Why Should You Participate?

In our efforts to help photographers grow and improve, our photography assignments are designed to test and push your creative bounds to the limit. These photo assignments are intended to encourage our members to see the world in different ways, try new camera techniques, and photograph subject which you may normally shy away from. We feel that in doing this, you will ultimately find new challenges for yourself which will help us to all grow as photographers. Our photography assignments are open to everyone at all skill levels and are to be submitted through our assignments section in the PhotographyBB Forums. Membership is completely free and you can register in seconds, so feel free to join our community of photographers where we participate in assignments, share photos, and discuss photography all day long! Now, onto your next photo assignment…

The Assignment Is…

Assignment #43 Theme: Looks Like a Face!
Timeframe: Sept 2nd to Sept 15th, 2010
The challenge is to take a BRAND NEW showing the theme: Looks Like a Face
Entries are to be submitted here: Assignment 43: Looks Like a Face!(PhotographyBB Forums)

The world around us is filled with beauty, mystery, and wonder… Your challenge is to find something which looks like a face (but is not a real face) and photograph it. Look around and you’ll find there are faces all over, some of them might just be looking right back at you!

Important: With all of our photo assignments, the object (besides having fun) is to learn something new, even if that means learning how to see the world around you in a different way. Therefore, we only accept entries for new photos which have been taken during the assignment time frame (see above). You may submit up to 3 entries in total, and the top 3 photos will be selected and published (with image acknowledgments) in an upcoming issue of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine.

Click HERE to Submit Your Photo!

Everyone is welcome to participate. We have a supportive and friendly community of photographers and beginners, and this is a great way to get to know one another. Have fun, and happy photographing!

Welcome back to the part four in our series on watermarking your photos. By now we’ve examined the reasons why watermarks are important and what information you should be adding in your watermarks, along with some Photoshop techniques for creating watermarks. In this tutorial, we’re going to take a look at Adobe Lightroom 3 and see just how wonderfully easy Adobe has made watermarking in this latest release.

One of the most requested and most fantastic additions to Lightroom’s version 3 is the watermarking tool. Watermarking in Lightroom 3 is done when exporting your photos (either for print or for web), and therefore logically shows up in the Export panel. Once you have selected your images for export (usually to JPEG), you can scroll to the bottom of the export dialog box to find the new watermarking tools.

Check the Watermark checkbox ON, and from the dropdown menu select “Edit Watermarks…” to create a text watermark, or use a graphic (which you must have previously created).

Text Watermarks

At the top-right side of the “Edit Watermarks” dialog box, you’ll have the option to choose either a text or graphics based watermark. Here we’ll first take a look at how easy it is to add a text watermark.

Just under your image thumbnail, you can add any text you would like, which will automatically appear as a preview over the thumbnail. As you scroll down the list of options in this dialog box, you’ll see that you can change the font, text style, color, and alignment. Under the type options, you can also choose to add a drop shadow with various parameters to experiment with.

Further down the dialog box reveals options to decrease the opacity of your text watermark, resize it to your liking, change the inset (margins) and lastly anchor your watermark to a particular area of your image.

Graphic/Logo Watermarks

Rather than adding a text only watermark, there are times where you may wish to include a small graphic such as your company’s logo or icon as the watermark itself. This can be done just as easily in Lightroom 3. Instead of choosing a text based watermark in the “Edit Watermarks…” dialog box, you would simply select “Graphic” from the top-right corner. Of course, you must create your graphic/logo beforehand and save it in either JPEG or PNG format (PNG is the preferred format since it supports transparent backgrounds when using image based watermarks).

Once you have your graphic selected you will see that the text watermarking options are greyed out and not usable. Scrolling further down the dialog box reveals the same options for adjusting the opacity and placement of your graphic based watermark.

Click “Save” and you will be asked to name this new watermark as a preset, which allows you to use it again on your exported images, web gallery images, and even slideshows created in Lightroom 3. Now when you export your images through any of these methods, your watermarks will automatically be added to all of your images as long as you have the watermark checkbox turned on. How’s that for easy?

Lightroom 3 is the latest release from Adobe. Upgrades from previous versions of Lightroom go for $99 and the full version for Mac/PC goes for $299 (as of the time of this posting). Better still, you can purchase directly through Adobe where they offer instant digital delivery. PhotographyBB is an affiliate for Adobe products.

