Looking to reignite your passion for photography? Seeking a little praise by professionals, recognition by your peers, and perhaps even a little free advanced instruction, camera equipment or travel perks?

Entering a photography competition offers a great way to get a little or all of the above while also providing a way to develop your skills and experience – whether you’re a seasoned pro or a weekend shutterbug. Bear in mind that winning a photo competition has more to do with how you photograph than what you photograph. Try not to prejudge your images – just enter contests with the idea that you’re likely to learn a lot and come away with fresh ideas. The key is to enjoy what you’re doing while shooting for more, so to speak.

One word of caution: Beware of contests that offer to provide exposure in exchange for rights to your work. It also doesn’t hurt to ensure your images have been uploaded to a LicenseStream Creator PRO user account which, in addition to providing automated licensing and royalty settlement services, provides proactive technology to track your images  as they get distributed. It also provides regular reporting on where a content owner’s images are found so the owner can take appropriate action.

Here are a few additional tips on how to approach photography contests and come away each time a winner – whether or not you actually win a contest:

• Do your homework: Research competitions online and look for one that matches your interests. Review the entries of past winners to see what worked – did they have people in them? Were they action shots? Were they abstract or manipulated digitally in some way?
• Practice, practice, practice: Once you’ve determined which contests to enter, grab your camera and click away. No matter what the focus, taking plenty of shots of a subject will give you the luxury to select from a wide variety of potential entries. 
• Review the contest’s categories: Many contests offer more than one category, enabling you to choose where your image stands the best chance of winning. If you want to enjoy the rush of winning, look for a category that may attract fewer entries.
• Follow the rules: This sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised at how many contestants fail to follow contest rules, resulting in their elimination. An easy way to stay ahead of the pack is to follow the rules to the letter --- and this means meeting deadlines!
• Read the fine print: Avoid contests that simply offer exposure in exchange for gaining rights to your photograph (except for the right to display your winning photo online or off). For a good list of criteria to consider as you research contests, check out The Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions located on the UK-based pro-imaging site. It warns competitions that try to claim copyright for your works, fail to give credit for all free usage, add, alter or remove metadata from digital images, or that require an entrant to sign a commercial agreement as a condition of winning.

Here are a few upcoming contests that we found interesting and that abide by The Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions:

• Shoot Nations 2010: Will launch Friday, May 21st with the theme “City Living.” This year, the contest is appealing to young people (under 25 years old) around the world to help build a global picture of what urban environments mean to them. Are the streets paved with gold, or fraught with risk and difficulty? How to the challenges of growing up in the city differ as a boy or a girl? Prizes aren’t yet posted for this year’s contest, but in the past have included the opportunity to be exhibited at the UN Secretariat building in New York, a new Olympus SLR camera, a National Geographic magazine subscription and a contemporary world wall map from The Future Mapping Company. For more information go to the ShootNations09 site  which includes information about this year’s contest. Competition closes Saturday, July 31st.
• Demotix: A user-generated newswire and photojournalism community with more than 14,000 users in 110 countries worldwide, Demotix holds a monthly competition called Viewfinder with a changing theme. For example, the Viewfinder competition in April focused on the art of portrait photography. Prizes lean toward the career-advancing tools, such as the opportunity to turn your images into a photojournalism book or to get your best images printed on glossy stock.   For more information, click into Viewfinder. 
• International Garden Photographer of the Year 2010: A prestigious competition open to everyone, anywhere, this competition imposes no restrictions on the type of camera you use or the techniques you use to produce an image. The competition accepts entries in six categories – ranging from People in the Garden to The Edible Garden, and also offers four seasonal competitions. Unlike many professional competitions, this one provides all entrants with professional feedback on their entries – upon request after the judging of the competition is completed. It also offers a “People’s Choice” award, that allows registered visitors to the site to vote for their favorite images in a different category each month. Prizes include cash awards and exhibitions of the winner’s work. The current contest, Spring into Life, closes May 31st, and the next contest, Insect Beauties, opens June 1. To learn more, check out International Garden Photographer of the Year 2010.  
• NSS Cave Arts and Music Salons: Organized by the U.S. National Speleological Society (NSS) to promote and recognize top-notch cave-related art, artists and musicians, NSS Salons are open to everyone so that those who enter need not be members of the NSS.  For photographers, there are two salons. Prizes consist of blue ribbons and winners can elect to have the NSS promote their work for use in periodicals or on Web sites to showcase winners, promote future NSS congresses, and competitions. The Photo Salon, to which contestants may submit slides and digital images has a closing date of May 15, 2010. The Print Salon, to which photographic prints can be submitted, has a closing date of July 31, 2010. Details about each competition can be found on the NSS Site: Photo Salon  and Print Salon.   

Plenty of other contests can be found online or through various photography organizations. If at first you don’t succeed, keep entering. Contests are a great way to make new contacts and friends. Eventually, you are sure to win your fair share of contests.

