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Hello Everyone – Happy New Year!
As we kick off 2012, we have some exciting news to share with you.
First off, I want you to know we have been listening to your suggestions regarding our forums, and over the past year your Executive Board has been working hard to bring our forums into the 21st Century. As some of you may know, the Yahoo forums are built on a 13-year-old technology. In today’s time that is ancient, and in our industry it’s imperative to be forward-thinking.
So with that in mind, on Jan 22, 2012 we will be saying so long to Yahoo and moving to our own APA-branded message board where you will be able to access the past year’s threads, post images for feedback, subscribe to email, message directly and do many other things listed below. The new message board has depth, is quite robust and is user friendly and we all hope you will be as excited as we are. Of course change is hard sometimes, and may take some getting used to, but change is also good and necessary.
I want to thank Anthony Nex, our APA/LA Co-Chairman, for taking on the task of finding a message board that would fit our needs as Photographers. We also thank him for all the time he has put into making it an easier crossover for all of us.
Thank you Anthony!
Warm Regards,
Theresa
APA National President
Upgrading is fun, right?
When it comes to making images, you can do a great job with 13-year-old (or even 130-year-old) technology. When it comes to technology for online discussion forums, though, the same doesn’t hold true.
APAnet, APAdigital and APAmotion are invaluable resources for many of our members, but they’re based on a Yahoo! Groups structure that’s pretty antiquated by web standards. And what worked back in the year 2000 (where we had only 52 messages for all of December, as opposed to more than four times that in the same month in 2011) is exposing some serious shortcomings with heavier usage today.
Fortunately, there are much better alternatives available. Even better, taking advantage of those opportunities has considerable benefits — like the ability to post images! — for all of us who rely on this tool. Take a look at some of the features of the new forum:
- Improved interface with better organization of topics
- Image posting – a particularly important feature for photographers’ forums
- Better search capabilities
- Combination of all APA forums on one easily navigable site
- User-editable posts — make a mistake? Fix it without having to repost
- Threaded posts, removing the need to quote original posts and streamlining the board
- Private message function, allowing users to follow up discussion off the main board
- Option to subscribe to threads, so responses are emailed to you directly
- Option to subscribe to entire forums, so all posts in that forum are emailed daily or weekly
- Dynamic signature lines — if you change your sig line it updates all posts past and present with the new info
- One-click access to view all posts since your last visit to the forum
- More logical forum subjects, so posts are better organized.
- Video posting
You can see it all by visiting the new forum here. Start Now but you’ll need to register in order to post and to take full advantage of all the features, but all the forums — which together provide all four of our core values of Activism, Education, Inspiration and Community — can be viewed without registering.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this much-needed update. The improvements were carefully selected based on user feedback and input, so we hope you like what you see.
Thanks again for being an essential part of American Photographic Artists.
COPYRIGHT = $$$
Understanding how to put copyright to work for you is crucial to your success as a photographer. Learn what you need to succeed. Join us for this informative and entertaining program that will inspire and empower.
Topics to be discussed will include:
- Why copyright registration matters
- What to do when your image has been infringed
- How and when to choose an attorney
- Fair Use – When is it really fair?
- What is published vs. unpublished?
Moderator: Debra Weiss, Creative Consultant
Panelists:
- John Harrington, Photographer and Author
- James Silverberg, Attorney
February 8, 2012
6:00 pm – 10 pm
Carousel Studios, 3700 NE 1st Court
Miami. Florida 33137
This Event is Free and Open to all Photographers
Limited Seating – Please Register HERE
Sponsored by American Photographic Artists (APA National)
ACTIVISM – COMMUNITY – EDUCATION – INSPIRATION
To find out more visit APAnational.com
Creatively speaking, are you a hip youngster with your finger on the pulse of today’s trends – or a forgetful grandfather with tissues tucked up your cardigan sleeve? In this video, creatives and industry experts discuss techniques to freshen up your work, and simple strategies to impress clients with your cultural relevance:
• Where to find inspiration – from must-read magazines to unusual sources you won’t expect
• The #1 thing every artist must do to avoid becoming a creative dinosaur
• The glaring signals of creative stagnation that buyers watch for
Watch Creative Collision: How to Stay Forever Young (Creatively)
Participants include Belinda Lopez of Razorfish, photographer Nick Onken, Kat Dalager of Campbell Mithun, photographer Chris Buck, Amy Elkin and Sissy Estes of The Martin Agency, Cabell Harris of WORK Labs and Kelly O’Keefe – Professor at VCU Brandcenter.
About Creative Collision
Creative Collision is an Agency Access produced video series that exposes artists to top industry experts, first-hand. This series answers artist questions sent to us by photographers and illustrators like you. The Creative Collision team of leading industry consultants, Jennifer Kilberg, Suzanne Sease, and Amanda Sosa Stone, interviewed top reps, art producers, art directors, creative directors and artists to get the answers to your burning questions.