Until next time, have fun creating your watermarks and please feel free to ask any questions or leave comments below. I always enjoy seeing what you all come up with, so feel free to email me one of your photos (resized for email of course!) anytime. Happy watermarking!

The edition features an in-depth look at lighting techniques for corporate and industrial photography, along with an exploration of light modifiers and their uses in portrait photography. Additionally, this issue looks at how and when to break photography’s sacred composition rules. Sometimes professional photographers experience a loss of passion for their own personal photography, and this month’s magazine explores 5 tips for keeping the passion alive beyond professional photo life.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

This month we release our 31st consecutive monthly edition of the magazine. Right now the buzz is all about social networking online, which is why we’ve devoted a column to Social Media for Digital Photographers. However, this month we take a look at so-called ‘old fashioned’ social networking, and how today’s photographer can benefit from traditional networking. For those of us who have multiple computers in the home, we also have a great article outlining the various options and procedures for setting up a centralized storage point for your digital images, to be accessible by all the computers in your home. We’ve included a brief tutorial on how you can now import the PhotographyBB Online Magazine into iBooks for the Apple iPad!

Additionally, our new FREE subscription method has garnished overwhelming positive feedback on our brand new weekly photo-journals. Readers can subscribe at http://www.photographybb.com/subscribe where a handful of lucky readers will win an extremely cool Canon lens-style coffee mug!

By way of download in PDF format, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. Each edition contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers. In addition, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and practical tutorials on how to use image processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004).
For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com
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Our photography assignments are open to everyone at all skill levels and are to be submitted through our assignments section in the PhotographyBB Forums. Membership is completely free and you can register in seconds, so feel free to join our community of photographers where we participate in assignments, share photos, and discuss photography all day long! Now, onto your next photo assignment…

Assignment #42 Theme: Repetition
Timeframe: Aug 20th to Aug 31st, 2010
The challenge is to take a BRAND NEW showing the theme: Repetition
Entries are to be submitted here: Assignment 42: Repetition(PhotographyBB Forums)

Photographing repetition (repeating subjects) is a popular photographic technique to demonstrate a variety of things such as depth, texture, perspective, patterns, etc… It’s up to you to look at the world around you and find various instances of repetition, then photograph it for the assignment!

Important: With all of our photo assignments, the object (besides having fun) is to learn something new, even if that means learning how to see the world around you in a different way. Therefore, we only accept entries for new photos which have been taken during the assignment time frame (see above). You may submit up to 3 entries in total, and the top 3 photos will be selected and published (with image acknowledgments) in an upcoming issue of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine.

Everyone is welcome to participate. We have a supportive and friendly community of photographers and beginners, and this is a great way to get to know one another. Have fun, and happy photographing!

My Thoughts on the Content…

Thoughtfully, the author does not leave the Photoshop Elements users out in the cold. There are a number of applicable techniques which Elements users are able to use, and some more advanced (albeit very easy to follow) techniques utilizing features of Photoshop. I found the split toning techniques to be especially inspirational, and they are methods I will be employing on my photos in the future.

As photographers, we must venture inside our own minds and thought processes sometimes, to become consciously aware of how we actually perceive the world around us. It’s not just about picking up the camera and looking through the lens… it’s about learning to translate the visual into an emotive vision. I happen to love self-exploration exercises, and this eBook starts off with a beauty! I won’t give it away, but going through this 5 minute exercise on any given day before a photo shoot will drastically improve your photos; even before you put your eye to the viewfinder.

This is the third in The Magic of Black & White series from Andrew S. Gibson. The first two, in my mind, were brilliant and this third one is equally so.

What David duChemin Has to Say…

“The Magic of Black & White – Part III, Nine Photos, takes us through nine gorgeous black and white images with the goal of teaching more advanced techniques to give our images more subtlety and power. Clearly taught in Photoshop, and 5 of the lessons in Photoshop Elements, Andrew takes us through Toning, Split Toning, Exposure Blending, Textures, and the creation of Diptyches and Triptyches, all without losing sight of the idea that our work should be driven by intent with the goal of creating photographs that honour the Artist’s need for expression and the Geek’s need for excellence of craft. And all that without getting mired down – the examples and the illustrations Andrew provides compliment his clear teaching style and make this book a pleasure to read.

