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Workbook Radio Episode 8: Palm Springs Photo Festival Q&A

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We’re wrapping up the Palm Springs Photo Festival with an audience Q&A on this episode of Workbook Radio. 

Workbook Rep Heidi Goverman wraps up her panel with Shawna Bigby Davis, Suzee Barrabee, Jessica Mirolla, Glen Batkin, and Kenneth Zane by opening up the event to questions from the audience.

The first question: What is the best way to contact creative buyers to be a part of a portfolio review at their agency?

SBD: “So that’s going to be an email. Yeah. For me.”

GB: “I would say not an email. You have to get a hold of who’s in charge of portfolio reviews and generally that’s the art buyer/producer, and those are very systematic and thoughtful and they’re very specific…every month or twice a month. And get on every list you can possibly get on in whatever city you’re in because some of them will say, ‘Well, we’re booked for the next 6 months.’ Just get on that list. Because before you know it those 6 months will go by and there you are again. Get on every one you can. Like I said, those books sit out for a couple of days to be looked [at], and art producers are the best promoters.

“If I’m looking at something that I absolutely love and a buddy of mine is walking by, which is going to happen, [I’ll say] ‘You gotta take a look at this thing. This is great.’ I mean how much better can you get than my promoting you? It’s almost better than you promoting you because it’s coming from someone that they actually know. That happens all the time.  And find out if they’re doing shows on walls. I was in charge of that; I just put myself in charge of it at the agencies that I’ve worked at. And that stuff sits up for a month. And people walking by it 20-30 times a day, times the amount of days in a month? I mean, you’re getting hits, literally you can call it that, [daily]. I mean, people have gotten work off of those things. That’s why I kept doing it. Because it was working for the photographers.”

HG: “Is that what you do too [Jessica]?”

JM: “Oh, my agency. It’s curated. I actually have a wall hanging system in place so I’m actually putting up gallery work. Right now it’s a gallery called Subliminal Projects (Shepard Fairy), and I just got Todd Francis’s art. He’s part of Antihero so I was lucky enough to get some skate decks that were office appropriate, which is difficult. (Panel laughing) Some of the themes aren’t perfect for work. But to [Glen’s] point, I would say contact the art buyer or the art assistant if you can. I think that’s the best way. Just speaking with my art directors, they’re so busy, they are barely checking emails as it is. Most of the time they don’t want to be bothered; they appreciate when all of the calls go through me. I don’t know if (looking at Ken) you feel that way.”

KZ: “Yeah.”

JM: “And just be open. Sometimes I’m able to put a big show together, which is great. And sometimes it might just be me. But I always tell everybody, ‘You never know who my next client is or who I know.’ So if I see your work…there’s been many times I’ve called a friend and said, ‘You could see so and so,’ or ‘Something comes up, I’m looking for such and such…’ ‘oh perfect, I just saw somebody.’”

SBD: “I’m going to retract my answer. So as an agency owner, all day long I’m in communication with people, in front of my desk all day long. But it is the art directors who basically keep…we’re such a small studio we don’t that the luxury of an art buyer, so we reach out to reps in order to bring photography talent to us, or we hit up Workbook. But most of the talent we’re finding nowadays is through Instagram.  My art directors have their fingers on the pulse and they are constantly sourcing people. And they’ll [say], ‘Check out this person. Check out this person.  Check out this person.’ So I would say [Instagram] is actually a far better tool.”

Is it important to show the entire series of an editorial at a portfolio review and how does that translate to Instagram?

GB: “Well you can show more than one [image] if you choose to, I just wouldn’t do it all in the same day. It just looks a little bit like you’re throwing stuff on the wall. To answer your first question: absolutely a series, at least for me. Because you were looking at me. It’s hypercritical now more than ever. We’re never working on one image, the Hero Image. Like when I first started in the business, it was just a hero image, it was going to go up on a billboard, it was going to go up on ads the cover brochure and that.

“But now with digital, you need to fill out a whole lot of spaces. So there’s a hero image and there’s a whole story behind that’s spread throughout whatever the medium is. So now more than ever we’re shooting full arcs of stories, knowing that there’s something we want as the hero image for the brand, but we desperately need everything around it. And motion is included in that. Every presentation that I give, if motion is not included, I convince the clients before the meeting is over that ‘while we’re there this guy, this gal shoots incredible motion.’ If it wasn’t baked into the budget. ‘We’re there already, look how good this work is.  Let’s capture it. We’re hiring all the talent, location, and wardrobe, and everything else.  Why not capture it while we’re there?’”

“Now it’s becoming normal since you have both. But there was a time when people weren’t sure if they needed it. But the numbers worked out. And for this amount of money you can do both, the answers was always yes. Because for your website, you need to have something. Does that help?”

AUDIENCE MEMBER: “It’s good to hear the hero image statement too because there will be two or three strong images and others that aren’t as strong…”

GB: “But it supplements the story and [could be used for] be going through pages on a website. Or long form pieces for brochures. Especially in pharmaceutical, there is a lot of long form pieces that need images. Otherwise the pages are white basically.   When I give that argument, a lot of clients go, ‘Yeah, let’s shoot a whole library of footage, and let’s shoot motion while we’re at it.’”

SB: “I’ll totally agree with that. We shoot a lot of libraries. Especially it gets used on social media, websites, print, anything. So we definitely like to see what you can do as a series.”

Final question: Do creative buyers still look at Facebook?

GB:  “I don’t.”

JM: “I’m hardly ever on Facebook. I don’t think I’ll check in a million years.”

KZ: “Only if they’re friends, right?”

SB: “Friends or sometimes if I’ve found an image and I’m trying to find somebody I will use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. I will use anything (Shawna laughs). I will message you through Facebook. I will find you. But Facebook is not a tool that I use for that [purpose].”

Kenneth wraps up the event by stressing the importance of having accessible contact information. 

KZ:  “But to Suzee’s point about contact, I just have to back to that again. So on your website, if it’s difficult to find how to contact you or you’re not listing your rep, and I get exhausted by searching through every social media venue. I was given a photographer who was on Instagram, and his work is breathtaking. I mean top. There was no way to get a hold of him at all. I went through Google; I went through everything, and there was no contact information, and unfortunately, I kind of felt awkward going through Instagram, through that messaging thing because I don’t know how many people check them. I don’t.”

HG: “I don’t either.”

KZ: “So I hate to say it, but I gave up.”

HG: “And how dumb is that?“

KZ: “Right. It’s like at the top of [your Instagram profile] you could always say…you can put information or whatever or link it to your website.“

SB: “Yeah, link it to your website.”

HG: “Link it to your website. Make it as easy as possible to find. Easy, easy, easy. And when you don’t have time and you’ve made it hard, you’ve lost that job.”

 

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