Starting out Luke Stuart Photography

[thorpef1]

Hi all.

I have quite a few friends that have been interested in some of my photos and would love to get prints done.

This has made me think that i could actually start offering some of my photos for sale.
I am using Facebok as my first medium, originally inviting friends but hoping to get a bigger following to assist in getting my name out there.

Luke Stuart Photography

I am asking for some people to start following me on FaceBook and also provide input into any other ways that can start out. For the moment im just looking to offer photos that i currently have for sale and am considering offering Prints, Canvas and any other Ready to Hang mediums.

Below are some of my photos that i am offering, mainly enjoying landscapes and macro.



Thanks,
Luke

[ameerat42]

Luke. Make sure that what you put up is well worked. For instance, that shot of the waterway clearly shows a leaning waterline.
Good luck with the venture, though.

[ricktas]

Ok, so you share a snake photo with us? Why is that? What is your target photography market? Do you know?

for example, I would not buy a snake photo, no matter how good it was. I can admire it, but it is not something I would buy and put on my wall. So having said that, who are the people you are marketing to? If snakes are your thing, that's great, but you need to find others who are into snakes that would buy this photo. Photography as a business is not about what you like to photograph, it is about what your customers want. Once you know who your market is, then you need to find out how to target them, and get them to buy your photos. So for example, you like taking snake photos, and hope to sell some. You need to find some snake enthusiasts..maybe a snake group on facebook and start marketing to them. But do snake enthusiasts want photos of any snake..or their own snakes?

See where I am coming from? If you want to be successful as a photographer, you can take photos you like to take, but you need to then hunt out your target demographic and direct all your marketing at them.

You say you like landscapes. Interestingly the market for landscape photography is often the tourist market. They want a high quality photo of a place they have been to. So next step..how do you find those particular tourists that want a print of your particular landscape photo? How do you seek out the ones that would want it?

Have a think about all that and once you know who will buy your work, and how to market directly to them, then you are on your way.

[Mark L]

Think the snake needs more space for it to look into at right (you cut of it's nose!). It could have been a very good photo.

The other photos my friends might say "well done Mark. Looks good." But they are my friends who don't want to offend me and know nothing about photography. I've never asked them if they'd be prepared to buy any of my photos and they've never offered to either.
Looks like you're on your way to good photos, however they will get better if you get involved for a while here on AP.

[Cage]

Good on you for having a go Luke.

As Mark said above, you look like you are on your way to taking good photos, however, there is a very wide chasm between a friend saying 'Great shot Mate' and some punter liking it enough to fork out their hard earned cash to own a copy.

You seem to be on your way with the various aspects of camera settings and the next step is composition. Google it and look at things like how the rule of thirds helps you to position your subject in the frame and how the depth of field affects the point of interest in the shot.

re the shots you posted above:

#1 The bit of branch (?) in the bottom RH corner draws the eye away from the subject and you've clipped off the snake's nose. It is generally a good idea with living creatures to give them some space to 'look into'.

#2 Try to avoid cropping off the extremities of the subject and be prepared to clone out unwanted bits that don't bring anything to the shot like the leaf in the top LH corner.

#3 I'd think about cropping off the bottom quarter of the shot because it is just a black featureless area. Just leave the tree tops in to anchor the shot. Either that or throw some light on the foreground to give it some interest.

#4 As Am mentioned make sure your horizons are absolutely straight.

Think about a border on your shots when posting here as it is difficult to see where some of the shots finish and the next one starts. Two or three pixels of white seems to work well with darker shots.

Keep at it as I don't think too many photographers had award winning shots from their first session.

[bcys1961]

Congratulations an your new venture and good luck. As said above take friends praise with a grain of salt. We all like to praise and compliment our friends so it is not always a true gauge. Start entering the competitions here and in other places . Not those Facebook comps that also depend on how may friends you can get to like your photo but true impartial comps where the identity of the photographer is not known and photos are presented in a random order to eliminate "first photo" bias. There are a few around and the competition system here is excellent. I have found if your photo wins a competition on this site then it is generally of a quality to do well anywhere.

[MissionMan]

One of the things I could highly recommend is having a full portfolio review done by someone independent who doesn't know you. It could be a photographer you know through friends but it needs to be someone with no emotional attachment.

Get them to go through your photos and weed out the ones that won't do the others justice.

When it comes to photography, we want to display as many pictures as we can, but showing 5 photos which make people say "wow" is a lot better than 5 wow photos, and 10 nice photos. The 10 nice ones tend to degrade their overall opinion of you from someone who takes amazing photos to someone who takes nice photos with the odd amazing one.

It also allows you to remove photos with emotional attachment. For example, a photo of my daughter has emotional attachment to me so I think it's awesome and maybe it is, but without being neutral, it's hard to distinguish that.

The last thing it allows someone to weed out is the "so what" photos. A photo of a bench that people may say "yeah, it's a nice picture, but so what"

[thorpef1]

Hi all.

All i can say is WOW.
Lots of feedback and i greatly appreciate it.
I guess thats the reason i joined AusPhoto

I do understand that a friend telling me it is good is very different to someone actually willing to hand over some cash for it.
Looks like i need to read up and practice on composition.
And i really do like the idea of getting an impartial persn to review my portfolio. I might do that after a while.

In the meantime ill continue to post some photos in the competitions and CC forum and keep learning this beautiful artform

[bcys1961]

Good to see you taking on all the comments in positive manner Luke. That is the most important factor in improving your photography.

[virgal_tracy]

Going back to the question on where to sell or market the photos. Maybe try something like Redbubble where you can put your images up and offer them for sale to anyone who does a search for "snakes". Landscape" etc. IIRC you can set who does the printing (you or them) they take a percentage and you get the rest of the sale. Might help to get your product out there.

[ktoopi]

I went to a seminar recently in Sydney where four successful portrait photography businesses ( one of the speakers just won AIPP Family Photographer of the year) spoke about their success and how it came about.......interestingly every single one of them originally came from a either a marketing or sales background.....food for thought

[MissionMan]

I went to a seminar recently in Sydney where four successful portrait photography businesses ( one of the speakers just won AIPP Family Photographer of the year) spoke about their success and how it came about.......interestingly every single one of them originally came from a either a marketing or sales background.....food for thought

I think you hit the nail on the head. If you look at most successful businesses these days, they are generally run by marketeers. When you look at a company like Apple, Woz was the brains, Steve was the marketeer and most people know more about Steve than Woz.

I don't think photography is anymore unique than any other business.

[thorpef1]

Hmmm.

well lets see if my second major in marketing will help me here

[Cage]

Hmmm.

well lets see if my second major in marketing will help me here

It certainly should, providing the product lives up to the hype.

[prodivecc]

Congratulations on taking the first step.
The vast majority of people in business just needed a push in the right direction.
I wish you well.
Cheers