Discounts Galore!

Of course, there’s a spectacular offer as you can imagine: For the first four days only, if you use the promotional code WHITE4 when you checkout, you can have The Magic of Black and White – Part III for only $4 OR use the code WHITE20 to get 20% off when you buy 5 or more books from the Craft & Vision collection. That’s cheaper than a whole photo course, and equally worth it! These codes expire at 11:59pm PST AUGUST 22, 2010.

Visit the Craft and Vision photography library here.

Step 1: Action!

To make the automation of this process easier for future images, let’s start by creating a Photoshop Action which can be used over and over again with one-click.

Open your Actions Palette (Menu: Window > Actions) and at the bottom of the Actions palette, click on the little folder icon to create a new Actions Set. When the dialog box pops up, name this set “Watermark Frames” or something along those lines.

Next, click on the “Create New Action” icon (at the bottom of the Actions palette) and name this Action “Poster Frame 1″ while making sure it belongs to the Watermark Frames Set which you just created. Once you click OK, you’ll notice that the little red “record” icon is lit at the bottom of the Actions palette, indicating that your Action is now recording.

Step 2: It’s for the web, so resize it!

Since we are dealing with images intended for web sharing, let’s resize the photo using the methods we’ve previously discussed. Go to the menu: File > Automate > Fit Image… and constrain your photo to 900 x 900 pixels (or whichever maximum dimensions you decide are appropriate).

Step 3: Starting the Frame

We’re going to start building the frame from the inside outward, so let’s add some detail to the edge of our photo now. Double click on the “Background” layer in the layers palette, and rename this layer to “photo” or simply the default which is “Layer 0.” This tells Photoshop that our photo is no longer going to be the “background” layer, which allows us to do some additional editing to it.

Add a stroke to this layer by going to the menu: Layer > Layer Style > Stroke…

Use an inside stroke of 1 to 2 pixels, with the color set as black.

Next, go to the menu: Layer > Layer Style > Inner Glow…

First, click on the glow color (default is a pale yellow) and change it to black. Next, change the blend mode of this layer to “Multiply” from the drop-down menu. You can choose the best settings for your image, but I used a size of 5 pixels, and changed the technique from “softer” to “precise.” Feel free to play around with any of the settings to see how they affect your image. As you’ll see from the result, this adds a nice inner shadow to your photo.

Step 4: Building the Outer Frame

Hold down the Control (PC) or Command (Mac) key, and click on the “Create New Layer” icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This creates a new layer under our photo layer.

With this new layer active in the layers palette, go to the menu: Image > Canvas Size…

Here you can change the canvas size to add some space around your photo. Make sure you click on the “Relative” checkbox, then you can decide how large you want your border to be. Of course, you can choose the dimensions you desire. Here I went with an extension of 150 pixels around the who image. Click OK.

Since we plan to add some text to the frame, you may like the bottom part of your border to be a bit larger than the rest of the border. We can do this by going back to the canvas size menu again: Image > Canvas Size…

This time, keep the “Relative” checkbox clicked, and click on the center-top arrow to anchor your image, which will only extend the canvas along the bottom. Consequently, you’ll want to enter a pixel value in the “Height” field to indicate how large the canvas extension should be. Here I went with 100 more pixels.

Step 5: Fill that Frame!

You will have noticed that your frame has no particular color at this point. Now that the canvas size is set the way we like it, go to the menu: Edit > Fill… choose “White” as the fill color, and ensure that “Preserve Transparency” is NOT checked. Click OK!

Before we add the text, let’s finish the canvas by adding a small border around the edges also. As we did in step 3, go to the menu: Layer > Layer Style > Stroke… and add a black border, 3 pixels (or however thick you would like it), with the position set to “inside.”

Step 6: Add the Text

Using the Text Tool, click on your image in the bottom area of your frame (where you’d like the text to show), and type any information you would like to include. You can give your image a title if you like, but remember the goal of the watermark is to provide the viewer with some way of knowing who took this photo. It’s probably best to include either your full name or website in your text. Once you have typed your text, click on the little checkmark icon at the top of the screen to commit your text to the image.

