Commercializing Your Editorial Photography Skills

I shot this image for IHG at Intercontinental Bali, Indonesia. A commercial image shot with an editorial spirit.
Copyright 2017 Justin Mott/Mott Visuals

A few weeks ago, I was on location filming season 4 of my TV show in Indonesia. One of the guest judges on the show was a well-established American editorial photographer. He’s been based in SE Asia for years shooting for the big wire services and leading publications. We started chatting about commercial photography and he shared his trepidation and past experiences dabbling in the market.

He openly admitted being a little intimidated by commercial photography and talked about missing out on a few big budget jobs, not because of his photography skills, but rather his inexperience in the industry. It was a great conversation and inspired me to write this article.

For many editorial photographers, the market dried up years ago. I recall the days when surviving off newspaper or magazine assignments was realistic and even thriving. In 2008 I was going from country to country non-stop shooting for all the big media outlets.  In fact, there was a time when I couldn’t even afford to take on new assignments because I was owed so much money in expenses for my past jobs.

I’ve met so many editorial photographers who are intimidated by the commercial photography market. For some it’s lighting, others it’s managing production or working with AD agencies, there is a lot to be intimidated by. I’m not saying editorial photography doesn’t come with its own stress but it’s just different a different beast.

I first started to notice the gradual decline about 5 years ago with assignment days shortening, travel budgets were next, then overall I noticed the total number of assignments decrease rapidly. You might say “well Justin perhaps you just suck and editors got sick of your work.” I thought of that, but I wasn’t the only one, I noticed many of my talented colleagues facing the same harsh reality.

I did what I had to, sold my body under random bridges in random cities to pay off my gear.  Ok, that’s not true my body isn’t worth selling but I had to adapt and look for other options. My first move was I decided to hit restart on my branding, marketing, and overall business strategy. I knew I had a unique skill set (stole that line for Taken) and a defined style that was heavily influenced by my years of experience in assignment photography. I was good under pressure, knew how to tell a story, and I worked well with natural light. I started to look at the commercial photography market and I noticed lots of heavy retouching, artificial lighting, and overall heavy production.

I respect that kind of work but it wasn’t for me and it wasn’t my style. I pushed forward into the commercial market by leveraging my skillset and my experience for the big names in media like The New York Times to get commercial work. I was selling my style, something different. I launched Mott Visuals in 2009 and we started with myself and one assistant working out of a café. Since the launch, we’ve grown into a team of over 15 employees consisting of full time staff and freelancers with offices in 3 different cities in SE Asia. We’ve expanded beyond just commercial photography into full video production and our clients list is filled with Fortune 500 companies. I’m proud of what I’ve built and we still have big plans to grow.

Here are some simple tips that hopefully help you leverage your editorial photography skill set and allow you to thrive in the commercial photography market.

 

GET HELP

No, I’m not talking about checking yourself into clinic for out of work photographers. Talk to commercial photographers, if you feel uncomfortable getting advice from competitors, reach out to someone you look up to into a non-competing market. Even if they are much younger, still learn from them just like you learned from veteran editorial photographers when you were starting off.

 

BRAND YOUR BUSINESS

In order for the corporate world to take you serious you need to look professional. If you have enough work for a separate website for your commercial work start one. I use Squarespace and I love it. If not, at least have a separate gallery on your editorial website for your commercial work. Next, brand your commercial website with a proper logo and adjust your descriptions to have a commercial angle. For example, my bio on my editorial website is mostly about my editorial experience while my bio on my commercial website focuses on my commercial photographywhile touching on my editorial experience and influence in my style. Simple things like branded email signatures, branded invoices, etc. make a difference.

 

PARTNER UP

When I expanded into video production I didn’t pretend to know it all but rather I looked for people to partner with experience in video and with skillsets that I didn’t have. I wanted my stamp on things and I wanted the style of my photography to match the cinematography in the video that we produced. I explained that and worked closely with my vude (video dude) to make sure that vision and style was executed properly.

 

BITE OFF MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW

Most people will tell you not to take on a job you can’t handle, but it’s like having a child (coming from someone who doesn’t have a child), you are never truly ready or the timing is never right but once you have one your instincts will kick in and you will be just fine. Maybe my above analogy if flawed, let me take a different approach to this. Don’t turn down jobs if you don’t think you can handle it yet but rather research and see if you can learn how to handle it and like I said above, partner up and surround yourself with people that can help you handle it.

