• EGYPT
• TOKYO
• ALASKA

It sounds so exotic and farawayish…but actually- does it?

Nope.

To advertising creatives, it’s like landing on a Getty library or yet another amateur travel bloggers site. And that is at best boring, and at worst terrifying.

Before you know it they’ve scurried onto the next website leaving a smattering of desert dust in their wake, without so much as opening the project.

Why?

Because people in the ad world are always hopping on and off flights to far flung places to oversee photoshoots and TV spots. And if not, they’re paid well enough to go themselves (probably with their fancy camera). They are often very well travelled and I personally know some who roll their eyes at getting on yet another plane to another destination for the next job.

This is always dependent on where they’re based (and why you should always try to understand your specific target audience), but in general, here are 3 super important things you should know about making and sharing ‘travel’ personal projects:

1. Unless you’re literally an editorial travel photographer don’t use the word ‘travel’ as a category name, especially in the ad world.
2. Give every personal project a title that creates curiosity and earns the click. Don’t tell them where it was shot. Make them want to discover it.
3. Plan beforehand and find something that resonates with you personally about the place. Then create a project around that. (OK so it’s Alaska, but what do you want to say about Alaska?)
4. Consider looking for common themes in your personal travel work and recreating projects with an international theme, one which transcends place. You can read more about being an international photographer here

Your opinion matters much more than your itinerary, especially now.

• CUBA
• TOKYO
• ALASKA

It sounds so exotic and farawayish…but actually- does it?

Nope.

To advertising creatives, it’s like landing on yet another amateur travel bloggers site. And that is at best boring, and at worst terrifying.

Before you know it…poof! They’ve scurried onto the next website leaving a smattering of desert dust in their wake, without so much as opening the project.

Why?

Because people in the ad world, are always hopping on and off flights to far flung places to oversee photoshoots and TV spots. They are often very well travelled and I personally know some who roll their eyes at getting on yet another plane to another destination for the next job.

This is always dependent on where they’re based (and why you should always try to understand your specific target audience), but in general, here are 3 super important things you should know about making and sharing ‘travel’ personal projects:

1. Unless you’re literally an editorial travel photographer don’t use the word ‘travel’ as a category name, especially in the ad world.
2. Title all personal projects in a way which entices them to click into the gallery, but doesn’t give away what it’s about. NO place names! (Unless it doesn’t look like a place name)
3. Plan beforehand and find something that resonates with you personally about the place. Then create a project around that. OK so it’s Alaska, but what do you want to say about Alaska?

As requested (by me!) they’ve already started sharing: their ideas, requests for help, the beginnings of their journeys to make some epic projects.

Those seeds of ideas and inspiration are now floating through the air, blown by breezes and currents, mostly unknown to their makers.

Someone will save a post.

Someone will share a request for help.

Someone will mention that photographer to someone else.

Someone will forward an Email.

As those seeds float and bounce around from brain to brain to phone to laptop to ipad, time will pass before they turn into a job request or brief, very often from someone many steps away from the original viewer.

Sometimes it can be an instant response; a day, or a few weeks. And sometimes several years.

It’s the same for the ideas and images you share.

So instead of waiting, keep sowing those seeds of inspiration. The more you send, the more you’ll multiply the people and places they reach.

The photographers I’m working with in Hanoi know this, and will be sharing regular updates, which I will keep sharing myself. (You’ll be able to follow along with my Instagram stories here.)

Who knows where they’ll end up?

Sue Stubbs and I are weaving our way through a throng of mostly men, and into the bowels of a seemingly never ending warren of alleys. We try not to catch the eyes of dubious strangers and look straight ahead.

I hope we can find our way out if we need to, I think.

Five weeks earlier Sue joined 8 other photographers from around the world to conceptualise and plan a personal project to be shot in Bangkok. This was the first Series Project workshop– the brainchild of British ex advertising creative Billy Plummer, now one of the highest ranking advertising photographers in Sydney, Australia-  and myself.

Prior to creating the workshop, Billy and I realised that advertising photographers are so used to being given briefs by clients, that they’re often not strong at conceptualising their own ideas. No one was teaching them that. Why would they?

