Peter DeMott Photography » Links to other photographers

An 8×10 is not a wall portrait…and size does matter

Peter — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:10:08 +0000

It’s fun to surf Facebook and see what other photographers are up to and I like to promote other photographers by blogging about them and what they are doing.

Yesterday, I found a side by side photo of a gallery wrapped canvas mounted on a wall. The first pictures shows an image that is not 8×10, but is even bigger. It is an 11×14 print. Some would be so impressed that they invested in such a large wall print, that is what they are thinking. But, as you can see this 11×14 portrait is way undersized for the place selected for the image. The photograph next to it shows what a 30×40 gallery wrap looks like in the same space. Now we are talking. The image fits the space.

This picture is a great idea to help people see that an 11×14 is really a very small image depending on the space that it will be displayed in. The 30×40 portrait matches the space much better.

Meg Bowman Photography does lots of small children, but she also seems to work with seniors and wedding photography as well. If you live in Wooster, Ohio visit her web site and be inspired by her work.

http://www.megbowman.com/

Here is her Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/MegBowmanPhotography

No related posts.

Some very cute baby portraits for inspiration – SKNY Photography

Peter — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:34:02 +0000

Just sharing this as inspiration. I thought this was an outstanding baby session including the photographs of the big sister and mom with the baby as well. This is not my work. If you click on the image you should be taken to the photo album where there about 5 more rows of pictures to enjoy.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150359065314144.366005.666189143&type=1

I ran across this photographers personal profile and photo albums while looking around on Photographers Unleashed a place to share and grow and make mistakes together. http://www.facebook.com/groups/photogsunleashed/

Unfortunately I could not find her Facebook business page or web site. If she sees this, perhaps she will email it to me so I can add it to this post.

A little inspiration for equine portraits from russia, I think

Peter — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:22:10 +0000

I was disappointed that I could not find this photographers web site, but I wanted you to be inspired by her work. Here is her album about horses:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.153575414675322.31855.100000685921846

If you can find her web site where she shows these images, you could post it as a comment below.

Getting noticed on the Internet and SEO tips for photographers

Peter — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:41:59 +0000

A talented fine art portrait photographer who doesn’t get notices on the Internet

Today I visited a photographer’s web site in Zurich. She had posted on a Photography Business group on LinkedIn and explained that she was not very good at “marketing” and needed some help.

I like the style of her work. She does a lot of very interesting things, but I could immediately see why her web site was not generating much activity for her. She has very little “content” in her web site. What I mean by content is WORDS. You see Google can not read pictures and Google cannot read FLASH either. So a lovely web site that has few words will hardly be seen by Google. If the entire site is FLASH then it is for all practical purposes invisible to Google and organic searches by consumers.

This particular site is not a Flash web site, but it does have very few words so here is what I told her. But, first before you read what I said, go take a look at the site and tell me what content you would add (what words) to help more people visit the site and to help people want to have their portrait taken by this talented photographer.

http://www.fotoam.com/

SEO advise for a photographer in Zurich

Here is what I told her:

“It appears that you have a blog site which could give you good traffic, however you are not adding content so that google and other search engines can find you. Here are things that you need to add to your site. You can do this with blog posts or by adding pages to the site.

* An introduction to YOU including your photograph and how you came to be a photographer and the types of photography that you enjoy and want to do.

* Where you are located. Add your city/country to the bottom of each post with your name and phone number as well. Google gives priority to LOCAL searches. If someone searches for a portrait photographer in Zurich it will find you first. Also, if I am in OHIO USA, I need to be able to see quickly that I will not be able to hire you for a portrait session even though I like your style. However, I also need to know more about your event photography which I could perhaps buy a photo from.

* EVERY POST should have “content”, that is WORDS THAT DESCRIBE the photo session or the event. Where, when, who, what you liked about the people or the event. These are the words that help google FIND YOU and match you up with people looking for a photographer. Google cannot read photographs and has no idea who to send to you if all there are is photographs on your site.