 

BE CAPABLE OF HANDLING PRODUCTION

AD agencies and clients want to work with photographers who can do it all, hiring, casting, logistics, etc. This is where hiring a full-time or freelance producer is key. I’m going to say it again and again, partner up with good people. Find a good producer and your life will get easier. Understand their job and help them understand yours, the producer/photographer relationship is everything. If your traveling for production, have your producer hire a local production to assist with permits, locations, etc.,t his is all billable to your client.

UNDERSTAND YOUR SKILL SET AND LEARN HOW TO SELL IT

If you excel working with natural light or you feel confident your images tell powerful stories then make sure that comes through when you meet potential clients and on your website. Find clients that are looking for these types of images and be confident you are the right person for the job. Even if a client thinks they aren’t looking for these type of images explain the benefits of having more realistic images, natural retouching and genuine moments. It’s key to understand your style and essential that you understand how to sell that style.

BILL IT

Don’t worry if you can’t afford a full-time staff such as a producer, retoucher, assistant, etc. Make it a line item or group it into your rate and bill it to your clients. AD Agencies and commercial clients understand and expect this. I’m not saying to nickel and dime your clients, learn the norm and apply it to your pricing.  Check out these two websites that have sample quotes on them so you can get a feel for what a commercial shoot quoting breakdown looks like.

APhotoEditor

Wonderful Machine

 

GET IT IN WRITING

It’s fine to have phone conversations, but make sure you have everything in writing. If a client changes the shot list on the shoot, get it in writing in an email. If the client approves a model, get it in writing, basically get everything in writing. I can’t tell you how many times I’m dealing with marketing managers, sales teams, AD firms, creative directors, all telling me different things so what ever they say I make sure I have an email confirming it. If I’ve being told different things from different people I make sure to start an email chain, put everyone in, and clear things up. This might sound like overkill but having an email chain is your insurance policy and it’s well worth the extra time it takes.

 

DI VS BASIC RETOUCHING

In the editorial world we are use to basic color correction but commercial photography is a whole other world. Some clients expect heavy DI (Digital imaging, adding or removing things, green screen, etc.) and if you don’t make it clear what’s included in your quote and what’s not you’re asking for endless headaches. Be upfront with your client, have a conversation about their exceptions, and explain carefully what is and isn’t included in your quote. Make a point to also put all this in your contract as well and even after you do all this expect your client to still be confused and expect you to do all sorts of DI for free. If your client expects heavy DI and you aren’t capable of it don’t stress and run from the job. Again, partner up with someone who knows their stuff and talk through the process, get their rates, and bill it to the client.

 

SET UP YOUR BUSINESS INFRASTRUCTURE

This isn’t my strong suit to be completely honest nor am I interested in this kind of stuff but it’s imperative that you a proper infrastructure.  As your team and production size grows you need to have an infrastructure and understanding of your costing breakdowns, freelance rates, etc. You must have a proper quoting system and understand the market and your value. I like to share but unfortunately, I’m not going to share too much in case my competitors are reading this article. We use Dropbox to keep everything organizing.

 

CONCLUSION

I’m not saying all editorial photographers need to get into commercial photography, but for those of you that are interested in testing the market I hope you found this article helpful. If you found this article useful please share it on your social networks. If you have any questions for me please ask me in the comments section and I’d be happy to answer them.

Latest work of MOTT VISUALS in Ban Phuc Nickel Mine, Son La, Vietnam

Last month, our cinematographer, Colin Elphick has came back from Australia and took in charge a new Mott Visuals Commercial project for Ban Phuc Nickel Mine in Son La, Vietnam. Those BTS shots would help you to know more about our job and its process.

“Ban Phuc Nickel Mine project area is located some 180kms west of Hanoi in Son La province, 80km east of the border with Laos and 150km south of the border with China.” – announced by Mancala.

Colin focusing 100% on his work…

… make sure he would get the most impressive frames for video production.

Advice On The Business Side of Photography

I’ve made almost every mistake a photographer can make in running their own photography business from running up credit card debt to doing jobs without contracts.  The biggest leap I made was when I decided to stop acting like a freelancer giddy just to get an assignment and started being proactive thinking like a small business owner trying to build a brand sustainable for the future. I never worked in actual office so I got a late start but better late than never.

I’ve had the privilege through festivals, photography events, and workshops to meet a lot of young and old aspiring photographers and what I’ve found are missing from these workshops and festivals is an injection of reality and education about the business world of photography. So I’ve decided to inject, if you don’t want to be injected, stop reading (sorry that really sounded gross and I promise not to use the world inject for the rest of this blog).

