Monthly Archives: February 2010

02/7/10

Unique Selling Points – 3

I use prime lenses only

USP 3 is a little ambiguous, unless you’re a photographer.

For many, the words “prime lens” might mean a lens of the finest quality. While I do use the best lenses available at the time of purchase, that’s not what I mean here.

Among photographers, “prime lenses” means fixed-focal lenses. Which still doesn’t help normal folk.

Maybe its easier to explain what a prime lens is by telling you what it isn’t. It isn’t a zoom lens. Prime lenses don’t zoom in and out.  If you want to get closer, you have to step closer yourself. If you want to zoom out, you have to move backwards.

Prime lenses have a number of advantages over zoom lenses.

Firstly, high-quality primes are smaller than high-quality zooms.

Because they are smaller, they are lighter.

Thirdly, they are faster. That’s photography speak for a lens that can be used at higher shutter speeds because it is able to let in more light due to a bigger maximum aperture. The bigger a lens’ maximum aperture (the hole the light travels through into the camera), the more light it can let in, the less time the shutter needs to be open. That helps prevent camera shake. This is especially useful when there is little light to begin with. Admittedly, with the astonishing light-sensitivity of modern cameras, this advantage is diminishing.

Faster lenses also mean a much brighter viewfinder experience.

Advantage number 5 is the ability of fast primes to render irrelevant bits of the photograph out of focus. Also referred to as shallow depth of field, this is a characteristic of many of my photographs. I won’t dwell on this. We’re now perilously close to the realms of bokeh from which few people make it back intact.

Lastly, because prime lenses don’t offer a zoom range, it’s easier to get to know them thoroughly. Without the distraction of a variable field of view, I can work faster. I know before I even raise the camera to my eye what I’m going to see.

Most photographers I know use zooms – in fact, nearly all of them. The fact that I don’t helps my photography stand out.

Just to complete the picture for the photographers reading this, here are the three lenses I use most: 24mm, 50mm and a 135mm.

02/6/10

Free Photography Doesn’t Pay

Everyone knows that photographers and their families get all the nourishment they need from the air they breathe. They do not need to eat or drink like other people.

Nor do they have to make mortgage payments. Banks generally give them their houses for free.

In fact, they never have any bills to pay. Ever.

It’s great!

At least, it would be if it were true.

Yet somehow a lot of people see the world this way. None of them photographers, mind.

How else to account for the large number of requests we get for free pictures?

And nearly always we’re told that giving free photography will benefit our business. The classic one is that the picture  is for newspaper use and that it will appear with a byline – free advertising!

Rubbish. Bylines are often omitted and even if they aren’t, they are useless. Do this quick test: Without looking, who is the most published photographer your daily newspaper? The paper you read everyday.

Most people can’t answer this. Most people can’t name a single photographer from their daily paper. Nobody reads picture credits, except for photographers and their mums.

Yet a single mention is going to propel me to fame?

At the recent BNI Big Breakfast, a number of people came up to me for free photographs of themselves at the event and gave exactly that reason.

It’s insulting.

So how should people ask and make it an attractive proposition?

Offer something tangible in return. Ideally money, but how about this:

“Hi, I see you’re taking photographs. I’d love to get one to use for some self-promotion, but I’d like to give you something in return before you do. Where do you get most of your business from and which of my business contacts could I introduce you to with a personal recommendation? Let’s meet for coffee and I’ll bring my contacts book along for you to look at.”

Now, there’s a proposition. And it’s applicable to any business. Importantly, it gives proper balance to the proposal. Reciprocity is key to any healthy business relationship.

Or, in my case, I will shoot for cupcakes.

A shot from a recent shoot I did for Margaret Smith of Um Num Num. A box of cakes came home with me. More on this shoot soon. (c) Roger Overall 2010

02/5/10

Bid for Haiti

This is not one of my pictures:

"North Sea" - A rare depiction of a modern ship at sea by Danish maritime artist Johannes Moeller

I do own it, however, and I love it.

It was part-payment for a job I did many, many years ago when I was a freelance PR consultant in the UK. It is both beautiful and significant, as there are very few paintings of modern ships at sea by significant artists. [UPDATE: My good friend Paul O'Mahony found this on the internet: North Sea.]

I am donating it, along with prints of my own work, to the “Bid for Haiti” auction that I am helping to organize.

Nationally- and internationally-renowned artists, photographers and sculptors will be giving original pieces to be sold at the event, which will be held on Sunday 14th February at the Gresham Metropole Hotel here in Cork. Viewing and registration will be from 11am, and the auction itself will get underway at 3pm.

