Building Blocks for 2024: Part III

"But Skip, there's nothing to write about!"

​by Skip Cohen

I started with your website, and blog basics earlier in the week. Now it's time to move to content ideas.

Most of you are sitting on a goldmine of topics, not just for your blog, but other places you're sharing in social media. Sadly, you're often too close to your own business to recognize how much value there is in so many different aspects of your knowledge about imaging. Remember, the key to building readership and followers is all about being helpful.  

Become the Imaging Expert: As a photographer, you do things you take for granted every day. Let's help Mom, Dad, and the kids become better artists. They're not going open up down the street and compete with you. So, whether they use a conventional camera or a phone, let's help them raise the bar on their images.
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• ​Composition: Teach them the rule of thirds, leading lines, and subject placement. You do it automatically, but they don't think before clicking the shutter.
• Posing: Help them with group shots, and let's get rid of those firing squad poses. For example, teach them how to position subjects with triangular placement.
• Lighting: Spend some time talking about lighting and when to use the flash. Backlighting is always an issue, and they don't understand, especially in winter when their images outside are too dark, even though it was a bright snowy day.
• Have fun with in-camera special effects: Teach them to drag the shutter and panning.
• Storytelling: You're already the expert at storytelling and bringing in detail shots to tell the story. Help them think through their vision before clicking the shutter.
• Conversion from color to black and white - everyone can do it, but it's up to you to help them understand how an image can have more impact.
• Cropping: Roberto Valenzuela used to do an exercise in his classes where he took one image at a wedding and showed how many other shots there were in that same photograph. This is about you helping them see their pictures differently.
• Things to do with their images: From sharing on social media to printing, give them ideas of things to do with their photographs. Most professional labs have little interest in working with consumers, so you might have to resort to Shutterfly for some examples. However, this is also where you can plant the seed of why you're a professional with ideas about framing and presentations. It's also a great tie-in to unique products you're offering.
• Subject matter: Back in my Polaroid days, we reminded consumers when they looked through the viewfinder, "What you see is what you get!" Remind them to move in close on those people shots.
• Post-production: Share tips on using products like the new Radiant to help them get the most out of the experience of capturing images.
• Website display: Help your readers build their own galleries. This is where you can be so much help in the storytelling theme of their work. Years ago, the legendary Ernst Wildi at Hasselblad taught me the difference between a consumer and a professional - "Consumers show you all of their shots!"

There's a very practical advantage to the ideas above - each one allows you to share some of your images as examples of the right and wrong way to capture their memories. You're establishing yourself as the expert in imaging in your community. 

And to take it a step further, some of you have the skills and ability to hold physical classes and photo walks to help your audience capture better memories. As their skills grow, you become more established as the expert in your community, and you're opening the door for more advanced techniques. At the same time, you're developing top-of-mind awareness of when they need a professional photographer.

Coming up tomorrow - another set of ideas for blog topics. There's always something to write about and share!