The irony is that photographers that do produce strong personal work are in demand. Ad creatives want to be inspired, and great personal work with an idea and well articulated message does exactly that.

So over those initial 5 weeks we jumped onto weekly Zoom calls, and Billy opened up the brains of our willing guinea pigs, a group of ad photographers from Vancouver, New Zealand, Paris, New York and Australia, showing them how to approach personal work in a completely new way.

When we all arrived in Bangkok, in week 6, the photographers had fully formed ideas. Treatments had been prepared, logistics had been worked out, and they were ready to hit the markets, rivers, engine workshops, Sepak Takraw courts and brothels, all with a well researched plan. For once they were treating their own work as well as they treat their clients. Bravo.

As with even best planned production for an ad shoot, there are always curve balls. When the Kathoeys (transgender individuals) who’d promised to meet Sue at our hotel for the photoshoot failed to turn up, she had to find an alternative solution.

My job in Bangkok was to critique the work produced every evening, and be available to talk to the photographers as they arrived back from an all night long mission, or needed a pep talk. To help them make decisions about what shots were left to be made. To help them flesh out their ‘why’. Whatever was needed really.

So, in the spirit of sisterhood, I agreed to accompany Sue in her search for talent in Patpong at night.

Truth be told, I’m always up for an adventure.

Up some stairs and into a bar, where naked women with tassels on their nipples dance around poles.

Nope, we say firmly to the somewhat suspect man who has insisted on making himself our guide, cigarette hanging from one side of his mouth, suit hanging off his small frame.

We want MEN DRESSED AS LADIES we say, for the third time. (We should have learned more Thai, I think.)

More convoluted turns down a back alley, and we’re in the cheaper district.

It’s almost a cliche.

A red lamp is suspended outside a small makeshift building. Kathoeys with torn fishnets loiter outside.

Inside everything is dark red. The lighting, the sticky carpet, the torn curtains.

Chief prostitute, Som Zaza, mans the bar. An elderly Australian man in a suit nurses a whisky on a red banquette seat.

This is not salubrious.

But it’s where we need to be.

Som Zaza is business-like and agrees that she and her girls can be photographed for a price. We arrange to come back the next day.

This shot above is one of the results of the shoot and others Sue made as part of her Bangkok Series project ‘Girls will be boys and boys will be girls’, and it can be seen here.

Since then there have been over 6 Series Projects, both online and on location, and the number of awards, assignments and success stories continues to grow.

If you want to inspire your clients, and stand out from the crowd with compelling personal work, you can find out more about The next Series Project here.

Yet another amazing outdoor lifestyle photographer followed me on Insta today. He was from New Zealand.

And yesterday another in Scotland.

Not surprising, that.

Both countries have gorgeous mountains, lakes and ocean. What’s not to love? (Maybe the cold………but skiing!)

These intrepid shooters keep emerging from the woodwork, (or more likely from the ice cave), beanies speckled with melted sleet, faces creased with sun and wind burn, a bike part leaning against a wall next to the Patagonia backpack, the sleeve of a dripping wetsuit in the Zoom background.

If you’re one of the eleventy million photographers in the world who love shooting in the surf, camping under a vast sky of stars in those glowy little high tech tents, and lugging gear up and down mountains to shoot fresh faced explorers atop a peak, what on earth can you do to differentiate yourself?

Well it’s easy.

Your genre isn’t all that defines you.

You’re defined by the feeling your work evokes, your vision, your values, and your purpose, or ‘why’.

These make up your own unique brand DNA and they’re what change you from fighting for a meagre handful of outdoorsy brand clients, to seeing the potential of your reach.

Brands that want to show courage.

Brands that want to show teamwork.

Brands that want to show survival against the odds.

You are so much more than WHAT you shoot.

Don’t limit your potential.

Happy new year! (Is it still OK to say that?)

This summer in New Zealand we are enjoying being VIP’s of our own country and many of us are exploring places we haven’t been… partly because they’d usually have been swamped with tourists.

Holidays are tricky. To take the camera or not to? Taking your gear usually means you have a constant push pull between kids and family and capturing that amazing folio opportunity.

But you deserve a rest. Even if you haven’t ‘worked’ much in 2021 I would hope you’ve been shooting lots, and it’s really important to give yourself and your camera a break every now and then. And your habits.

