Jain Lemos » Photography and Publishing

A Sunset Kiss, Photo by Jain Lemos

I saw this delightful hare pair on my walk yesterday afternoon! They really took direction well. Especially considering they don’t always keep their eyes open during a full nose kiss.

Black Star shooter Sean Johnson muses about what it really costs when asked to shoot for free in this post on Black Star Rising. In one of the comments, a reader suggests charging friends a little something. Frankly, I’m over that Friends and Family Rate thing. I give people my time and advice constantly without charging but I can’t remember a single instance when I ever received a special rate for services from any of my F&F except for a few partnership projects that required personal time/expense investments. Maybe that is because I don’t expect people to work for free or drop their prices so I can make more profit. I’m just too embarrassed to even ask. I’ve hired countless photographers, writers, editors, designers, assistants, printers and retouchers over the years. I tend to give work to my F&F before going to strangers. People I enjoy working with and trust to deliver quality I usually consider my friends! Don’t most of us work that way? I reveal my budget from the beginning and if they can do it for that price, great, if not, no problem. I also can’t count the times that NPOs, start-ups and the like used their charity status to practically demand that I reduce licensing or assignment fees, so I understand where Sean is coming from. End of rant for the week.

Santa Monica Pier Outing, Photo by Jamie Williams

Last fall, I worked with Tucson photographer Jamie Williams on a new campaign for promoting the California Travel and Tourism Commission. Jamie is featuring some of the California images on her website as well as sending out a series of email promos with behind-the-scenes antidotes of our project. Here is what she wrote in her email today about one of our locations:

California Tourism: Behind the Lens
20 days, 30 locations, 1500 miles, 12,000 images

Santa Monica was probably the most challenging location for this project. At 9:45 pm the night before our 5:00 am call time – one of the models canceled. In 20 years of being in this business I’ve never had that happen. My amazing producer had a new model booked within 15 minutes.

That situation was incredible, and I got a lucky break. We had just returned from dinner and I decided to check email. Jamie didn’t mention that this was on ELECTION DAY! And we were staying at THE hotel in Century City hosting the celebration party. The place was mobbed and the Fire Department was on overload. Obviously, the model we had booked (I had reconfirmed with her around noon that day) was out celebrating Obama’s win! She didn’t even have the decency to call or text but instead sent a brusque email: “Sorry, I can’t make the shoot tomorrow, my agent has me booked on something else.”

I called Jamie in her room and she couldn’t believe it either. I know better and should have had back-up talent on stand-by, but I didn’t this time. I went back to my casting files to look at the other final candidates for this scene. I closed my eyes and said a prayer asking for help to choose the perfect replacement. At 10PM with a 5AM call, this beautiful Goddess Walking the Planet, Mylinda Royer, answered my call and arrived to save the day . It was one of those happy-ending crisis. Jamie had the best day with Mylinda and Sharif, as you can see here!

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Medicine Show, photo by Jain Lemos

If I had gobs of time to play around with this image, I think it could be cool. I had a flame in the bottom of the lantern but lost it somewhere in the layers. Never mind, it’s about the concepts! After presenting ideas in rough form and snagging a client for your project, you’ll have time to fiddle into the wee hours (or build into your budget a favorite retoucher so you control the look).

…is a good policy most of the time, especially if you’re under deposition or something. One of these responses will suffice to answer nearly every question asked: Yes, No, Possibly, I’m not sure, I have no idea, That question is going to take some explaining!

Still, I’m going to give you my explanation about why I blog. Because I keep reading photo-related blogs and wondering: Who is their audience? Why do their posts receive a lot of (or no) comments? Is the blog getting them work, selling their services or bringing them licensing deals? Or is blogging just an ego-gratifying WOT (waste of time)?

Here is my reason for blogging. I started blogging because I wanted to learn how so that I would be able to help clients with their own blogs. I also liked the editing interface with the ability to easily and quickly update my blog (in my case, my website). I used to hard code and still do on occasion. It’s not that much fun anymore to work with MySQL, CSS, and PHP! A blog is a communication tool and you can talk to yourself if you like or don’t have any readers. But it’s really a marketing tool and that is why I want to understand blogging. When I switched a few months ago to WordPress’s ProPhoto platform, I realized there is a lot more to a custom blog than the free Blogger account I started with.

I also look at blogs of my competitors: other photography and publishing consultants. Some only have brochure sites, some with a blog section. Most only post press releases about various photographer clients, industry happenings or information on photo contests. A few have a “voice” and provide tips with hints to hire a consultant for more secrets, as I try to do here. Admittedly, my blog is a mixed bag and has some structure. I like to change it up.

Here is what I’m getting at today: If you are a photographer and you are blogging, there are plenty of questions to ask yourself (such as those above). If you are spending too much time blogging and seeing too little return on your time investment, then you would do well to devise a real plan. There are specific methods to driving traffic to your blog and I’m always working on cracking that code.

I’m fortunate to have many great clients who have never even read my blog. LOL. Which is sort of an answer to the Q: Who is my audience? I think it’s (a) people I mention and link to here in my posts and who receive Google Alerts with their name, and (b) my loyal followers such as Hoiyin Ip, who attended one of my lectures. He wrote recently:

Hi Jain, I won’t say I am busy, particularly not in front of people like you who have obvious achievement. I spend my time taking mini steps here and there with the hope of achieving some success. Thanks for your encouragement and compliment to my blog! I actually like to blog more, at least as a writing practice. But who cares? My voice has no volume, unlike yours. You obviously put your heart on your blog. I love your latest message: one photo, one caption, one pitch, one blog post. Heartfelt!

Wow! Thanks, Hoiyin. I’d say such a nice note deserves explanation (and there is that ego gratification component). Please jump over to visit Hoyin’s blog for a moment. This is how it works!

Gun fight on the studio back lot, photo by Jain Lemos.

Or is this where we came from? The Old West is intriguing to me. I enjoy photographing this period’s action and textures. I have a few more shots from this series I’ll post soon.

In a recent Tweet, I mentioned I am becoming a fan of steampunk, a style that blends a little western, a little fantasy and plenty of metal props. The term may be old or new, but either way, the steampunk look in fashion and photography is gaining popularly. For some examples, see this New York Times Magazine gallery here with images by Robert Wright and others.

Nijmegen, Photo by Renée Sturme

So writes Renée Sturme on her blog, Fashion Fillers. From her small home town in The Netherlands, Renée shops the online vintage underground and whips out dangly earrings, necklaces and charms. Her snaps show promise, too, like this street scene in Nijmegen, a 2000-year-old Dutch city I know little about.

In this interview with a Chinese fashion magazine, she was asked what she would like to do in the future: “I wish I could work for big brands. At the same time, I would like to be a stylist, photographer, jewelry designer, shoe designer and clothing designer. Though I know it is impossible so I need to choose.”

Geez, that’s only six career directions and she is eighteen! I think Renée is doing everything right so far. In fact, she is putting the rest of us to shame (probably because we managed to live through the now vintage 60s and 70s!). She has a natural ability to attract publicity and any of her daily distractions are put to use in her own clever branding campaign.

I have a tower of topics I’ve been saving to post and it all came tumbling down today. Here is what landed on top of the pile:

Thanks to John Thomas for pointing me to this Photoshop demo gem on YouTube. The hair extensions are particularly amazing. (P.S. John, I’m a Rangers fan, too! Hooray, they had a big win last night for game one/round one of their Stanley Cup playoff match vs. the dreaded Caps.)