Agency Access
APA members receive a 15 % discount to access the Agency Access global database of 60,000 print and broadcast contacts so you can create targeted lists for clients worldwide. Agency Access also offers the most comprehensive range of marketing services to help you get your work in front of the right buyers.
 The New Year brings a new beginning for APA Insurance Services. As some of you may know, Pam Lesemann has officially entered retirement since the start of 2012. While we are sad to see Pam go, we are thrilled to introduce your new APA Insurance Services Problem Solver Karen Stetz.
Karen, originally from California, joins APA Insurance Services with over ten years of industry experience. Customers are already acknowledging Karen’s professionalism, expertise and commitment to superior customer service.
“I’ve really enjoyed working with APA Insurance Services’ clients so far.” Karen explains, “I look forward to becoming a trusted advisor, friendly Problem Solver and ultimately, an insurance partner to our existing and future clients.”
What makes APA Insurance Services different?
- We provide custom insurance solutions that cover the unique needs of professional photographers
- We provide premium discounts for APA members
- APA directly profits from every policy we write
- We offer FREE “Certificates of Insurance” with a 24-hour turnaround
- We secure your policies with A-rated insurance carriers
- We represent more than one carrier in order to match you with the right policy for the BEST price
- Our FIVE-STAR customer reviews say it all!
Visit our NEW website at www.apainsuranceservices.com today to request a FREE indication of cost and coverage! Or, call 877.269.9021!
 The United States Copyright Office has requested a “Notice of Inquiry for Remedies for Small Copyright Claims.” American Photographic Artists (APA) is grateful for the opportunity to submit comments and is working on a submittal that will be comprehensive in scope. The submittal date is January 17, 2012. View the request HERE.
APA appreciates the request of the US Copyright Office to submit comments on this issue. APA has a core value of advocacy for our members and all photographers. To advocate at times may mean to be an activist for change. The Proposal presented is forward thinking but achievable and offers real change solutions to an ever-present and increasing problem facing photographers and all copyright holders, the ability to undertake a full-scale litigation of a copyright infringement.
APA has participated with other visual art organizations in discussions on the subject of Remedies for Copyright Small Claims. Those organizations include American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), Graphic Artists Guild (GAG), Professional Photographers of America (PPA), Picture Archive Council of America (PACA), North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA), Editorial Photographers (EP) and National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). Even though each of these organizations may be filing their own comments with recommendations that may be very divergent, we all have the same goal of protecting the copyright of our members, and all copyright holders, as well as achieving a fair system that provides more opportunity for those copyright holders that are infringed upon to receive affordable entry into pursuing litigation to defend their constitutional right.
#3 in a series of articles on Fine Art Photography
by Ted VanCleave
Promoting Your Art
For the third installment about fine art photography I’ll discuss promoting your artistic photography. As with most areas of the business of art, there are no hard and fast rules. Each of us tends to find our own path that works best for us. I’ll give you insights into some of my experiences but keep in mind that you may find success using other methods and avenues.
First and foremost, it’s important to learn to market your own work. In the art world, you may get some gallery exhibitions and you may have some people in the art industry who champion your work, but it’s up to you to keep pushing into new venues, new geographic territories and to keep your work fresh and in front of those that you already work with. The myth that you can just create great art images and have one top gallery represent you to the world and you’ll earn a great living is just that, a myth. Even top photographers must consistently market their work in the art world.
Galleries
Having your work in a gallery is a good thing. It helps build your resume and artistic credibility. It forces you to print and frame some of your work. It’s exciting to be part of the opening reception and be a fly on the wall when people discover your work for the first time. As a bonus, the gallery might even sell some of your prints. So how do you get a gallery exhibition for your work? There are a few books written on the subject and many paths to take. This has been my path.
When I first moved to Los Angeles and was new to art photography, I volunteered to help set up an exhibition called Create:Fixate. Create:Fixate is a non-profit arts group that has large one-night exhibitions quarterly. Through my volunteer work I met the organizer of the event and presented my work and it was accepted for their next exhibition. I also met many artists that I stayed in touch with. I sold several prints at their next event and bought a new camera with the proceeds. Life was good. Since then I’ve had many more exhibitions including my first solo show. I find that they come about primarily through two avenues, either I’m recommended for an exhibition by another artist or the gallery found my work on the internet.