Each Helga photo should explain something about what it is. A short paragraph is sufficient. One or two sentences. Where, when, what, why, etc.

In your portraits you can explain why you like black and white for your portraits and the ageless beauty of a fine art portrait…..etc.

Are you shooting with FILM? If so, then your posts should talk about that. Why, where processed, how printed etc. Always use short paragraphs of one to 3 or 4 sentences with a return separating the paragraphs. If you look at my posts, you will see that I also headline the paragraphs for easy reading.

Take a look at my blog/web site. Each time that I add “content” my page views go up. When you get to 30-50 posts with “content” in them you will start seeing a significant increase in page views. In September of 2009 I had about 500 page views in a month. July is my new highest page views at over 10,500 views.”

I have been working with a self hosted WordPress blog web site for just under two years now. There should be several other related posts listed below if you want to read further about SEO for photographers.

Can you help Aline with some ideas?

I hope you will take a look at Aline Marandet’s web site and tell her some ideas you have about the “content” that would draw you to her site and make you want to have her do a portrait session for you or your family. Add a comment below and if she subscribes to this post she will get each of your thoughts as they are approved. I will send her an email encouraging her to place a comment as well so that each new comment will come to her as well.

Another thing that can draw in clients is posts that express something about Aline’s personality, what she loves in life and why she enjoys recording timeless portraits of families and young children.

Peter DeMott • Peter DeMott Photography • South West Ohio • Senior portraits, family portraits, children, horse and rider portraits, and more. • peter@photosbypdemott.com • 937-478-6222

A taste of senior portraits from Germany

Peter — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:23:07 +0000

Lovely natural light photography from Simply Taken Portraits:

I ran across this lovely blog by a photographer in Germany. So many lovely settings and she does a great job of capturing such natural expressions in her subjects. This is one of my primary goals when photographing seniors as well, to capture the natural you. In addition, I love to find lovely settings around Dayton to photograph my subjects.

I hope that you will go take a look and get some great creative ideas for natural light portraits. Staci’s ability to create simple and comfortable poses leads to lovely natural expressions and comfortable, natural looks.

http://simplytakenportraits.com/taken/2010/09/katharine-kmc-senior-portrait-photographer/

Here is a link to her facebook gallery for this session.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=250108&id=45254943556

Jeff Smith says,”Could be your photography sucks” in his blog post

Peter — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 20:34:31 +0000

All you have to do is watch American Idol to understand what Jeff Smith is talking about in his blog post “Could be your photography sucks”. Each week you see people that are encouraged by their friends about their wonderful talent. Perhaps their parents (who are apparently tone deaf) think they have the ability to become a professional singer in a very competitive field. Then we get to see them and see that they are deceived by the complements of those who do not want to hurt their feelings or by parents afraid to consider reality.

http://jeffsmithbooks.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/could-it-be-your-photography-sucks/

Like Jeff, I believe that many people pick up a camera and think they can instantly become a professional. It happens so fast that in many cases they don’t know how bad they really are, but it can also be their business practices are really bad too.

Tonight I will get to see what two PPA certified judges think of 7 of my portraits. I am hoping that some will be graded to have “Merit”. However, I will hear everything they say about each image and I am sure their thoughts may cause me to regroup and try even harder in the future. This is one of the values of being in a professional organization like PPO and PPSO. These judges will hold nothing back. They do not know whose photographs they are judging and they will not care if their constructive criticism or perhaps low point score will hurt my feelings. Their goal is to be as objective of the qualities of merit images as possible. It’s not my mother or my wife or my friend saying, “Oh yes, I think it’s a pretty portrait.” I’m a big boy and I can handle it and I plan to grow from it no matter how scary it is going in.