With your text layer still active, hold down the shift key and click on the canvas layer (named Layer 1 if you did not rename it). This will select both layers in your layers palette. Go to the menu: Layer > Align > Horizontal Centers which will center your text horizontally with your large border.

Step 7: Resize Again (Optional)

Since adding the outer border by expanding the canvas dimensions, we’ve increased the overall dimensions of this image. If you would like to resize it back to 900 pixels maximum again, simply repeat Step 2 and constrain the image back to 900 pixels.

Step 8: Stop Recording!

Go back to your Actions palette, and click on the stop recording button at the bottom of the Actions palette. Your framing Action is now complete and ready to be used on any of your photos! To run this Action on any of your images, open a photo in Photoshop, open your Actions palette and choose this Poster Frame action, and click Play. Everything you just did in this tutorial will be repeated automatically!

Of course, with each different photo, you may wish to edit the text. Since the text is on its own layer, you can double click on it anytime with the text tool to make any changes you desire.

Have fun with this technique and feel free to adapt it or make any modifications you’d like. The possibilities are endless! In our next watermarking article, we’ll have a look at watermarking in Lightroom 3. Until then… Happy Photoshopping!

As we talked about yesterday, there are different ways to watermark your digital photos along with the different reasons for why you would want to. By now I’m hoping that many of you have considered how a watermark should (or should not) be used in your own photography. So, rather than doing a traditional step-by-step tutorial, I thought I would break this up into parts. These parts will be more like building blocks to allow you to come up with the best solution which is tailored to your own work. Doing it this way may also introduce you to techniques you can use outside of watermarking; wouldn’t that be cool?

Last thing before we get down to business here… The one of the upcoming tutorials in the watermarking series will be on automation. For now, we’re going to start with the basic foundation on how to create a watermark, and we’ll finish up the series with how to automate the process in Photoshop.

Create Watermark Image Files

The next step in this process is to create your watermark as a separate image file (or files) – with a transparent background. Doing this will ensure more consistency in your watermark’s position and size with respect to your digital photos for the web. Start by creating a new image document, with ridiculously large, square dimensions. You want to choose dimensions larger than any image file that your camera will output, and I’ll explain why in just a second. I created mine on a 6000 x 6000 pixel, 300dpi document, larger than any image my camera will produce.

The reason for doing this is so that we can use this watermark on images of any size in the future, including images sized for print if necessary. If you are strictly going to work with one image size for the rest of your life, then you can use smaller dimensions for your watermark image, but I prefer the flexibility of being able to choose later. Up-scaling a watermark can be difficult, but with a super-huge watermark file we’ll be able to easily scale it down and still retain full detail in the watermark while being able to use it on all of our digital photos, regardless of what size you choose to make them in the end.

Your watermark can be anything you choose, including a graphic, logo, or simply text. For the purposes of this tutorial I am going to stick with simple text, but feel free to create any type of watermark you would like. You can even style your text with a drop shadow, outline, or any other fancy effects you desire. On your super-huge watermark document, create the watermark size as if this document were one of your actual photos. So, if you want your watermark to stretch across the whole image, create it that way here. If you prefer it to be subtle and in the corner, do that now. For this example I am using just text as my watermark, and I am placing it in the lower right corner.

You may wish to create a few watermark files with the watermark in different positions. I encourage you to create several variations such as a lower left corner watermark and even centered along the bottom. If working with text, you may even wish to create versions with black text, and another with white text so that you have those options available if your image is dark or light (a black text watermark isn’t going to show up on a dark background image). It’s completely up to you, so create as many as you like. Just make sure when saving that you name them appropriately so you can easily identify them by name later. Also, we need to save these watermark files as transparent images; you don’t want an unsightly white background from your watermark file to cover up your nice photo that you are using it on. You can save them as a TIFF, PSD file, or even as a PNG. We’re doing all of this work now to help with the automation process later, but for now we’ll look at how to manually place this watermark file in your photo.

Work on a Duplicate Copy

First and foremost, make a duplicate copy of your photo so that you are not working directly with the original file. The critics will say this uses up too much disk space, but I say that it’s better to use up space (which I can free up later) than to inadvertently save over my original with something I may wish to change later. Besides, we’re talking about images intended for web use, so their file size is going to be negligible. Watermarking your photos is logically the last step before posting your photo on the web. Duplicate your original and do all of your regular post-processing first so that you have a finished image, then save it as a JPEG. Duplicate it (again) so you can work on a watermarked copy of the finished JPEG which we can shrink down to a decent size for use on the web.