I have submitted my work to galleries via their web site and phone cold calls but I’ve never had a gallery exhibition from these cold contacts with galleries. I recently moved to Miami and as soon as I arrived, I started attending art openings and networking with artists I met. I also started networking through local art groups and non-profit galleries on Facebook. As a result, I was told about an Art Basel satellite show and my work was accepted for exhibition, resulting in inclusion to an exhibition within ninety days of moving to Miami. So for me, networking, asking for gallery introductions and search engine results for my web site and images are the keys to my gallery shows and art sales.
Search Engine Results
While I love having my work exhibited in galleries, they don’t often result in sales for me. Most of my art sales come from the internet, through my web site and my images that are found via search engine searches, for both text and image searches. My work is most often purchased through galleries and art consultants that discovered my work online while looking for specific types of images for their clients. So while gallery exhibitions haven’t resulted in a lot of sales for me, galleries and art consultants that are looking for specific types of images for clients have found me via my web site and image searches and then sold my work without ever having met in person. This happens on are regular basis for me. New galleries and art consultants are finding my work and I keep my new work in front of those that have sold my work in the past by keeping them in the loop with a brief newsletter every 4-6 weeks. I highly recommend incorporating search engine marketing into your overall marketing program.
Books have been written about proper SEO (search engine optimization/marketing), plus there are many white papers on the subject. I have been doing my own SEO for 12+ years. In a nutshell, you need proper meta tags within your web site. You need to add the correct keywords to your images and you need to submit to search engines on a regular basis. Links are also very helpful to gain “page one” search results on Google. If you shoot a destination, label your image with the keywords that reflect that. Are you shooting celebrities? Same thing. I find that more than 60% of my web site traffic is a result of people doing image searches, as opposed to text/word searches. In a PhotoShelter survey of image buyers last year, the majority of people buying images (for stock and art), do image searches online via search engines. If your images are not keyworded and submitted regularly to search engines, you are missing great opportunities to sell your art.
Press Releases
Press releases can be helpful in several marketing areas. They help tell your story, they help introduce your new image series to people unaware of your work and they help your odds in getting ranked by search engines. You can take several avenues putting press releases to work for you. First, if you don’t know how to write a press release you should consider hiring a professional to do it for you. Press releases follow certain formats and need to be very well written. You can pay to have your press release distributed to art magazines, galleries and art consultants. Or, if you are on a tight budget, you can post your press release on a number of free press release sites. You should also always put your press releases on your web site. Press releases add credibility to your work. It helps tell your artistic story and it shows that you are professional.
Advertising
On rare occasion I’ve advertised my art in art magazines. ArtNews and the Miami Art Guide. These ads didn’t cost more than a few hundred dollars each and included a color photo of my work and my contact info. The results have always been zero. I’ve never been contacted directly as a result of one of my ads. That’s why I rarely run them. But with print advertising, you never know if some of the exposure you get will result or has resulted in positive exposure for your work. So my recommendation is that if you want to try advertising, do it sparingly as you test the waters. If you get positive results, continue.
Stock
While the market for stock images has tanked in the last few years, and seems to continue to steadily decline, there are still stock sites that license images at top rates and deal in images not considered traditional stock. I’ve had some of my images licensed for thousands of dollars last year because many advertising agencies and businesses still appreciate how a quality photograph can impact their message and are willing to pay top dollar for it. Images that are personal work and very artistic stand out from most stock images as unique and appealing. So consider selling your images through a high end stock site or sell them yourself through a site like PhotoShelter. My stock representative is GalleryStock.com.
Conclusion
I’ve touched on several venues for promoting your fine art photography and there are many more such as online-only galleries. Dive in and learn as much as you can and keep promoting yourself. Networking is probably the best way to grow your art business (and it is a business). Help fellow photographers and artists if you feel their work is appropriate for a gallery where you have shown your work.
 Ted VanCleave is a photographer and painter and is co-founder of ImageRights.com. His web site is www.tedvancleave.com and email address is ted@tedvancleave.com. Ted is also the owner of Super Search Rank, www.supersearchrank.com, an SEO company specializing in photography
By: Dan Nelson[1] and Kevin McCulloch, Nelson & McCulloch LLP
A growing number of license agreements issued by professional photographers include, among their various terms and conditions, a curious provision requiring that disputes arising from those agreements are subject to arbitration. This unfortunate trend appears to be the result of form language recommended by various trade organizations and their attorneys over the years. As it relates to professional photographers, this is always bad advice, and photographers should remove these arbitration clauses from their standard invoices and agreements immediately.