Here are some pointers, some big and some small,  that I’ve come up with for all of you who want to make a full-time living off of photography. No matter what genre of photography suits your fancy, this advice should apply to you. For any of you not in the photography world this is going to sound bizarre because you will think all of this is pretty damn obvious. I’m not claiming to reinvent the lens here (see what I did there) but sometimes we all need a reminder.

Retirement Plan

No matter how old you are start a retirement plan today!!! Open up an IRA, Roth IRA, or Self-Employment IRA account, it takes just a few minutes to sign up. I have a Self-Employment IRA through Vanguard,  https://personal.vanguard.com/us/openaccount and the money automatically comes out of my bank account every month and is invested in a mutual fund. If you are in your 30’s ask your friends with corporate jobs how much is in their 401K retirement plan already, the number will astound you. It’s not too late; you will need this money one day I guarantee it,  so sign up now.

Health Insurance

This applies mostly to expats but if you live abroad you need something to cover your ass in case of an emergency. I used a broker in Hong Kong and got a plan from Allianz http://www.allianzworldwidecare.com/  that works for me. One bad accident could bankrupt you.

Savings

Injuries, death in the family, emergencies, etc. you need to have money in case things go wrong. A lot of financial planners will tell you to have about 3 months worth of living expenses in liquid savings account as a bare minimum.

Taxes

Stay on top of this, know what is acceptable to write off and keep good records either with a program like QuickBooks or hire an accountant.

Contracts

For every job you do should have a contract signed before you do anything. Contracts are negotiable so remember that and don’t get bullied, unless of course you are working for in that case just sign the contract J. Templates are available online or hire a lawyer to draft you one. I hired a lawyer then made necessary adjustments. A good contract will save you and it will let your clients know you are serious about your work. Even with friends have a contract; it’s not about trust it’s about having something in writing signed so that you won’t have any confusion later on. I work with some of my closest friends and we have contracts that we mutually negotiated signed leaving no room for misinterpretations.

Credit Card Debt

Bad

Trademark

If you want to be more than an individual and build a brand, trademark your company. Your lawyer can do it for you and this will protect you from someone stealing your name and logo after you’ve built that successful recognizable brand.

Bank Stuff

Separate your business from personal bank accounts. I have a company credit card and bank account for my business and only those accounts are used for business transactions. Come tax time this will make things a lot easier and it will be easier just in terms of understanding your financials.

Be On Time

This might seem like an obvious one but I see it all the time. People like to make that joke about “I’m on (Insert Country Here) Time” or “I’m an artist” excuse, screw that. Be on time for all meetings, shoots, conference calls, and deadlines. Don’t forget photography is  subjective so things like being professional and being likable can always help later on when it comes time for the client to approve your work or hire you again. 

Rewards Programs

If you travel a lot get rewards programs for airlines, credit cards, hotels. Use them all time, they add up to great deals and will save you a lot of money. This dude has a website that offers advice on this, bookmark it. http://thepointsguy.com/

Get a Deposit

Don’t do any wedding or commercial work without an f’ing deposit. For editorial work it’s damn hard to do so because they are so last minute. For everything else don’t reserve your time, book airfare/hotels, and turn down other jobs until you get a deposit. We do a 50% non-refundable deposit, that at least covers expenses and more importantly covers our ass from a client canceling last minute. Without a contract or a deposit it’s really easy for a client to be flaky but it’s amazing how much they respect your time when they’ve paid you a significant amount already. I’ve helped a friend or bended a few times and guess what, those are the times I got burned so just don’t do it. Make it company policy and make sure friends and good clients understand it’s not personal. Sometimes a company will plead with you saying they can’t get you the money in time, guess what,  they can if they want you. They can pay their lease, pay their employees, etc. so they can pay you. Can’t and don’t feel like it are two different things. Be strict on this one, it’s a normal practice.

Final Payment

Don’t give up the goods until you see the $$$. It’s easy for client to say after they received the final high-resolution images to come up with excuses for a discount or delayed payments. We get our final 50% before we give any high-resolution images or video files. Again, we’ve made this mistake. We’ve had clients love the images and say so in an email only to delay 6 months to pay us or try to weasel a discount because image 27 wasn’t what they had in mind. Some will just make things up just to get a deal, not often but it happens.  It’s a pretty fair and simple system we use. We set up a locked online (We use Photoshelter and love it) web resolution gallery of images for the client to review. Once they sign off and pay us the remaining balance we send them the high-resolution images or video within 24 hours of receiving the payment via online gallery. Don’t do anything until you see the actually money in your account, just be safe. It’s a fair system for you and your client and put these details in your contract and terms up front.