If you can’t help yourself, and you fall in love with the place, consider treating it as a recce. Use your time to think creatively. Mull over some concepts. Think of ways to shoot in that place (at a later date) that are unique. Can you extend an existing long term project? Is there a story to be uncovered?

Plan to return with a fully formed idea, and bring the right gear (and other production necessities) at the right time to make it a shoot of that place like no other, instead of another holiday snap.

Even if you’re stuck and can’t travel, it’s a worthwhile process to go through. There is so much on your doorstep.

Meanwhile, be safe wherever you are.

2020 brought with it a raft of change that revealed so much so fast. It’s as if it decided to shake us awake from whatever reverie we were in.

Change is like that, accelerating existing situations into their future destiny and beyond.

Those who were struggling became even more vulnerable. The cracks became chasms.

Those who had good foundations thrived (but that sometimes brought its own new set of problems).

My need to help photographers became all consuming this year and everything else took a back seat.

But oh boy was help needed.

It was a privilege to share in your journey, no matter how rocky.

It was a thrill to see the awards pour in this year, and the new rep announcements, the new client photographer connections, the new books published, the new communities created, the exhibitions that flourished, and the new self awareness gained.

I’m grateful to all my clients, my tribe of helpers, and my business partners, who helped make success possible for photographers around the world, and who constantly teach me I’ll always be a student.

Change brings growth, and you have so many places to go.

May 2021 bring you some amazing new opportunities.

“It’s been a total joy to work with you. You have instilled the confidence and energy in me that I’d lost connection with and I will be eternally grateful for that Christina I really will. 

You have a unique gift and I’d say you found your calling

Thank you from the bottom of my heart – you have been an integral part of the process of rebuilding myself this year”

]]> https://christinaforce.net/caplus-is-back/ Fri, 20 Apr 2018 04:38:28 +0000 https://christinaforce.net/?p=4872 When I was repping photographers I would scoot over to Singapore (and Hong Kong, and beyond) several times a year. Heading off for a sales trip was always a feat of co-ordination and planning.

Appointments had to be made with as many people as possible, which, because they are mostly creatives, is a little like herding cats (‘Can you call me when you’re here to arrange a time’). Fortunately I had spent years building relationships so getting to this point was a well worn path for me.

Folios had to be edited and images rounded up from participating photographers, who, like creatives were often hard to coordinate (‘Can I meet you at the airport with my folio? What time are you flying out?)

Promotional material had to be decided on and printed. Enough business cards. Super important in Asia then. I would hand out approximately 80-100 per week.

On top of this was the usual travel planning.

Once there, after all the confirmation calls (‘Hello! I’m calling to let you know I’m here!’), taxis were always essential because it’s pretty much impossible to bump down a trillion steps to subway stations and hop ever so lightly onto buses with 36 kilos of folios loaded onto one’s shoulders or dragging behind in an oversized case (I tried everything I could to spare my back and shoulders).

Occasionally, despite all attempts to navigate my schedule around it, I would find myself stuck on the side of a road at 3.30pm, the dreaded taxi change-over hour, when any taxi-hailing human, no matter how desperate, is utterly ignored by cabs flying past on their way home from their shift.

Taking all this into account, plus the wait in reception whilst the creative finished another meeting, or madly bashed out another idea to appease the waiting account exec, I would get to about 5 meetings a day. That doesn’t count the ones that were blown out, which occasionally happened. Or the meetings that were lack-lustre because the creatives had been up all night on a pitch.

It’s no wonder photographers were happy to leave as much of it as possible to their agent- AKA me.

When I heard about ‘folio reviews’ going on in the USA I lamented the absence of them in places like Asia. To be able to turn up in one place and over one day meet and show folios to 15 or more undistracted key decision makers. What a dream!

After I became a folio consultant I did an Aussie/ NZ tour with a workshop called ‘Crack the Asian market’. At one in Melbourne I met photographer Rob Earp who immediately became a good friend and client. When he was offered the opportunity to create an event for commercial photographers at an expo in Hong Kong he invited me to join him in creating a review programme. I was on board and we launched the first review programme of its kind in Asia in 2015.