There are several differences between arbitration and litigation, almost all of which work against the small copyright owner and in favor of large, corporate clients. Chief among them is that judges in federal court, where copyright disputes as adjudicated, are paid by the federal government where arbitrators presiding over the arbitration proceedings are paid by the parties. In other words, it is much more expensive for a copyright owner to pursue claims through arbitration than it is to litigate the same claims in federal court. Another significant consideration is the that parties in a litigation proceeding generally have the right to a trial by a jury, and thus the jury is the finder of facts and the jury is tasked with determining who prevails and how much the prevailing party is entitled to recover. Conversely, in arbitration, the arbitrator is the sole (and almost universally final) authority on who prevails and how much they recover. In addition, litigation proceedings are presumptively public affairs and thus the parties’ respective positions cannot be shielded from public scrutiny, whereas arbitration is private proceeding that encourages defendants to take more scurrilous positions.
Understanding these differences, it is not surprising that large corporate interests greatly prefer to arbitrate copyright claims against individual photographers. Thus, while large corporate customers may have arbitration provisions in their standard purchase orders or contracts, it makes very little sense for photographers to adopt this approach and proactively seek out such unfavorable venues.
When professional photographers discover that their images have been used without permission and seek to vindicate their rights, they often are surprised to find that their own license agreements may require them to initiate an arbitration, at their own expense, to vindicate their rights. Although many such provisions include standard language attempting to shift the costs of the arbitration to the customer who violated the agreement, such language does not require the alleged offender to pay thousands of dollars up front to initiate the arbitration or to pay the tens of thousands of dollars to the arbitration association to oversee and hear the case. While provisions shifting attorneys’ fees and the cost of arbitration to the losing party may give hope that the photographer may someday recover these costs from the infringer, the initial burden of these threshold costs typically is borne by the party initiating the arbitration. In this context, where a copyright owner discovers that a customer violated the terms of a license agreement for a few hundred dollars, these significant threshold and continuation costs provide strong disincentives for photographers to pursue claims in arbitration that they otherwise could have pursued in court for marginal costs.
Given the changing market conditions in this industry and the new developments in digital media and electronic delivery methods, professional photographers must be all the more vigilant in protecting their valuable copyrights. Unfortunately, though, many photographers have been convinced to include mandatory arbitration provisions in the standard terms and conditions of their license agreements and invoices. These provisions create serious financial disincentives to pursue righteous claims, make significant concessions to the interests of larger corporate defendants, and sacrifice significant legal protections. Any professional photographer interested in crafting sensible agreements that protect their own interests should remove arbitration clauses from the terms and conditions of their license agreements.
[1] Dan Nelson is the a partner at Nelson & McCulloch LLP in New York City. Nelson & McCulloch LLP is a counsel to the American Photographic Artists (APA). Dan can be reached at dnelson@nelsonmcculloch.com or at (212) 907-6677.
National Geographic photographer Michael “Nick” Nichols is working on a new project in Africa photographing Serengeti lions. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/visions/field-test/nichols-serengeti/assignment Backed by a team of National Geographic experts, Nichols is deploying a remotely operated helicopter to dangle a camera above a pride of predator and a toy car to drive a camera within a few feet of the big cats. Using these technologies, Nichols hopes to capture photos of Africa’s wild lions such as no one has ever seen.
Field Test, a new National Geographic magazine feature, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a magazine article, including the technologies used in the field.
Follow Nick on assignment at Field Test, share your questions and comments, and follow @NatGeoMag on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook for more updates.
 Nick Nichols is working with a micro-copter, an adapted toy helicopter, to photograph lions in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Photo courtesy of National Geographic Magazine.
Be a friend and like APA Activism. APA’s newest Facebook Cause page. https://www.facebook.com/apaactivism
Advocacy isn’t enough, BE AN ACTIVIST!
Clients believe a producer can make or break a photography shoot, not to mention their relationship with you! And they’re right. In this video, creatives discuss what makes a producer great and what gets a producer – and their unfortunate artist – mentally blackballed. Before you head into your next shoot, learn what matters in today’s shoot productions and how to leverage this afterthought into a professional strength:
- What does one creative call the “most stressful” production mistake you can make?
- What personal qualities do clients consider crucial in a production team?
- Could your producer be sabotaging your success?
Watch Creative Collision: How to Master Shoot Production on The Lab
Participants include photographer Chris Buck, Sara Papademetriou of National Geographic Assignment, Cindy Hicks and Dwight Loew of The Martin Agency, and Aurica Green of Aurica Green Branding.
About Creative Collision
Creative Collision is an Agency Access produced video series that exposes artists to top industry experts, first-hand. This series answers artist questions sent to us by photographers and illustrators like you. The Creative Collision team of leading industry consultants, Jennifer Kilberg, Suzanne Sease, and Amanda Sosa Stone, interviewed top reps, art producers, art directors, creative directors and artists to get the answers to your burning questions.
Agency Access
APA members receive a 15 % discount to access the Agency Access global database of 60,000 print and broadcast contacts so you can create targeted lists for clients worldwide. Agency Access also offers the most comprehensive range of marketing services to help you get your work in front of the right buyers.
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