give your friends the code. E-mail it, Tweet it, Facebook it, autotune it in a rap. We even have little badges that you can put on your website or blog.
• When your friends sign up, you'll receive an account credit up to $40 after 30 days. (You know, assuming they don't quit. But why would they?)

Then you can use your account credits for your PhotoShelter subscription, transaction fees, storage upgrades, etc. So get the word out, and start earning credit today! Remember, you can try PhotoShelter for only $1 for 14 days.

PhotoShelter member David Calvert stops by to teach us how to pimp our Facebook ride with large-format slide shows and customized landing pages.We gave it a test-drive on the PhotoShelter Fan Page. Don't be afraid of the code - it's not that hard!


By David Calvert

I was an early adopter to Facebook. Just out of high school, when most of my friends were following bands on MySpace, I was embracing the simple user interface, white space and uniformity of Facebook. Like most teenagers, I viewed the site narrowly. It was strictly social.

I'm now 24, and like many of you, running my own photography business. In the past few years, Facebook has exploded, becoming much more than a place to share embarrassing photos of friends. Today, it's the most powerful social network on the web. The Facebook network represents huge amounts of social capital, capital anyone can tap into to grow their photography business and brand online.

Aside from having personal profiles, many of us small business owners now have a Facebook Fan Page as well. They come with familiar standard features like a wall, an info tab, photos, video, links, etc. Most are uniform, but some Fan Pages: Best Buy, Victoria's Secret, Nokia for example, offer a unique customized experience that starts on their landing page. When you arrive, instead of a wall, you see a mini-Web site within the Facebook interface.

Anyone with a Fan Page can create a customized landing page. Here's how...


Adding The Static FBML App

The tabs atop your Fan Page are apps. Some are built into Facebook, like the wall, others are developed by third parties to promote their service like YouTube.

To create a custom app, install the "Static FBML" app

 

Click "Add to my Page."

From there, a pop-up window will open asking you which Fan Page (if you have more than one) you'd like to add the FBML app to. After you choose, the pop-up window will close and you'll need to access your Fan Page.

by Meghan Grosso

As a Client Services Representative at PhotoShelter, I often speak with new and potential members who are unsure how a PhotoShelter site will fit in with their existing website. Maybe it's a portfolio site that beautifully showcases your best images, or a blog that keeps your clients informed of what you've been working on recently.  Either way, you devoted a lot of time to building it, or invested a significant amount of money to work with designer, and created a custom design that you love.

But showing your pictures isn't enough nowadays. You might want to add a shopping cart that allows your clients to license images or purchase prints and products directly off the site, or make it easier to create and manage your galleries and distribute high resolution files. If that's the case, don't worry! If you're happy with your existing site, then we like it, too!  We can appreciate the value of a custom built design, and if our design themes don't provide the look-and-feel you're after, you can customize PhotoShelter to enhance the site you already have.  This is possible because PhotoShelter pages can actually be easily integrated into any outside website.

How does website integration work? 
In addition to our pre-made website themes, we provide all our Standard and Pro subscribers with access to "Master Templates," "Public Pages," and "Customer Pages" sections, which exposes the HTML/CSS code that defines the appearance of your PhotoShelter pages. Any designer with working knowledge of CSS and HTML has the ability to adjust the code on these existing templates until the customized PhotoShelter page design reflects the look-and-feel of your personal site.

The HTML/CSS templates are very similar to the customization options that you might find on blogger, WordPress or other content management systems. So any designer who has done this type of work before should feel pretty comfortable with out system as well.

If you need help doing the customization, we can recommend a designer to you, or you may hire a member of our in-house design team to help you out. Chip Allen did just that when he decided it was time to integrate PhotoShelter's gallery, search, and e-commerce pages into his blog.  For $500 our team skinned his PhotoShelter pages so they appeared to be an extension of his existing site.