This is going to be a phenomenal opportunity for bidders to acquire original works, none of which have a reserve price on them.

All the proceeds from the auction will go to GOAL‘s Haiti relief effort.

Please spread the word about the auction. Blog, twitter, facebook… anything you can do to help publicize the event would be fantastic.

And if you have a chance, please come along. There will be some wonderful things up for auction. What could be more rewarding than filling that blank space on your wall with art that helped alleviate some of the suffering in Haiti?

02/3/10

4.50AM

I hate 4.50AM.

I loathe it.

Normally, it passes me by and leaves me be.

Today, I had to stand up to it in all its horror. I wasn’t really prepared for the fight after two days in Dublin, during which I walked a marathon, and barely five hours’ sleep having arrived back in Cork late last night.

But people were depending on me, so I rose from my bed with the elegance of a zombie from its grave, and ventured out to this year’s BNI Big Breakfast.

It was worth it.

Three measures determine the success of my business day:

  1. Did I take a worthwhile photograph?
  2. Did I learn something valuable?
  3. Did I strengthen my business relationships or start a new one?

Simply attending BNI’s annual Big Breakfast pretty much guarantees that 2. and 3. are taken care of.

As far as item 1. goes, I was asked to take documentary photographs of the event. In particular pictures of Rob Brown, the keynote speaker, in action. One of those is already one of my favourites for the year.

I got lucky. Sure, I recognized an opportunity when it presented itself and planned the shot when I saw the potential, but luck did play a part.

One of Rob’s final presentation slides showed a lighthouse.

I knew immediately what I wanted to do, but I needed him to move towards me into a band of ceiling light.

Rob’s a walker-talker, so the odds were in my favour. As he stepped forward, he raised his hand as he spoke.

Rob Brown Reputation Expert

Rob Brown, an expert in reputation, speaks at the Maryborough House Hotel in Cork on 3rd February 2010 during BNI's Big Breakfast event. (c) Roger Overall 2010

02/1/10

Being Knocked Down and Getting Back Up Again – Part 2

“Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.”

This was a quote that Dominick Cullinane, the garden designer in my BNI chapter, added to his 60 seconds last Friday. I love it.

It reminds me of a scene in Madagascar 2. Faced with the utter wreckage of their aeroplane on the plains of Africa, Skipper, the leader of the penguins, can only see a benefit: they will be able to improve the aircraft starting from scratch.

Not that I take business advice from fictional penguins as a rule, but you have to admire their outlook on life.

Having had a corporate job canceled at virtually the eleventh hour just over a week ago, I decided that the way forward was to turn the situation to my advantage. Instead of a shoot in London, I would spend the two days gifted to me preparing for a trip to Dublin to visit advertising agencies.

Now, at the close of the first day in the capital, I’m feeling a whole lot better about the canceled job.

The feedback on my portfolio presentation has been good to down-right enthusiastic; and the first steps to forging long-term, mutually-profitable relationships have been made.

Tomorrow, I have four more meetings and I have no doubt that they will be equally positive.

Yet I have to make a confession. I’ve discovered that the great reception I’ve had is the least of the benefits of traveling up here.

As I walked about Dublin, some insights awakened within me. The most important of which is this:

Get to the next stage of your ambitions as quickly as you can, so that you can move on to the stage beyond that.

For me, this is a real flash of the blindingly obvious. A moment of true clarity.

For a while now, I had put visiting the ad agencies in Dublin at the pinnacle of my marketing efforts. It was the ultimate goal beyond which lay nothing. If I could start to get ad agency work, I would have arrived at the last, most ambitious stop on my career trajectory.

Having this final goal has held me back.

For a long while I told myself that I wasn’t ready for such a giant leap. My work wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have the right print portfolio. I lacked the stature required. Anything to stop me from actually picking up the phone and making the appointments.

Turns out that all of this is nonsense.

I and my work are good enough. End. Of. Story.

Not only that, after my second meeting my mind was already projecting forward to the next stage – the stage beyond the ad agencies. Because, of course, there is another. And beyond that another again. And so on.

That’s not to say that I am discounting working with ad agencies. Quite the opposite. With the right creative at the right agency, there will be some wonderfully fulfilling assignments ahead.

But having achieved what I thought was the summit, I have a clearer view. I can see huge possibilities beyond the fruitful work that the agencies will provide. The trick now is to figure out how to get to them.

One thing I won’t be doing, though, is wasting any time in starting the journey.