DI (Digital Imaging)

Save yourself a whirlwind of trouble and establish what is included in the price and what isn’t in your quote and in your contract. Unless it’s a large scale advertising shoot of just a couple images our price covers cropping, color correction, color balance nothing else.  Additional work such as removing objects costs additional money. Also make it clear again on the shoot right away. Every shoot we do someone from the client side will make a comment on the first shot “oh he can just Photoshop that out” and yes many things are possible with Photoshop. I politely correct them right away to manage expectations.  There is a huge difference between changing someone’s hairstyle in 200 wedding pictures compared to changing a white sky to blue and removing a dust spot. Most people don’t understand how much work goes into retouching, they think there is just a button on your computer that says “Photoshop” and you press it and it just fixes things. They don’t understand it’s an art and time consuming. It’s not their fault for thinking like that and we can’t change that way of thinking but what we can do is clear up those misconceptions in our contracts and on the shoot. For our wedding work we include color correction, we don’t do smooth skin toning or removing of objects. Yes you see that in our portfolio but you also see that in our contract .  We’ve had small commercial clients put 30 retouching notes on a single image and gigantic global clients get the first round of edits and not ask for anything else, they were perfectly satisfied. It’s all about educating your clients from the beginning on what is possible and what’s not and what’s included in their price and what’s not. Set the tone early (pun intended).

Know Who You Are And What You Are As A Brand

Learn how to sell yourself and believe in what you do. Understand your product and the market for your product. Don’t market yourself as a guy who sometimes will do food shots or weddings if he’s asked to. Do you want to hire that guy/gal?

Get Organized

I’m not an organized person but we started using Dropbox and it simplifies my life. All of our company documents  there and are accessible no matter where I am. Every job has a job number and relevant files in a dedicated folder so it’s all right there when I need to access it.

Trade and Barter

I typically avoid barter deals for things I don’t need like luxury purchases such as a nice hotel room or whatever it is. Don’t get caught in that trap of a potentially large client not valuing your work and your time. They might want to trade you few nights for some hotel shots but then they will never hire you for a paid job. I’ve traded with a client at a hotel before and will do it again but only have I’ve worked with that hotel on a paid job and only if I see true value in staying there. I’m not saying don’t trade, just be strategic about it.  For example trade with a lawyer, take their company profile shots in exchange for  some advice and contract work. Just be clear, make them understand your true value from the start. Make a proper quote so they see your prices and then it will be a clear trade. I traded a wedding shoot with our graphic designers Croc and Plover. I couldn’t afford them at the time and it proved to be an amazing deal I hope for both of us.

What Is Your Budget?

Ask your prospective client “What It Your Budget?”. This is probably the best piece of advice I can give you. You’d be surprised how many clients will just be upfront with you. This isn’t an opportunity to overcharge but it can help a ton with assessing your quote. If the budget is higher for a video for example we can rent a crane or use our drone, if the budget is smaller then we might need to skip these things and shoot less days. For a photo shoot it could be a matter of terms and usage of images. The commercial quoting system is the wild west, just ask their budget and then work from there on how to give the client the most value and best product for that budget. This question will also save you time and effort if the two of you aren’t even close on pricing.

Portfolio

Have a professional site, Facebook or Flickr don’t count and never show your work to prospected client on your phone.

Dress The Part

Rolex and an Armani tailored suit for every shoot and meeting, no exceptions. Just kidding, but something between that and board shorts , T-Shirt, and flip-flops should suffice. 

Crowd Funding

I don’t knock you for trying and for some it works well but the key word there is “some”. When I hear this at panel discussions to new photographers as a viable solution to how to make a living in photography it kills me. The people talking about doing this in panels have a huge number of followers and at some point even those followers will get sick of donating money. Before I get angry looks at the next documentary photography festival and shunned from the scarf totting community that I feel like I’m a part of, I get it that it works for some of you but it’s not a realistic business plan for most. I have a few friends who make this work and I respect them for it but even they will admit it’s a struggle.  Try it out, but don’t rely on it as a way to be a professional photographer.

Get Of Your Ass And Go Get It

Work isn’t just going to flow in because you are a talented photographer or because you won a big award. You have to be proactive and go get it yourself. I get shit for OP(Over Promoting)  and at times maybe I can OD on OP’ing but I’m fine with that. I like getting paid to take photos for a living and promoting on social media helps me do that. It works for me, it helps clients remember our diverse business and hopefully they think of us when they need visuals because they remember that picture we posted on Facebook that is relevant do their business.