Resizing for the Web

Since we are specifically looking at watermarking images for the web, it’s best to resize our photos at this point. Remember, you are no longer working on your original (out of the camera) or your finished (processed) JPEG; you are working on the duplicate (soon to be web version). There’s no point in putting your processing software through the motions of dealing with a large image file anymore since we’re now at the point to optimize for the web.

As for what dimensions you choose for your final product, that’s completely up to you depending on where you like to share your photos. Personally, I use a size of 900 pixels on the longest edge of the image. It is a widely accepted standard on many of the photo sharing sites which I use, some of which may even scale my images down to fit their specifications. Again, it’s personal preference what size you choose. Some people like them larger for sites like photo-sharing forums, and other people prefer them smaller to further prevent them from being attractive to image thieves. I think 900 pixels is a nice size for the viewer while keeping the file size small enough to load quickly on the web.

There are many ways to resize your digital photos, all of which are valid. I like to use one of the lesser known features in Photoshop called “Fit Image.” This feature constrains the image size to the pixel size of your choosing, and if you use it as I do here, it works for both landscape and portrait orientation images. This feature is under the Photoshop menu: File > Automate > Fit Image…

If you are using software besides Photoshop, you’ll may need to resize your images specifically based on landscape or portrait orientation, adjusting the maximum pixel length of the image for either the width (landscape) or height (portrait). If the options are available in your image editing software, ensure that “Resample Image” and “Constrain Proportions” are both selected.

Placing Your Watermark in Your Photo

Now that you have a photo that is edited and resized for the web (any size you choose!), we are ready to place the watermark in the image. You’re about to see why we went through all of the trouble in creating those large watermark image files now.

If you are working in Photoshop, here’s what you would do (for those of you not working in Photoshop, there are similar options in many editing programs). Go to the menu: File > Place… and when the dialog box pops up, choose the watermark image file you would like to use. In this example, I am using my lower-right text watermark image which I created above.

You’ll notice that Photoshop has kept the watermark image bound to fit within my photo. This is because we used the same dimensions to create the watermark image. Also, Photoshop has resized the 6000 x 6000 pixel watermark file down to fit inside the photo. This will be the case with any image size you are working with, as long as it is smaller than the dimensions you used to create your watermark file. This is ideal because now every time I add a watermark to my photos, regardless of their size, the watermark will appear to be the same size proportional to my photo.

But wait! I used my “lower right placed watermark image”, and it’s not showing up in the lower right corner of the screen. Photoshop automatically centers any file which has been “placed” into another document. Makes sense, but doesn’t help us here! Thankfully, we can easily use the Move tool to slide this watermark over to the side, or we can use the “Align layers – right edges” function to line them up. A word of caution though: When using the align layers function with a transparent image, it will align to the edge of the graphic/text, not the edge of the watermark image file. You may need to nudge your watermark a few pixels away from the edge of your photo manually if this is the case.

I think that leaves you with a lot to work with for today! Tomorrow we’ll come back and look at creating image templates which are useful when you wish to use watermark frames instead of adding text/graphics to your photos as we just did here. If any of you are using other post-processing tools besides Photoshop and Lightroom, feel free to comment on how certain steps would be done in that software. Until then I bid you happy watermarking!

What is a Watermark?

For those of you who are beginners to digital photography, you have probably heard the term before, but perhaps some clarification is needed. A watermark is simply a graphical or text element which has been overlaid onto your image. You have probably seen a photographer’s name, website, or email address added to the bottom corner of an image before. This is a watermark! Or more accurately, this is a type of watermark as there are several ways to watermark your digital photos.

The Question of Watermarking

As I was saying, the decision to add a digital watermark to your photos is largely personal, but there are some real benefits to doing so. Watermarking an image is a digital process which should be one of the last steps in your processing workflow. Typically, you will only want to add a watermark to images which you are sharing online. If you are selling or making personal prints, there is little use for a watermark other than to add the effect of a “signature” similar to what painters do with their works. But for the average photographer shooting family portraits, weddings, or personal photography, keeping a watermark out of your prints is the most likely scenario for the majority of us. It’s when you share your images online with the world that you’ll want to be very “aware” of your watermarking strategy. Let’s have a look at the most popular reasons for this essential step in your digital post-processing.