I offer my clients a 100% refund if they are not happy with the results of a photography session with me. They can have a re-do session or I will even give their money back, whichever they prefer. So often I see new photographers with little confidence offering their services at very low prices because of their lack of confidence OR in order to assure that they not get criticized (If someone pays $4 for an 8×10 what are they expecting?). Very poor quality can be accepted when the prices are far below professional rates.

Far better that new photographers would work on the quality of their product until they can command professional rates BEFORE they start charging customers for work. Slow down a little and work on your product until it IS of professional quality, then keep on improving THAT each day as you go forward.

If you are not ready to have people who don’t know you judge your photography, perhaps you would do well to purchase some of Jeff Smith’s books and work on improving the quality of your work. I think I have three of his books and their should be a DVD in the mail right now. I consider photography to be a profession where you can always learn more and be challenged and grow.

Wish me luck. I will post any images to make the grade in the days to come.

I love to hear comments from photographers and clients. Just click on the Leave Comment link near the title or at the bottom of this post, there may be a leave comment box.

FEO group (For Each Other) an outgrowth of Dane Sander’s Fast Track Photography book and training

Peter — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 14:42:39 +0000

I am involved in two professional photography groups here in the Dayton area. Each stretch me and help me to grow as a photographer. FEO is for the most part a crew of young wedding photographers. The idea for the group is for everyone to help each other grow as business people and as creative photographers.

I am also part of PPSO (Professional Photographers of SW Ohio) which is a sub chapter of PPO (Prfessional Photographers of OHIO). This is a more diverse group including photographers that work mainly with senior portraits, family portraits of all kinds, wedding photography, and even nature stock photography.

Learning and growth are the key to both groups and I find both groups challenging and helpful.

In the FEO group, I was completely impressed with one young couple making their way in wedding photography. I thought I would share some about them to introduce you to them. Also, at this time I do not do wedding photography at all and for those of you in Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus looking for young energetic and creative wedding photography, these two are outstanding.

Braum Photograph is made up of Cameron and Mindy Braum.

Cameron does some beautiful blogging on his web site. The site is easy to navigate and definitely shows off their talent and creative flair.

This is the first blog post that I looked at, but he already has another one up. If you want to see more from these folks go up to the menu item BLOG and go through hundreds of outstanding photographs from many weddings throughout the region.

http://blog.braun-photography.com/post/1121321841/amanda-brett-dover-wedding-photography

As a professional photographer it is critical to keep learning. Complaining about competition and problems with the photography business these days does nothing to help you improve and grow. Join an FEO group or other professional photography organization and start attending the meetings.

Bev Pettit Photography, fine art equine photography from Skull Valley Arizona

Peter — Sun, 23 May 2010 03:42:26 +0000

Bev Pettit is a very talented fine art equine photographer located in Skull Valley Arizona. I met her online as she is one of my students taking a course in advertising and marketing for equine photographers sponsored by the Equine Photographers Network.

Once she switches over to a stand alone WordPress web site, I think that she will begin to get noticed. Right now her web site is a flash web site and for the most part she is invisible to google search engines. This is a common problem with photographers because web site developers promote beautiful looking flash web sites to photographers, but even with all the “bells and whistles” for SEO (search engine optimization) most of these site do very little for the photographers except make a good impression for the very few that ever see their site. While a wordpress website (not a wordpress.com blog) will generate organic search results for the owner, the only way to get people to these flash web sites is to promote them in other media.

But, Bev is pretty savy and she will soon work this out and become better know for her fine images.

Here is her web site address : http://www.bevpettit.com/

One of the pictures you might see there is this:

But, I would be interested to see if we can build her connections a bit by driving some FANS to her business Facebook page which she recently opened. She is sharing images on a regular basis there and you will enjoy what you see so why not “LIKE” her page on facebook and get to know Bev

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bev-Pettit-Photography/113312035372281?ref=ts

See you at Bev’s Page and tell me what you think.