Most photographers don’t want to talk business because they feel it takes away from their art or their vision. I’ve personally had multiple photographers angry or weary of me for being a businessman. Not a shady business, but just a businessman. This doesn’t mean I’m lurking down alleyways making shady deals and trying to trick people and rip them off, ha ha gotcha!!!  I sell other photographers for weddings and commercial assignments and guess what I take a percentage just like an agency does. We both make money, to me this is a good thing.  My business has employees, offices, marketing expenses etc. and all that costs money but that’s what generates assignments. I’ve had people try to belittle my work as a documentary photographer because I also shoot weddings and commercial work. Shooting weddings and commercial work doesn’t somehow magically make you a bad photojournalist; I’d argue it makes you a better photographer.  My background as a photojournalist and as a documentary photographer helped created who am I today as a photojournalist, wedding photography, cinematographer, and commercial photographer. I personally love weddings, resort shoots, editorial assignments because I love photography.  I realize not everyone is like this and this is just what works for me personally. My point isn’t that everyone out there should shoot weddings, commercial, and editorial work , my point is that if you want to make a living as a photographer you need to start thinking like a business owner. You don’t have to be rich but you do need to survive long term financially. Don’t be ashamed of being a businessman or businesswoman(politically correct points) in whatever path of photography you choose. Embrace it and you perhaps you won’t have to Crowd Fund your retirement plan.

I hope this advice was helpful and please post your own useful tips in the comments section and yes I’ll accept a few wise-ass comments.

Archiving Workflow and Field Testing the WD My Passport Wireless

I took the WD Passport Wireless drive on a recent assignment to the remote northern mountains of Vietnam.  Whenever I travel I take multiple hard drives along with my laptop. I taking backing up my photos very seriously, I have to. My clients invest a lot of money in hiring me whether it’s for a commercial, wedding, or editorial assignment.  Losing images would be catastrophic, so a good system is imperative. I can’t even imagine losing a couple’s most treasured moments from their wedding day or losing a take from a commercial shoot where tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars were invested in production.

My typical workflow for all shoots is to leave my laptop at my hotel room and take a memory card wallet full of cards. Every chance I have to get back to my hotel room I back everything up on a My Passport Pro because it’s super fast thunderbolt connection and the double redundancy of the RAID drive. I also back up that drive nightly to a My Passport drive. Those two drives come with me on every shoot and when I travel those drives always are in two different locations, for example one in my camera bag and one in my luggage. For bigger shoots I’ll carry one hard drive and my assistant carries another. Those drives are wiped only after the client has received their images.

Once we get back to the office we have an archive manager who’s responsibility is to get all the RAW files first thing when I return. We have a sign-in sheet for the RAWs to avoid any mistakes, I sign that they were given to her and she signs they were copied to a double redundant drive. Once that drive is full, one is kept in the office for storage and the other is kept locked in a safe.

Enter the new technology of WD – My Passport Wireless drive. The drive has built in power and can accept SD cards directly so no need for wires or power. I should add it does have USB 3.0 so if you want you can also use it like a typical wired hard drive.

It’s as simple as putting the card in, turning the power on, and pressing one button to copy the entire card. This comes in handy on shoots where I don’t want to take my laptop with me. Sure I can have plenty of memory cards on shoots and enough memory to cover me so I don’t need to dump cards but backing up throughout the day adds another level of security.

It’s also convenient when you don’t want to lug around or worry about your laptop. I can back up throughout the day, protecting me if I drop my card-wallet or drop a card somehow.  It’s a lot easier to lose a small SD card than it is to lose a hard drive.

We tested the drive on a weeklong shoot in the remote mountains and it performed flawlessly.

I wanted to work lightly for this shoot so I left my laptop back at my hotel and during lunch breaks I would back up the cards on the drive. It really came in handy for this type of shoot. I could also see it being awesome for weddings for an extra layer of security by backing up images throughout the day. The battery life is great, 6 hours of continuous video streaming and up to 20 hours of standby time.

I can also see us using the drive on commercial shoots or in meetings, with the wireless capabilities I could have multiple clients looking through a take on their preferred device. For example the client, art director, models, production team could all connect to the drive wirelessly and go through a sequence of shots on their phones, iPads, etc.