Here is his original Sacramento Architectural, Stock & Fine Art Photography website:




Here's his original PhotoShelter branded website, prior to integrating his design:



And here's the website after customization:


 

by Grover Sanschagrin

Photo by Martin L. Vargas

Most photographers spend the bulk of their time and energy trying to grow their business by finding new customers, but few put much effort into generating more work from clients they already have.

Typically, photographers will wait for a client to contact them with an assignment, especially if they've worked with them before. The thought process usually goes: "They know where I am, they'll call me when something comes up."

Martin Vargas doesn't follow that approach.

Vargas is a corporate/industrial photographer for 33Photo based out of Mexico City and Houston, Texas. His work is diverse, and includes a steady stream of industrial, architectural, editorial, product, and travel assignments.

His marketing and promotion efforts tend to be based on generating more work from existing clients, and he has come up with a strategy for doing so.

I interviewed him recently, and came up with a list of suggestions any photographer can use.

That's right, we're comin to Austin!
by Allen Murabayashi


Photo by Robert Seale

When PhotoShelter was invited to participate in a discussion on the business of photography at SXSW we of course thought of one thing and one thing only: Bar-B-Que. Then we wondered "Why not host a kick-ass workshop on the business and art of photography while we're in town?" So we are.

Then we thought, "Maybe local pros like Darren Carroll, Eric Hegwer, Jack Hollingsworth, Taylor Jones and Robert Seale would want to join us for a panel discussion?" And they did.

Finally we deliberated whether photographers were more interested in learning how to use tools like SEO and Google Analytics to improve search engine rankings and drive traffic to their photo websites, or if they'd rather pick up some nifty lighting techniques from Robert Seale they could use on their next corporate head-shot gig or magazine shoot? And we decided to cover all of the above.

This is going to be a seriously productive day in Austin folks and it will only set you back $20 to be in the room when it all goes down. Whether you're a local or just passing through for SXSW, we'd love to see you there. You'll leave with new tips and tools you can start using immediately to not just survive but thrive in these trying photographic times.


Thriving in Uncertain Photographic Times

The Long Center for the Performing Arts
701 West Riverside Drive
Austin, Tx

Saturday, March, 13 2010
11am-4pm / $20

REGISTER NOW!

PhotoShelter and PicScout have partnered together to create yet another marketing opportunity to get their images in front of image buyers. To answer any questions you might have about the technology and timeline, we've scheduled a webinar with Offir Gutelzon, CEO of PicScout and me.

PhotoShelter, PicScout, and Your Photos
Tuesday, February 23
3pm - 4pm EST
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/203535395

PicScout is fingerprinting over 8 million images which have been priced in PhotoShelter, and using their browser add-on, image buyers will be able to identify, inquire and license these images online -- whether it's in a blog, a commercial site, or a search engine result. It's a really exciting application of their fingerprinting technology that is going to open up a whole new avenue for photographers. We hope you can join us.

In 1923, Robert Woodruff took the helm of effervescent beverage company called Coca-Cola. You might have heard of it...

We have a special place in our hearts for the brown bubbly here at PhotoShelter, and we have Mr. Woodruff to thank. Woodruff declared as his goal to make Coca-Cola within "arms reach of desire, across the globe" and over 60 years he led the dramatic expansion of Coke into the beverage titan we know today. 

What lesson can photographers take from Coke, especially in this hyper-connected, blogged, tweeted, facebooked, Googled and backlinked marketplace we're now operating in? Its simple. To succeed, you need to put your images "in arms reach of desire, across the globe" just like Coke did.

Having a website and expecting new clients to stumble upon it simply isn't enough today. The old marketing methods won't suffice. You need to take advantage of productive ways to increase your "surface area" across the Internet, and give potential clients every opportunity to find you on their terms and amongst the sites they visit. Today, we're partnering with PicScout to provide photographers access to yet another powerful feature that's designed to help get your photography in front of potential buyers and drive more sales of your work.