Crediting Yourself
You have a beautiful portfolio of digital images and you want to share them online so the whole world can enjoy your photography. That’s great! When someone views your photo online (regardless of where you post it, be it a photo sharing site, a forum, or your own personal website), how are they going to know who the photographer was that took this amazing shot? Adding a simple watermark containing your name will instantly enable the viewer to know who you are, and if they enjoy your work they may even be prompted to do an online search of your name to find more of your photography or learn more about you. Every photo is a work of art in itself, and it’s up to you if you’d like to sign it or leave it anonymous.

Providing Contact Info
Now, you don’t want your watermark containing too much information such that it distracts from the photo, but if you are planning on selling your work it may be a good idea to give people an easy way to find you. You can do this in a variety of ways with your image’s metadata (we’ll cover this in a future post!), or you could have your email or website address appear in your watermark. People will be able to contact you, which may lead to sales or future job shoots if that is what you are seeking.

Protecting Your Images
This is one of the more controversial topics when it comes to watermarking. Here is the simple fact: You cannot protect your digital images from being “stolen” off the web, period. You can make it difficult for someone to steal your photo, but not impossible. As far as watermarks go, the only way to prevent someone from stealing your photo off the web is to add a very intrusive watermark which covers the majority of the image; similar to the first example photo in this posting. Personally, I don’t feel this adds any value to your photo. Some would beg to differ, but I would argue that in protecting your photos with a watermark, you are ruining your photo – which is what you are trying to display in the first place! I promise we’ll get into a deeper discussion on protecting your images on the web in another post. For now, we’ll focus on watermarking.

Types of Watermarks

By now, I’m hoping you all see the benefits in adding a watermark to your photos. I really feel it’s one of those steps which many folks who are just getting started, tend to neglect. Even if you are sharing your photos on Facebook with your friends or emailing them to family members, you may not know who else winds up seeing them. I say, if you have a digital image to share, add some sort of watermark to it! Now that my little watermarking sermon is out of the way, let’s have a look at the different types of watermarks you could add to your photography.

The Loud and Proud
As I mentioned before, for those who are really concerned about the image thieves of the world, you could go with the destructive full-image overlay type watermarks (see the first image at the top of this post). It covers enough of your photo that it would be too much work for any would-be image thief to spend time Photoshopping it out, but at the cost of being a major distraction from your photo.

Watermark Frame
I like this method, and it’s one I often use for my own work. This would be adding a frame to your image, and including the watermark within the frame itself. You can get as simple or as fancy as you like, but typically a thick border with some text inside it will do the trick. It doesn’t distract from the image, and often it draws attention to your name/contact info without taking anything away from your photo.

Small and Subtle
This is another method of watermarking which I also use. It involves adding a small watermark which could be either text based or a logo, and overlaying it on top of your photo in a subtle way. Usually I will position this type of watermark in one of the corners of the image so that it includes my “signature” or contact info without getting in the way of the image itself. I have even seen some highly effective uses of this type of watermark from some photographers, who cleverly incorporate their logo/text into their scene such that it becomes part of the image.

To me, watermarking a digital image is one of those essential steps in finishing an image intended for the web. It may not offer 100% protection, but it’s a way of signing your work and letting people (who are interested) find and contact you more easily. Now that we’ve looked at the reasons for watermarking, and the types of watermarks, I’ll continue our watermarking series with some tutorials on how you can easily add and automate the process of watermarking your photos. Stay tuned and until then, happy photographing!

Answer: Great question! Actually, there are two equally important answers to this question. Finding a photography agency to represent you and your work requires both the skill of learning how to market and present yourself, as well as learning exactly how to source out the right agency for you. Naturally, the specifics on how to do all this will ultimately be different for each individual. We all have different strengths to play to, different genres of photography we enjoy shooting, and a wide range of geographic considerations. Hopefully the following tips can lead you in the right direction to finding the best agency suited for you.

How to market (sell) yourself

If you are interested in becoming a professional photographer, marketing yourself is going to be the most important skill you can have (even more important than the great quality of your photos). First, people have to be able to locate you easily. Second, they have to be able to effortlessly have access to viewing your work.

