It’s funny how APE’s post on email tracking has blown up. As many of you know most bulk email sending companies will allow you to track who opens your emails and who clicks through to your website. Agency Access, Ad Base, Constant Contact, etc all do this automatically. It’s great to track campaigns and get a pulse on who’s keeping the interest in your work. It can help guide you in your future campaigns. It’s great. APE has gotten so much flak for his opinion. Read the article here: http://tinyurl.com/4zxyre

Take a look at all the comments. It turned into a pretty heated discussion which I think is funny. In his post he said that it’s "creepy" when a photographer contacts a business contact that has clicked through to their website and says "I see you were looking at my website, can I shoot something for you?"  I must agree, it IS creepy. Why do people feel the need to do that? (another APE post quoting Deborah Dragon of Rolling Stone)

Whatever happened to "If you build it they will come?" If they are interested, they will call.

Our job is to GET them interested to call. It comes down to shooting great images and a consistent strong visual style. If they are seeing your work, and the time is right(they have a job that is the right creative direction for you) They will call.

That’s where the "Power of in Person" helps a lot in getting potential clients to get to know you(and open your emails). In branding, it takes at least 3 times for someone to hear your name or see your logo before they even begin to remember.

I had a great conversation with a rep over at Fox Creative that it all boils down to staying true to who you are and creating a strong consistent visual style and the best images you can make. That IS THE ENTRY WAY to getting the work that you want. The marketing, branding, artist representation are just the liaisons to get your work into the right hands.

so. IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME.

(Obviously I just whispered that in the Field of Dreams voice)

Check out these great responses to APE as well:
Leslie Burns: http://www.burnsautoparts.com/blog/2008/04/24/no-good-deed/
Art Producer’s Perspective: http://artproducer.blogspot.com/2008/04/ape-en-fuego.html

Looks like Coldplay is adopting the "concept of free" as well. This week the just announced their new single "Violet Hill" from their new album. Not only did they announce it, but they are giving it away for free. It’s a wonderful song. Definitely makes me want to buy their album.

Get it here:
http://coldplay.com/song.html

Heather Morton’s got a great post on Promos, ePromos, AB meetings, and what to show in your book. All from an Art Buyer’s perspective. Fantastic post.

http://www.heathermorton.ca/blog/?p=328

Leslie Burns just is very involved in the photographers community. She writes a lot of great free "manuals" ie: photography business tip articles. She just wrote one on Money and surviving in the recession of now. (thank you Bush)

Check them out: http://burnsautoparts.com/BAPsite/Manuals.html

Last week we bid on a big job for State Farm. The art buyer called and said after the last couple years of you coming in to see us, I finally have a job that would be perfect for you. I’ve been doing business development portfolio showings over the last couple of years when I visit a certain city. The big cities have most of the big ad agencies in a concentrated area. You can make the rounds and not have to travel too far in between. This morning got a call from an art buyer in New York for a Howard Johnson hotel job. She also said, "Remember, you came in to see me last year"

Showing your portfolio in person is an essential part of the business. It gives the art buyer, art director, or photo editor a chance to see who you are, and you guys the opportunity to make that personal connection. Once you have that personal connection, it makes it more normal to keep in touch with them, and for them to actually open your emails.

I’ve come to realize now more than ever that this business is all about the power of personal relationships and connections. It’s something I’ve always believed in, but over the last year I’ve started to see it manifested. These last couple of calls just re-iterated that for me. Especially with the over saturation of the industry, clients need a way to remember you. In my opinion, direct mailers and epromos are just a form of branding, which is still essential. It builds the credibility for when the do call.

APE wrote a great post on this from his perspective. Check it out: http://aphotoeditor.com/2008/04/18/showing-your-book/

I’m going through the travel archives and prepping them for a stock submission, and stumbled upon these dinosaur shots from Mongolia. Mongolia is an amazing country. One of the most beautiful I’ve been to.

More here Mongolia images here: http://www.nickonken.com/Asia/Mongolia/

A question from a reader was raised recently whether I shoot RAW or Jpeg. In answer to that, RAW is the only way to go. Shooting RAW is like shooting film. It gives you the latitude to "develop" your image as you would with film. You can control your exposures(within a couple stops. You should always be as close as possible to perfect exposure), contrast, saturation, highlights, shadows, white balance, etc.

When you shoot JPEG, the camera is essentially processing the image before you have the chance to control the developing and processing. It throws away information to compress it. Shooting RAW, gives you every single bit of information that was captured when the shutter was clicked. Using RAW editing software such as Capture One, Aperture, Lightroom, etc to "Develop" your images gives you the option to control the end product. Shooting RAW creates a faster editing workflow as well.

Can’t believe it’s already been a month since the last one. Time flies. Here’s the monthly desktop for April 08.

It’s from the Leo Carillio camping lifestyle shoot.

2560×1600
1680×1050
1024×768

As you know, the Monthly Desktops are to be passed around for personal use and to share with friends. Any commercial use is prohibited.

A little camping at Leo Carillio in Malibu. Always a fun time.

http://www.nickonken.com/Stories/LeoCarillioCamping/

If you’ve been reading aphotoedor.com’s blog, you’ll probably have seen his free promotion post where everyone submitted and he edited a slide show promo for Editors and Art Buyers.

You can see Nick Thune vaccuming the grass about 16 shots in.

Above is the slide show. You can view it in full window at ilikephotos.com. If you want to see the group as thumbnails you can view them at APE’s flickr group.