On this episode of Workbook Radio, we go back to school. Photographers Shelly Waldman, Nathalie Gordon, Zach Anderson, and Jason Elias took time out of their busy schedules to talk shop with Workbook Rep Heidi Goverman on professional do’s and don’ts.
On this episode, our four panelists discuss websites. Things to do, things to avoid, client lists, and landing page preferences.
HG: “So, website mistakes to avoid. I would really love for you guys to call out here, because obviously I have some strong feelings about what that is. Like music, for one. Like, please don’t. The minute you realize that you don’t have the sound off on your computer is horrible. Does anybody else have, like, website stuff that they think is just ‘poo poo’?”
NG: “Mine for sure is anything that takes too long to load? I’m out. Gone. Like if it’s less than a second.”
HG: “So that’s important to you when you’re putting together your [website]. Does that mean that you do small files? Or smaller files? Or…”
NG: “No…because I’m too lazy. So I’m really lucky that the people who host my website have some good technology where the images I upload get automatically compressed. And they’re compressed at a higher resolution. So I’m not losing any quality, but they’re loading faster, and I don’t have to worry about resizing a whole bunch of images just to put on my website. I can be like, ‘Oh, these just got back from retouch? Quick, put them up.’ Done.”
JE: “I think for me, one the big one is going to someone’s website and there being like four thousand images in, like, twenty different categories. Going to a website is kind of, for example, Workbook holds these portfolio reviews. We have twenty minutes to sit down with someone. You have twenty minutes to impress. So it has to be very tight and concise, and you have to show your personality. And I think the thing about a lot of websites, particularly when I see a photographer with fifteen different categories, it tells me that they’re not quite sure what they’re interested in shooting or what their vision is. So for me, it’s not a knock. It makes me feel like they haven’t gotten to the level of maturity to be a full professional photographer because they are just all over the map.”
HG: “What about the generalists, though? I mean certainly…not the same thing?”
JE: “I think even a generalist…it may not even be the number of categories if there’s a consistency to the vision across the board. But if there’s one… if there’s like a category of cars, and then another category of surfing, and another category of food, and just goes on. Still goes on and on and on. What it says to me is (referring to himself), I as a photographer have the skill set to shoot almost any campaign I’m given, but passion only lies in a few different areas, and what I’m trying to show [on my website] is what my passion is. And so that’s what I think, by having a much more concise and tighter edit on your website, you show what your passion is.”
ZA: (nodding in agreement) “I would agree. It’s also when there’s too much. When you’re lifestyle and you have a food photography and all that stuff. I mean, for example, I just got this job. I shot for Leo Burnett for Skoal chewing tobacco. It was lifestyle, like dudes hanging out at a cabin, but there was also this food aspect. So I don’t have any food photography, but they wanted to work with me, so I went out and just tested and shot it. I would never put that on my website. But I always have it there so I can throw it in [my] treatments.”
HG: “Oh, that’s interesting.”
ZA: “Yeah.”
HG: “Okay. Anything else? Another pet peeve is flash. If I go to a flash site, you’re literally throwing up a big STOP sign. As a matter of fact, it does literally say ‘download this or you can’t go further.’ It is a literal stop sign.”
SW: “I don’t like the auto slideshow. I want to go at my own pace, and if I want to go fast, I want to go fast. And if I want to go slow, I’m want to go slow. I hate when it auto advances—”
HG: “Fighting with the site.”
SW: “Oh, man. That drive me crazy!”
HG: “Fighting with the site. You’re not the only one. [Creative buyers] hate that.”
JE: “I was just going to say I think for me personally, over the years, the longer I’ve had a website, the more I’ve tried to make the website as minimal as possible. I just want to get it out of the way. If there are people interested in my website then they’re not necessarily going to be there for the right reasons. I want them to look at my photography.”
HG: “These are examples of [website] do’s: fast loading, simple navigation, clear categories, thumbnails that expand to large images. And ‘short credits or background information is always interesting but not a must have.’ [Freelance Art & Print Producer] Suzee Barrabee told me that. So [she] doesn’t really need a list of the awards you have won I think is what she’s saying. Do you guys agree with that? (off panelists’ nodding) No? Yes?”
SW: “I think it depends [on] what you’re doing.”
ZA: “Yeah.”
SW: “I think if you’re a fine art photographer trying to crossover, then awards are it and people want to know. And I think if you have a big accolade and you want to share it with the world, then share it!”
JE: “I have to say though, everyone says ‘Oh, I don’t care about winning an Oscar,’ until they win an Oscar?”
HG: “Sure.”
JE: “So the fact that if you’ve won some awards that, you could actually call them bullshit. You could say you’re paying for it. Right. There’s a lot of those contests where you’re paying to be a part of it, and then they expect you to buy ads afterwards. For sure. But there are still people that care about that and it’s still—”
HG: “Oh no, I mean I think I know what [awards] he’s referencing, and I think it’s still a legit [credit] to put on. So how do you feel about client lists? Because I think those matter too.”