Creative Asia Plus was born. Its life with the expo was cut short but we went ahead and ran it anyway. The train had left the station and we were on it! It was such a brilliant, heart warming event and everyone built long lasting relationships. This year, after demand from CA+ alumni and even reviewers, we’re launching the next one this July.

CA+ 2018 is running in Singapore on 28th and 29th July, 2018. You can find out more as reviewers and events (I’ll be one of the speakers) are announced on the website. And if you want more advice on shooting in Asia or for clients based there, join our Crack the Asian Market Facebook Group.

One year later, almost to the day, John was facing the difficult but exciting dilemma of which rep he would choose. Approached by the three top agents in Asia for exclusive representation, he has now been put forward for some of the biggest jobs floating around Asia and is already being invited to stay with clients in their homes, join them for dinners, collaborate with them.

The steps to this, just the very beginning of his success, were so simple and are part of the process through which I take many of my clients. But I would say that John has been particularly pro-active at implementing these things and this has mainly come from his complete trust in me, for which I feel very grateful. It has also turned into a wonderful friendship.

Here are some of the very basic things we put into place for John, and which you can apply to your business.

1. Decide if you want to be a unique artist or a manager of a company

‘We have a full service studio to meet all your photographic needs’ is a common line I read on photographers websites. So what are you? A manager of a studio facility for photographers? A company offering photographic services shooting anything and everything? Or a unique artist? Sorry folks, but if you are a unique artist they just want to know you can get the shot. If you do want to build a company to sell take your name off the website and keep your own brand separate. And decide if you are a ‘we’ a ‘he’ or an ‘I’ and stick  to it! John was promoting his studio to other photographers whilst also promoting his own brand as a company. We removed ‘we’, shifted the studio (and anything else directed at photographers) to a different website and concentrated on building his profile as a unique artist.

2. Focus on where you want to go, not where you have been.

Show only the work you love shooting, and want to be shooting. What is your favourite style and approach? Stick to this. Quality not quantity. Clients will still book you for the other work- they’ll just respect you more. We removed all of John’s food and product work and concentrated on his wonderful conceptual personal pieces, intermingled with fashion, and now clients are blown away by his folio.

3. Research the perfect target brands and creatives for you

Research, research, research! And then research more! Find the brands using similar photography approaches to your style of work. Research creatives and designers who have won awards. What kind of photography did they commission? If you think you could have shot their last campaign, they should be on your target list. Research is the toughest work to do. Subscribe to industry blogs to get regular updates on what’s going on in the industry. Save interesting articles so you have a good collection of info when you need to start contacting specific people. John worked tirelessly on this and still does, but it’s starting to pay off.

4. Make sure you share your work in your target market’s language

Your website should speak to your target market. If you want work from lifestyle homeware brands use terminology they relate to. If you are targeting a fashion client use their language. Automotive? same deal. Make sure everything you put out there and where you put it is relevant to your target market.  For John we chose easy to find website category names which we felt were interesting but succinct for busy creatives and art buyers looking for conceptual fashion photography.

5. Connect regularly and stay in touch

Touch base regularly with your target clients confidently and in a multitude of ways. A beautiful image on a card with a personal note on the back. An Email with a compliment and some information. 90 day face-to-face visits. We created a monthly direct mail plan so that when John made that call they knew exactly who he was and were keen to meet him. And a good follow-up plan is essential.

6. Never stop shooting personal work

Good clients want to know you are passionate and actually care about photography. Prove this by walking the talk. Set yourself personal project goals and share them on a blog, in social media and on your website. John is a prolific shooter so we just had to ensure he focused on shooting personal projects which matched his end goal- conceptual fashion. I recently updated his folio and was able to add beautiful new images shot in Asia- crucial to gaining the respect and trust of the local creatives. He has a year long project lined up for next year- I can’t wait to see the results.

If you’d like to work your way through 8 key steps to get paid to shoot what you love, sign up to my newsletter for a mini-course which will drop into your Email box over 8 days and give you daily actions to get you closer to up-levelling your photography business and being on top of the pile.

To find out more actionable steps you can take to get paid to shoot what you love, apply for a free strategy call with me here.

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