This workflow might seem like overkill but honestly I can’t afford to lose files one time, it just can’t happen and this system protects me from that.  I can’t imagine losing someone’s most treasured moments from their wedding or losing pictures from an assignment for someone like the New York Times.

The WD My Passport Wireless is definitely a welcomed edition to my gear and my workflow system.  For a professional it’s a fantastic piece of technology but I can also see it being useful to novices or even families to take with them on vacation to back up those once in a lifetime moments. The only thing I wish they did differently was I wish they added a slot for CF cards. Many pro-cameras have both options but there are still a lot of cameras leftover that only take CF cards.

Some information from the manufacturer:

INTERFACE

Wireless-N with MIMO

SD card slot

USB 3.0

OPERATING SPECIFICATIONS

Data transfer rate*

USB 3.0 up to 5 Gb/s

SD 2.0 up to 25MB/s

2×2 Wireless-N

Operating temperature: 0°C to 35°C

Non-op. temperature: –20°C to 60°C

A USB 3.0 host and USB 3.0 certified cable are required to obtain USB 3.0 speeds.

SYSTEM COMPATIBILITY

Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8 operating system and Mac OS®X

Camera Phone + Instagram = A New Commercial Photography Market?

My left shoulder has a little more beef than my right, a result of always slinging my camera bag on my left side. I’d show you but I’m not quite ready to go shirtless on my blog at this moment, stay tuned. There was a time when I was more balanced, living a more simplified photography life. I spent 2008 doing all of my editorial assignments with a simplified kit; one camera,  a 35mm 1.4, and a 100mm F2 and it made me a better photographer.  

I diversified my business in 2009 and launched Mott Visuals resulting in more commercial jobs and yes a boatload of new gear which meant more chargers, wires, batteries, thingamabobs, thingamachiggies, and of course thingamawhatnots.

I work relatively simplified compared to most commercial photographers taking only a portable lighting kit (Profotos) and typically one or two assistants max and even they are pretty small(sorry Ngoc). In fact Ngoc(Mott Visuals Producer) weighs only a little more than the Profoto Batpac that she often has to haul around. All that gear takes a toll not just on your body but on your mind as well.

I needed a break from my lighting gear and needed to mix up my kit so my images didn’t get stale. Limiting your kit is a great way to spark creativity in your photography and recently I did the ultimate photography fast on a commercial client. 

My shoulder got a much needed rest on a very interesting project I pitched to Intercontinental Hotels, specifically the pilot project was done at the gorgeous Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Danang, Vietnam.

They already have a beautiful commercial image library but the idea behind this project was I’d spend one full day at the resort capturing the property and services with just my camera phone(Samsung Galaxy S3) and using only Instagram to edit the pictures. I wanted to capture the guest experience and make believable images.

I didn’t pitch the project to balance my body or to go on vacation but rather to balance my shooting style and more importantly offer my client something unique for their image library, reality.  I hear it on every shoot “can you just Photoshop it?” You can do amazing things in post-production but the downside is people don’t believe images anymore, they think everything is artificial and it’s hard to know what to believe is real anymore.

Who knows what will happen in the future but at the moment we still believe in camera phone images and yes Instagram uses filters but we aren’t removing things or adding things that weren’t there so the images have more trust from the viewer. 

The project made me lighter and simplified and my mind could focus on making thoughtful images rather than worrying about the safety of my equipment, where to place lights, is my assistant tipping over from the Batpac, etc. Like the camera phone, I was portable and that made me more patient and energized to experiment with light and compositions. 

Hotels and Resorts (all businesses really) need commercial images with lighting and heavy retouching but I also see potential for projects like this. These images can be used in social media and used properly and creatively can give their customers a view at reality and a sense of what it’s really like to be there. The viewer can feel like they could’ve taken that photo, resulting in trust.

I see an emerging market for this type of work and I now offer it to all my clients as an optional add-on service to my commercial and editorial photography. I work closely with my clients not only on the project concept but also on how the images can be used in creative ways in this social media world we live in. 

I set aside time every month to brainstorm new ideas with my team for our services and I’ve very excited about the potential for this one. We have to strive for new ideas for a new media market and it’s not just about the quality of the work you have to know how to sell your project idea and customize it for your clients.

Here is a link to the Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Danang work. 

Click Here

 

Here is a picture of all the gear I took on a recent commercial shoot for a resort alongside the gear I brought for the Intercontinental shoot.

Thank you to Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Danang for taking a chance on a project like this, I applaud their courage and creativity.

VIETNAM | THAILAND | BEYOND