Should you have a website?

If you want to put yourself  “out there,” then the quickest and most cost effective way is to make sure you have your own website. Not only does it instill a sense of professional reputation for your potential agency, it also puts you on a more level playing field to all of the other professionals who have their web galleries going for them. If possible, I strongly recommend setting up your own web gallery with your name as the domain name. Sometimes this may not be possible if you have a popular name such as “John Smith,” and you’ll have to get creative in this case.

If you have no experience in creating websites, it really doesn’t have to be difficult. There are some great web hosting companies like 1and1, Bluehost, etc.. which offer pre-made photo gallery templates for your site; all you have to do is upload your photography. Also, if you are a Photoshop, Lightroom, or Photoshop Elements user, these programs now have built in photo-gallery website creation tools built-in. It’s become as easy as choosing a template and picking the photos you would like to showcase on your website. The software creates a folder containing all of the website code, structure, and files, then you simply upload it to your web hosting service.

At the very least, if you do not wish to have your own website (as an aspiring professional, I can’t imagine why not!), there are some great free services you can use such as free sites like Flickr for photo-sharing. However, you are going to present a more professional impression by having your own website.

Traditional Portfolio

One of the things which many people neglect these days is maintaining a traditional portfolio. “What’s that?” you say… Prints in a digital world?! There is a huge beneficial “wow” factor when presenting physical prints of your work in a nicely bound portfolio. Now days, most photographers direct potential employers to their website, which is good, but lacks a real personal touch. Giving a potential employer something tangible to see and feel will help you to leave a more lasting impression. It also demonstrates that you know what you are doing when it comes to both photography and PRESENTATION.

Remember, there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of aspiring professionals also looking to get hired. You can’t presume that your great work is any better than theirs, but you can give yourself a leg-up on them by not only selling your work, but also selling yourself. Before you can even do that much, you’ve got to find an agency to sell yourself to!

How to find an agency

This will be the most challenging step in getting hired. Agencies are typically highly competitive, but that shouldn’t discourage you. There is a need for photographers in all genres and at all levels of experience too. Some agencies may be after high-end, fine art photographers who’s work they can sell in the tens of thousands of dollars, while other agencies may need more affordable work such as shots for non-profit agency brochures.

Of course, you should keep an eye on the local job websites and places like Monster.com or Workopolis.com, but there is also something positive to be said for “pounding the pavement.” By that, I mean actually going out and making calls, or visiting the human resources departments of companies you would like to shoot for. I work with many photographers who do professional work for companies that they approached, and these were companies who were not even hiring at the time. Many organizations are happy to hire freelance photographers as jobs arise, especially if you are willing to do good work and prove your reliability to them. Always keep resumes on hand!

Ultimately, you can seek out and keep applying to agencies to hire you. Once you are hired, you will work for them when projects arise. However, if you are willing to try putting yourself out there and approaching the types of companies who would normally hire out from an agency, you may find that you are your own best agent!

Thanks for the question, and good luck in your search. Until next time, happy photographing!

Our photography assignments are open to everyone at all skill levels and are to be submitted through our assignments section in the PhotographyBB Forums. Membership is completely free and you can register in seconds, so feel free to join our community of photographers where we participate in assignments, share photos, and discuss photography all day long! Now, onto your next photo assignment…

Assignment #41 Theme: Spin
Timeframe: Aug 6th to Aug 17th, 2010
The challenge is to take a BRAND NEW showing the theme: Spin
Entries are to be submitted here: Assignment 41: Spin (PhotographyBB Forums)

For this assignment we will accept a photo of anything that spins, although it is not necessary for the object to be spinning in the photo. Remember everything you all have been learning to this point – tell us a story with your photo!

Important: With all of our photo assignments, the object (besides having fun) is to learn something new, even if that means learning how to see the world around you in a different way. Therefore, we only accept entries for new photos which have been taken during the assignment time frame (see above). You may submit up to 3 entries in total, and the top 3 photos will be selected and published (with image acknowledgments) in an upcoming issue of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine.

Everyone is welcome to participate. We have a supportive and friendly community of photographers and beginners, and this is a great way to get to know one another. Have fun, and happy photographing!