Category Blog

Images Matter, Now More than Ever

May 30, 2018 0 Comments read Blog, Business, Education, Marketing, Shop Talk

Building an image library is a top priority for any brand that wants to tell their story effectively and connect with their target audience.

You likely already know that quality, relevant, custom images are no longer a ‘nice to have’. Your content—specifically, your visual content—is your advertising.

In short: Your visuals are your brand.

The gatekeepers are gone and you—the independent businessperson, the marketing professional—are in charge of your own media channels.

Remember Spider-Man: With great power comes great responsibility.

All of the digital tools, many free or nearly so, are at your fingertips. Are you purposefully telling the story of your brand: what you do, why you do it, what sets you apart? Or are you hoping that your haphazard efforts will cause others to automatically ‘get’ you?

If you’re using someone else’s images, words or campaigns, then you’re not telling your own unique story. You’re in the best position to do so.

Cutting through the Noise
People react and connect with authenticity. A stock image isn’t likely to make anyone sit up and take notice, but a real moment, whether shot on an iPhone or a Hasselblad that costs more than your car.

What you Need When you Need it
Content marketing is built on consistently delivering targeted content that is on-brand and on-message. Having an image library means you’ve always got good content that can work for your purposes. Without one, your marketing is going to be less consistent, less frequent and less impactful.

Gives Structure and Meaning
Having a plan for your visuals and keeping your brand story in mind automatically provides a structure and gives purpose to your photo shoots. Instead of floundering you’ll be producing relevant content that’s meaningful to your brand and useful for the forseeable future.

What are your Seasons?
Every business has seasons. Periods of high or low volume. Cycles of growth and cycles of maintenance. Holidays. When are your seasons? When do you tend to get new clients, and why? When do you tend to be focused on new initiatives and what external events can you build content to match?

Evergreen Content
A good image library has a mix of content which may include video as well as still images. Some is very specific for a campaign, a product, a season, or a person or team. Other images are more ‘evergreen’, meaning they can be used any time of year or perhaps for years to come. They are classic and timeless. Chief among these are……

….Details
Get lots of details. These are the visual metaphors that may punctuate a blog post or marketing piece in a more powerful way than can otherwise be done. These give a sense of your point but allow the audience to fill in the blanks. They aren’t specific to a person, a time, or a location and designers (web and print) love them because of their versatility and timelessness.
image library

Imperfect Shots and Unscripted Moments
I’m not suggesting that the only way you can build an image library is by hiring a professional photographer (like me or my ilk) or spending all of your time producing elaborate photo shoots. A carefully-managed, well thought-out campaign will include professionally-produced content where appropriate and will have a place for less-scripted, less technically perfect images taken by you, your staff, others in your organization, clients, or the public. Depending on your brand, this may be necessary. There should be a place for both.

Less is More
I love crafted, long-form films and videos. The reality is, even if Martin Scorcese produced your video, if it’s longer than three minutes I’d have a hard time watching it. One minute would be better. In fact, video snippets are sometimes the best of all. These short blurbs may get more engagement than longer ones and can be easily done, leading to more consistent content over time. So do video…but keep it super short, as in this behind-the-scenes clip that shows one of the hazards in making custom wooden baseball bats:

Behind the Scenes
Show us visuals that takes us places we wouldn’t normally go. Show us the secret sauce that makes it all work in your organization: the team members, the interactions, the tools, the back warehouse. Show us how the sausage is made, showing the care and the humanity that go into a great product or service.

Faces, People!
People love to see other people. Show them faces. If you make a product or sell a service, show us the faces and lives of the people whose lives are improved by your brand. Show us what your brand means reflected in the faces of your fans, customers, clients, or even your team members.

image library

Keep it Real
If your job is to promote your brand or company, then you can get caught up in your product or service features. Instead, let your visuals show your people, your products, your brand, out in the real world. That’s the one the rest of us inhabit. Some brands seem to lend themselves to this sort of approach, like Nike, but even law firms, hospitals, and others can do this. They just may have to be a bit more creative and less obvious–exactly the criteria needed to create interest and connection.

Outtakes: the Portrait Moments that Weren’t

May 9, 2018 0 Comments read Blog, Favorites, Outtakes, Recent Work, Storytelling

Portrait Outtakes

In the photo editing world, outtakes are those images that don’t survive the multiple rounds of editing that allows the cream of your shoot to rise to the top. The first images to go are the obvious mess-ups: closed eyes, hair issues, equipment elbowing its way into a shot, poor exposure. The next rounds of editing then refine the selections further until a handful of images remain that I feel proud to submit to my clients: technically strong, of course, but also appropriate for their brand and their unique story.