NG: “I can only speak for my personal experience, but I had a lot of clients over the years, and some I don’t want to share and some I do want to share. So I feel like I would only put the clients that relate to the work that’s on my website. So it wouldn’t put in something that I had done for, oh I don’t know…like, say a garden nursery or something. I wouldn’t necessarily put that in as a client because it’s not a client that everyone knows. I would try to keep it to things people know. Like, ‘Oh, okay. Alright.’ And maybe not put a full client list. Like a selective list of… I don’t know. I put my favorite clients on there. I’m biased.”
ZA: “The clients that relate to your work and also that would attract other clients that you want to work with.”
JE: “I’ll also say this. When I signed with my first reps and I asked ‘So, what do you give me? What is it I get from being with you?’ And they said ‘legitimacy.’ Now that’s an intangible. That’s kind of ethereal and, again, is kind of bullshit. So, what, you give me legitimacy? It doesn’t change who I am as a photographer. It doesn’t do anything for me. It doesn’t make me better. It doesn’t mean I’m more qualified to do anything. But what it does do is like, photography is a death of a thousand cuts. There are all these small ways that people can disqualify you when they have 100 photographers to look for. So, really the thing is to clear all those hurdles so that people can just interact with the work. And so if you have a good client list? People…if you don’t have a good client list on there? People may love your work, but they’re going to say ‘Oh, they can’t handle the campaign we were going to bring to them.’”
HG: “A really good point. Homepage preferences and why, Shelly Waldman. You do a tile format, and I noticed that you do a lot of different stuff, but your default for your homepage is food. Is that because that’s your focus right now? Is that because it’s your favorite thing to do? Why food as your default when you do lifestyle, and portraits, and motion and kids and kids with vans…?”
SW: “I like…Well, so food is what I was getting paid for the most. People were finding me for food work. And when I was doing meetings last year specifically to pick up more editorial work, I was pitching to a lot of food magazines, and I wanted that when those meetings turned into ‘Here’s my follow up.’ I wanted them to see food first. So, there’s my food. And I got hired by Wine Enthusiast and have now shot three things for them all over the country; so it worked.”
HG: “So then I go to Zach Anderson. You also have an overview. You have an overview, but you have two overviews, and you kind of go into other stuff. How do you…what is the default? Is it overview 1 or overview 2?”
ZA: “It’s Overview 1. Overview 2 is an older [version]. This is all Bobbi [Wendt], the consultant I work with.”
HG: “Okay, so Zach works with a consultant. (Zach laughs) So Zach works with a consultant, which is a wonderful thing. Bobbi’s incredibly talented. So you really just give her the stuff, and she says ‘This is how I want to do it.’”
ZA: “Mmhmm.”
HG: “And what if you disagree?”
ZA: “Oh, then we just get into arguments. No…it’s a collaboration. I actually really enjoy working with her. I just send her a batch of images, and she does an edit, and we go through it. She calls it ‘killing babies’ if images that I don’t want to get rid of but they don’t make sense or don’t flow well. But it’s a collaboration for sure.”
HG: “Well, I have to say Zach, when I first met you, you had overview 1. You’re also young and in your career you’ve been building a body of work, so as that has happened you’ve gotten more [images]. So they all make sense to me considering where you are. And your work kinds works together, so it’s not so categorized. Right?”
ZA: “Exactly. It’s more storytelling.”
HG: “It’s not, like, food. It all sorta flows into the same style. Jason, I was interested in this because your default is your Oregon story. And is that because it’s the most recent thing? Or is that because it’s your dream date? You love it so much right now?”
JE: “Well, I think you must have taken a screenshot [from] a laptop, right?”
HG: “Oh no, it’s horrible. I’m sorry!”
JE: “No, no! I’m just saying, because on my website this is supposed to be a smaller image, and there are a few images here. The reason I have the Oregon job first is simply because it’s the most relevant for clients I’m going after now.”
HG: “Okay.”
JE: “So I change my homepage probably every couple of months, depending on what kind of marketing materials I’m sending out. And kind of also what mood strikes me.”
HG: “You’re jumping ahead; I have that question later! (Laughing) I’m kidding! But I do think that’s relevant. When you’re sending out marketing campaigns, are you changing the stuff up? And I think it’s interesting. Yes, you are.”
JE: “Yes. Not to jump ahead. I have a whole ‘workers’ category [on my site] at the top. So there are four or five different campaigns in there. And right now I’m going after worker campaigns. I’m going after agricultural kind of stuff. So, I’m changing up the homepage semi-regularly so that then I’ll send a new promo material every couple of months and say ‘Hey, here’s the new campaign.’ And then that’ll be the homepage.”
HG: “Gotcha.”
NG: “So I have a rotation of three large images. Because I just want people to be like ‘Oh, wow. Okay. Alright. What else can I see?’ The three images that I chose are the ones that I’ve had the most feedback on. And so I’m okay, I’ll just keep these up for now until I start showing out new images and seeing what feedback I get from those new images. And then I might swap out one or swap out two. But also, I don’t want people to forget who I am, so I don’t change this one [an image of lips] because it’s the one that gets the most comments. [People ask] ‘Oh, are those Nicki Minaj?’ and I’m like ‘No.’ (laughing) But, you know. It’s got so much color, and I love color. That’s pretty much all my work. And so when people come to my site, and if they recognize the image, they [say] ‘Oh, I’m in the right place.’ It’s not someone else [they’ve] confused me with.”
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