One of my favorite photography blogs by Jeff Smith photographer and author

Peter — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:23:14 +0000

One blog that I have subscribed to using an email subscription sign up is Jeff Smith books blog. Each day he sends out a blog about something related to being a professional portrait photographer. Much of Jeff’s photography business is focused on senior portrait photography so, for me, his comments are particularly helpful.

http://jeffsmithbooks.wordpress.com/

In his blog he provides links to how-to videos, advice on pricing and selling and usually a mention of one of his 12 or 13 books now in print. I almost always find his comments interesting and challenging. In addition I have purchased several of his books including his new e-book about how to use social media to promote your photography business. This e-book about how photographers can use facebook, twitter, and other social media is outstanding and changed much of my thinking on how I was doing some things on facebook. If you are a photographer new to to facebook, or if you feel insecure about what you are doing to promote your photography business on facebooks, a quick download of this book and a read through is well worth the $15 investment.

http://www.socialmediamarketingphotographers.com/

If you are a portrait photographer, sign up for his blog. If you are considering becoming a portrait photographer, sign up for his blog. If you just want to learn more about creative posing and better portrait photography, then sign up for his blog. Of course you will end up purchasing several of his books and learning even more that way about creative senior portrait posing, but you will thank me that I directed you to his blog and works.

I’d love to network with you as a photographer so that we can all learn more and grow more. If you would like to friend me on facebook, just mention that you are coming from my blog and that you are also a photographer. If you are a student considering me as your photographers, send me a friend request as well. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1407421933&ref=profile or you are welcome to LIKE my business page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Germantown-OH/Peter-DeMott-Photography/152303558213?ref=ts

Thanks,

Peter DeMott Photography

937-478-6222

Senior portraits, family portraits, children and also equine portraits in the Dayton Ohio area.

JAYS Photography in Columbus, Ohio with Jay and Kelly Brown

Peter — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:36:36 +0000

From time to time I will be posting examples of other photographers who I have connected with in one way or another. Some from association meetings, some from connections through the internet. Recently I blogged about Allison Ballinger of Cross B Photography in Stephenville, Texas. What I have noticed is that some have a zeal for God that overflows into their work. I am completely impressed with Allsion’s ABOUT page which unapologetically shares her commitment to Jesus Christ and how it influences her life and photography.

Today I want to introduce you the Jay and Kelly Brown of J.A.Y.S. Photography in Columbus, Ohio. They are wedding photographers in Columbus. When you go to their front page, then enter, go to there ABOUT page and see how their relationship with Jesus Christ colors their lives and attitudes about life. They are passionate about photography and about people. I know from my conversations with Kelly that she is very devoted to her clients and getting the best possible images from their special day.

: Enter page for JAYS Photography in Columbus, Ohio

I wanted you to get a small taste of the talent of this pair. After looking as these few images, please go explore their flash web site and their blog to get to know them better.

: Two thumbs up, photo by JAYS Photography in Columbus, Ohio

: Wedding portrait by JAYS Photography in Columbus, Ohio

: Portrait of the bride by JAYS Photography of Columbus, Ohio

: Very cute candid moment at a wedding by JAYS Photography of Columbus, Ohio

: Candid moment captured by JAYS Photography of Columbus, Ohio

They include an engagement portrait session in their wedding packages. Kelly tells me that this is an important opportunity for her and Jay to get to know their clients so that they have a good working relationship on the wedding day.

: Engagement portrait session by JAYS Photography of Columbus, Ohio

Kelly also does senior portraits, children and family photography in the Columbus area. Jay and Kelly focus on wedding photography and do weddings in Columbus and will also do destination weddings.

This post appears on my web site and blog, Peter DeMott Photography.com. It also appears on my personal facebook page and my business fan page on facebook. There are several ways to follow me or this blog. You can friend me on facebook. You can subscribe to my web site using the subscribe box at the top right of my home page. You can follow me on Twitter, pdemottphoto. I enjoy sharing about photographers and photography and will continue to bring you hopefully interesting post that will help you get to know me better, be inspired, and learn more about photography.