Of these, only a small percentage make it to print or screen, meant for public consumption. In this digital version of the Hunger Games, the rest are discarded and are usually never seen again. It’s a ruthless, never-ending process.

That’s why I like to go through my past shoots regularly, pulling images that I like that weren’t used. They may not fit the purpose at hand, but out of context they still are interesting and strong images.

Here are a few from the first couple of months of this year. I like them because in each case there’s moment that strikes a chord in me. The lighting, the environment and body language all work together to tell a story of sorts. I hope you enjoy them as much as I like seeing them again.

Portait Outtakes

Portrait Outtakes

Crystal Williams, Boston University

April 25, 2018 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Client Work, Education, Portraits

Boston University

I had the pleasure of photographing poet Crystal Williams, just recently named as Boston University’s first associate provost for diversity and inclusion. Williams, previously a professor at Bates College in Lewiston, is a talented poet (here she is reading one of her powerful works).

The assignment was to photograph Williams with just a simple, plain background, relying purely on expression and pose to convey her personality. I love getting to know and work with people in this way. Here are a few of the images I liked most from our session, below.

Boston University

Five Clicks: Tools for Keeping on Track

April 11, 2018 0 Comments read Blog, Five Clicks, Marketing, Shop Talk, Software, Tools

Being an independent photography professional or content creator is a great, amazing, beautiful thing.

Except when it isn’t.

When you first start as a photographer or designer, it’s like falling in love with a beautiful/handsome other person. Everything is great, and when you’re with that person, time seems to stand still. Then you get married, and the relationship matures, and as wonderful as it is to spend time together, you also can’t help but notice that the dishes are piled up, the bills need to be paid and the in-laws are coming to visit, again.

If every day could be spent behind the lens while getting a ride with the Blue Angels or documenting a religious festival in the mountains of Catalonia, it would be like that spouse that never gets old, gets angry or challenges you in any way. But the reality of marriage and of creative careers is that 80 percent of it is the ‘unsexy’ stuff—in the case of content creation it’s the production work, marketing and other tasks that keep the lights on—that makes the other 20 percent possible.

The problem is, it’s hard to stay focused and on track when the tasks are not so fun. That’s why I love tools that make my job easier, are useful and help keep my animal brain on track. When my willpower or my resolve falters, I just let these pieces of software guide the way:

Activity Timer (iOS and Mac)
This is a very simple custom timer app that allows you to specify and save time blocks of custom length for various activities, and a custom “success” message. I know by experience that 90 minutes is about the longest I can focus on any given task, so most of my time sprints are anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half. I have a stand-up desk and I use this tool to remind me to sit down and stand about every 20 minutes throughout my workday in front of the computer.

Trello (Web, Android, IOS, Mac, PC)
I’ve used Trello for at least 4 years. In that time, I’ve found other project management tools but the ‘kanban’ style visual drag-and-drop interface always brings me back. I use it to set up various ‘workflows’ relating to client work, my sales pipeline, and even for my editorial calendar. It’s great for collaborating between teams, too. Using this tool for my work ensures that I keep track of a lot of moving pieces in a consistent way.

Todoist (Web, Android, IOS, Mac, PC)
This is about the 1,000th ‘to do’ app I’ve tried, but at this point it’s won the award for longevity. It’s very simple to use and can interpret deadlines from text (i.e., ‘in two weeks’, or ‘next January 1’) easily. I use it all the time….and I like the way it gamifies item completion—the more you complete, the more ‘karma’ you earn and the more enlightened you become. One of these days, I’ll be a Grandmaster. But not today.

Routinist (iOS, Android soon)
I’m fascinated by the idea of creating good habits (and getting rid of negative ones) by ritualizing them into a routine that you perform daily until they become deeply ingrained. This little app helps create and define routines based on a sequence of actions and habits that, once triggered, run in sequence until they are complete. I’ve used this app to change the way I approach my morning routine.

Streak CRM (Web, IOS, Android)
This software is a CRM (which stands for “customer relationship management” tool) which is a fancy way of saying that it is used for sales, projects, leads, and anything else related to your clients. It’s capable of far more. I use it to do project management, sales and client pipelines in situations where most communications are email conversation-based. First I define the stages of a pipeline and also set up email templates for some of the stages. I then create a box for each new client/story/item/lead and move it through each stage of the pipeline until done. It saves me a lot of time but more importantly, Streak is a powerful way to stay consistent on predefined processes built around email. In fact, it’s designed to be used exclusively with gmail, and it operates inside your email browser. If you’re a gmail or Google apps user, Streak is worth checking out. It’s particularly powerful for teams, including editors, journalists and bloggers. It allows you to schedule and track emails as well.

I hope you enjoy these tools—and more importantly, find them useful for keeping your own messy business life on track. Hopefully, that unsexy stuff just got a little more sexy.

Client Work: People and Spaces, reimagined

April 4, 2018 0 Comments read architecture, Blog, Client Work, conceptual, On Assignment

Dunham Group

I recently wrapped up an ad campaign for NAI The Dunham Group in Maine that I’m so happy to be able to share.

If you were to look through my portfolio you’d find…people. Portraits, candid moments, people doing interesting things. I’m often called on to photograph locations and spaces for my clients, as well—everything from straight architectural views to images that show spaces being used—lived in, enjoyed, worked in. While architectural work is technically challenging and I enjoy making images that showcase the feel and mood of a space, I loved this campaign for The Dunham Group because it humanizes the spaces in a unique way.

The concept was to photograph marque properties in the Portland, Maine area in a way that showed how they integrate into the neighborhoods around them. Instead of focusing on the buildings themselves, my idea was to show the way life—people—flowed around them. The structures ended up being a key element of each image, but they served more as the backdrop to the activity and life that was the real focus of the image. I worked with East Shore Studio and Print to conceive of and execute the plan, which involved shooting hundreds of images of the spaces and then compositing them together in an interesting way.

From my perspective, the results achieve the main goal of any image I make: to convey a certain feeling and a sense of context and connection. Doing so takes an image from just a static ‘beauty’ shot to something that tells a compelling story.

Here are a couple of the images from the now-complete campaign. Enjoy!

Dunham Group

Arrested: Stories Behind the Badge

March 21, 2018 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Editorial, Mainers at Work, On Assignment

I didn’t initially set out to photograph Maine cops.

As a newspaper photojournalist I spent years covering fatal car accidents, fires and the occasional armed standoff. My interactions with police were polite, professional and purely transactional. It’s fair to say that we viewed each other with a healthy wariness that at times seemed adversarial. My job as I saw it, on the behalf of the public’s right to know, was to make the images that would best tell the story. As far as I could tell at the time, a cop’s job was to thwart my ability to easily do so. To be fair, I imagine that to them I was a pain in the ass at best, an annoying gnat with a press pass. A problem that sometimes made their jobs a lot harder.

We coexisted, at times uneasily. I certainly encountered many officers who treated me fairly. They taught me a lot about professionalism and coolness under pressure. I realized: It takes a certain kind of person to put on a badge, strap a gun to their hip and patrol dark streets. Cops are like you and me, but they aren’t. They belong to a unique tribe of men and women that is often closed to outsiders. Whether seen as heros or opressors the reality is that a badge carries more weight than the metal it’s made of.

Back in 2004, I was embedded with Army Reserve’s 737th Transportation Company in the Middle East. I found the soliders, wary of my presence at first, relaxed once they got to know me. The stories I wrote were less about what they did and why they did it—why they had made the choice to serve thousands of miles from home, to say goodbye to their families for months or years at a time. I enjoyed getting to know the people they were and no matter my personal thoughts on the war it changed my perspective on soliders—and by extension, cops—forever.

Years later, living in Maine, I met and photographed South Portland Detective Sgt. Steve Webster (now retired) for a book he’d written about a case involving a little girl who he’d promised to find justice for (he did). He handed me a signed copy of his book and I read it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea of making portraits of officers at the exact locations where they had experienced life-changing, career-changing incidents was born.

I met with Webster and the idea gelled further. He encouraged me to expand the idea—to photograph officers from various types of agencies across the geographic span of the state.

“The biggest problem you’ll have,” he said, “is that cops don’t like to talk.” That was an understatement. He agreed to introduce me to Pete Herring, a Maine Warden. Pete introduced me to York County Deputy Steven Thistlewood. And one opened the door for another, as slowly I met and photographed officers from Acton to Ashland.

It remains an incomplete project. There are 146 law enforcement agencies in Maine, employing more than 2500 police officers, according to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2008 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies.

I’ve photographed less than a dozen.

I’ve had conversations with them about events that happened months or in many cases years before, but it might have been yesterday. The trauma is still fresh, the wound still raw: moments where time is measured in milliseconds and layered with sound, color and smell. Winslow Chief Shawn O’Leary recalls the moment he fired at a man threatening him with a knife, the slide of his weapon ejecting spent casings and smoke as if in super slow motion; the billowing puffs of the man’s shirt as the rounds impacted. One. Two. Three.

I chose to photograph them in the same locations where the painful or meaningful events happened to them—either the same spot or as close to them as possible. Forest Ranger Bill Greaves stands on the gravelly outline where the trailer once stood that housed the man who shot him and a deputy in 1989. Marine Patrol Corrie Roberts sways on the deck of her bobbing patrol boat, the Protector, yards from the spot where she leapt onto the deck of a runway lobster boat whose owner had died of a heart attack at the helm.

Sgt. Steven Thistlewood wipes tears from his eyes on the spot where 12 years earlier—almost to the day—he and his partner shot and killed a man who was trying his best to end their lives. It’s the first time he’s revisited the site.

Maine Warden Pete Herring braces himself in a blowing snowstorm on the shores of Lake Arrowhead, where months earlier he had recovered the body of a drowned teenager.

All of these men and women have incredible stories, each tied indelibly to the places in Maine where they happened. Each story, and each officer is as unique and varied as the geography of this state.

It’s my hope that seeing the stories and viewing the images will give a better connection to, and understanding of, the men and women who put their bodies and lives on the line for the public good.

Cops are people, which means there are good ones and bad ones. Lucky and unlucky ones. But read the stories and look at the portraits and ask yourself: if you wore that badge and were in their shoes, what would you have done?

To see the images, please click here.

Why professional photography isn’t cheap

March 7, 2018 0 Comments read Blog, Business, Marketing

maine commercial photographer

There’s a question I hear more than almost any other, in a few variations: why do photographers charge so much?

The implied statement is that photography, and professional photographers, are prohibitively expensive.

It’s easy to dismiss the questioner as being cheap, and unwilling to see the value in professional photography. Instead, I think it indicates a lack of clarity around what photography costs and the reasoning behind it. In other words, it’s a very appropriate question to ask. Photographers are sometimes their own worst enemy when it comes to pricing their photography, and it’s no surprise that to the casual outside observer it looks like voodoo trickery.

Being a professional photographer is expensive. It costs money to pay for equipment, insurance, professional fees and development, marketing and everything else that goes into a photo business. When they hire assistants, producers and others to help those contractors are getting paid out of pocket, up front. Things add up, quickly.

When you figure in all of the costs and divide that number by the number of full days per year that a professional photographer might expect to actually create images for clients, you get the Cost of Doing Business (COBD) number. For example, if a photographer has total costs and expenses of $60,000 per year and plans to photograph 60 days per year, their CODB would be $1000 per shooting day, on average. This is their nut—the number they must make each day they shoot in order to break even. Anything less, and they are losing money.

Photographers who charge less than their COBD fall into one of three categories: 1) They don’t know their ‘numbers’, 2) They are purposefully (strategically) low-balling to get the work or 3) They don’t rely on photography as the main source of their income and livelihood.

Photographers in the former two categories need to adjust their approach if they want to stay in business long-term.

At the same time, images have never been cheaper. There is a glut of relatively high-quality stock imagery on the market, available for free or close to free (and I’m not counting the photos that are ‘borrowed’ and illegally used, a common practice).

For sake of discussion, I’m leaving out the discussion of stock photography. I’m writing primarily about “custom photography”—that is, when a photographer is hired to create specific, high-quality images of for a brand or company that are completely unique and exist nowhere else.

In a world of endless choice and imitation, ‘unique’ takes effort. ‘Unique’ has value. Effort plus value equals fair compensation. Clients can expect to pay a higher fee—higher, at least, when compared to the almost-free price of images freely available on the internet—because you’re getting so much more. It’s not necessarily expensive….it’s comparatively expensive.

So there are two things, really, that clients are paying for when they purchase ‘custom’ photography. One is the creativity, experience, vision and effort of the photographer. Let’s call this the ‘service’ component. The second is the value that they get out of the images they receive—i.e.,what they actually use the images for, whether it’s advertising, general marketing on a company website, printed brochures or to hang on public display. These are all different uses, spelled out with a license agreement, and come with different price points. Let’s call this factor, ‘value’. The more value you need (the more the images are going to be used), the higher the price.

Photographers are all different. Some will package both their service and the usage together, while others will line-item every single use. Whichever way they choose to do it, it should make sense and fill two needs: their need to charge enough to keep their business going and the client’s need to get the best quality for the best possible price. In most cases, quality comes with a price, but also with the peace of mind in knowing your work is being handled by a pro.

The good news is that, in this world of endless choice, there is a photographer—and a quality—to match every budget.

Client Work: iBec Creative

February 28, 2018 0 Comments read Blog, Client Work

ibec creative

One of my favorite things about commercial photography is working with agencies like iBec Creative, a web design and digital marketing agency located in Portland, Maine. I’ve worked with iBec and owner Becky McKinnell to create original imagery for their clients for several years and it’s always been an enjoyable partnership.

The difference this winter, of course, is that I had the opportunity to turn my lens on iBec itself. The company has grown impressively over the past decade and now wanted some imagery that showcased their greatest assett—their people—and the environment in which they do their work.

I spent just a portion of one day with the team; with the goal of producing editorial-style images and portraits that captured the energy, environment and feeling of working there.

Some clients prefer having a firm shot list in mind for a shoot, but iBec was comfortable with letting me photograph whatever I wanted, and to tell their story in my own way.

Here are a few of the final images—a sort of a ‘day in the life’ of a modern creative workplace. Enjoy!

ibec creative

iBec Creative

Five Clicks: Inspiring Reads for Cool Kids

February 21, 2018 0 Comments read Blog, Favorites, Five Clicks

I read, a lot. But, that wasn’t always the case. A few years ago I realized I was reading less and less, and decided that was a problem I’d like to do something about. At that point, with a new business, a young child and plenty of ‘stuff to do’, I was averaging five or less books a year.

Last year, I read 46. “Read” is a relative term, since I consume less and less physical books each year and more e-books and audio books. As a result, I feel like my brain is being exercised and stimulated and the ideas and enjoyment I’ve gleaned from reading has made a big difference in my quality of life (and the way I do business).

Here are five of my favorite reads from last year (2017). All of these books held my interest from start to finish, of course, but more importantly they stayed with me long after I put them down.

Never Split the Difference: Negotiate As If Your Life Depended Upon It, Chris Voss
Former FBI Chris Voss takes you inside actual hostage negotiations and then explains the psychology behind his tactics. Then he uses real-world examples of negotiation that are a little more useful for the rest of us: negotiating a pay raise, a good price on a car, or dealing with contracts and estimates. I love books that change your perspective in fundamental ways, and this book definitely did that.

Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
If you are a closet nerd and/or are fascinated by 80s-era geek references, this book is for you (If you liked Stranger Things at all, you’ll love this book). I’m not going to spoil the story here, but I would highly recommend that you listen to the audio book version. It’s narrated by Will Wheaton, of Star Trek: Next Generation fame, and brilliantly so.

The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph, Ryan Holiday
I read anything I can from Ryan Holiday, all the while regarding his intellect with a bit of envy. This book is an introduction of sorts to the philosophy of the Stoicisim, repackaged for consumtion by modern audiences. The amazing thing is that, due to the nature of stoicism, it doesn’t need much cleaning up to resonate. Worth a read or a listen (I did, four times).

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman
If you’ve listened to gurus like Tony Robbins or even charismatic positive preachers like Joel Osteen, you know what positive thinking is all about. I’m not against positive thinking at all—I’m a fan in general of positive thinking but always felt that there was something missing. Sure, the “Secret” makes you feel good, but….how the hell does visualizing success and saying positive affirmations actually make you happy? This book explores what Burkeman calls the ‘negative path to happiness’, in which the negative thoughts in one’s head and the negative realities of life aren’t sugarcoated or ignored, but recognized and confronted. Great read.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg
There are so many books out there on forming positive habits and breaking destructive ones, but this one—written by NY Times investigative reporter Charles Duhigg—breaks down the research behind habit formation and gives science-based tools to start forming better habits–today. It helped me to stop getting overwhelmed and to start taking action on great habits that I’ve managed to keep, now many months later.

Why Story Matters More Than Ever

February 14, 2018 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Marketing, Storytelling

Alex Bessler, a young Mason at the Triangle Lodge No. 1 in Portland, Maine. These portraits of Maine Masons help tell the story of an evolving and dynamic fraternal organization with a deep sense of tradition and history.

What makes a good image a great image?

Conventional wisdom is that great images should be perfectly formed, flawless, masterpieces of technical expertise combined with a singular artistic sensibility.

If that were true, Robert Capa’s blurry, darkroom-damaged images taken during the Allied landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day would have never seen the light of day.

Instead, they are considered among the most iconic images of the 20th century. Once seen, the haunting images are never forgotten.

Capa’s images are compelling not because they are perfect, but because they tell a story of the hardships, danger and drama of war.

Brands looking to create connection with fans should keep in mind that when it comes to great imagery, ‘story’ is Job One.

Visual content—whether still images or video—should reflect a unique brand story.

All the rest of it—technical aspects like framing, layering, rule of thirds—are just icing on the cake. For some brands, where refinement and elegance is part of their ‘story’, such precise technicality becomes a critical part of their story. For other brands, images that are too highly polished and contrived would be out of place.

So when you think about your brand and the images you’d choose to represent it, think first about what your brand story is and approach your content creation with that story in mind.

brand stories