Most of all – be sure to enjoy yourself!  If you’re not having fun, you’re probably putting too much pressure on yourself and are not going to deliver your best work. 

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the “Comments” link below.

 

Yesterday, we took a look at what  photo metadata is, why it’s important, and how it benefits photographers. The information came out of a presentation on metadata by ImageSpan with liveBooks and the Bay Area-based Renegade Meetup photography group that drew nearly 30 photographers to an after-hours event at liveBooks last Wednesday evening.

Today, we’ll continue to share what we learned in that Metadata Meetup. We’ll touch on how to apply metadata, how to make the application of certain types of metadata more efficient, and why applying metadata is critical for your business. We’ll also include links to websites where you can learn more about metadata.

Attaching Metadata

There are several ways and methods for attaching metadata to an image. In addition to embedding metadata as images are published to the Web, through services such as LicenseStream and liveBooks, photographers can associate metadata in several other types of photography workflow software, such as Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom™ . In fact, photographers using Lightroom and the popular Adobe Creative Suite® 3 software can upload all of their images along with metadata applied in those programs to LicenseStream via plug-ins.

Travel photographer David Sanger,  who presented a great overview of what metadata is and how it works, said that there are instances where social media sites will strip out metadata. He added that even some major search engines will not look at metadata to help anyone searching for an image find it.

To ensure that the image is searchable, Sanger recommends photographers associate a caption as well as keywords with their images. Search engines, Sanger said, “primarily look at the text on the page associated with an image.” That said, he added, “If somebody finds your image and the metadata survives, then they can identify the image as yours and they can license it.”

Applying Keywording

Brian Pobuda, a corporate photographer who also consults as a digital asset management specialist, said that to make applying metadata more efficient,  he often applies a first round of basic keywords to a group of content. For a recent shoot, for example, he labeled a batch of images “City Center, Las Vegas, 2010,” and then applied more specific keywords to those images he expects clients to use.

Sanger said his keywording practices depend on the image destination.

“For example, with Getty I provide conceptual keywords and they do the rest of the keywording,” he said. “When I know an image will be put on Google Images, I want lots of keywords because I want as many people to find it as possible.” Other stock agencies may penalize you for having too many obscure keywords, he added, because your ranking depends on your click-through ratio which may fall if too many obscure keywords are attached.

There also are situations when additional keywords may not be desirable.

“If I have a picture of a sunset, it won’t necessarily say 'San Francisco, Baker Beach, June 2003 sunset 4 p.m.,'” Sanger said. “I may just say 'Sunset on Ocean,' because an image buyer may just be looking for a generic image. Similarly, he doesn’t always apply a date. “There are times specificity can work against you,” he said.

PCWorld Senior Editor Melissa Perenson, who served as moderator at the Metadata Meetup suggested a good, common-sense method for applying keywording. “Just think about how you would find an image if you were doing a search,” she said.

In fact, keywording specifically and metadata applications generally can still vary widely. Major stock agencies all have their own methods of applying metadata. Some use IPTC – a standard that came out of the newspaper world. A more advanced standard which includes additional fields emerged when Adobe moved to XML, Sanger said. “Then there is a third way to do it, which is to have the captions or metadata in a sidecar which is a separate XMP file that can accompany the photo,” he said. In addition, there’s a fourth standard called Dublin Core®.

Because there is not yet complete standardization as to what fields are used by various agencies or within various software programs, Sanger said, “it helps to stick with the simple ones that are used in your tools unless you have reason to delve more deeply into it. You can overdo it.”

As for keywording hierarchies, Sanger recommends Controlled Vocabulary, a site run by metadata master David Riecks. “David's site not only has more than you need to know about structured vocabularies,” Sanger said, “he also has links to a variety of products that will allow you to structure your keyword hierarchy.”

A Critical Tool for Tracking Your Business Efforts

While metadata is used to identify, license and monetize images, Sanger also suggested photographers think of metadata as information needed to operate their businesses. It can include your sales results, where the images have been submitted for licensing, where the images have been sold, which stock agencies or services have a certain image or group of images, and which clients commissioned them.

“This is important information because if you have an exclusive contract with one agency you have to know which images are with that agency and can’t go elsewhere for sale or licensing," he said. "While that information isn’t usually in the image itself, the ability to track sales and revenues relies upon identifying which images have been sold or licensed. It all goes back to the file name or the ID portion of the file name.”

Finally, for additional information on metadata, Sanger suggested the following sites:

• www.photometadata.org
• www.StockArtistsAlliance.org
• www.controlledvocabulary.com

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the "Comments" link below.  

 

If you shoot, distribute, license, sell or post digital photos to the Internet, associating metadata with those images should be a key part of your workflow.  

The topic of metadata is so important that ImageSpan, with liveBooks and the Bay Area-based Renegade Meetup group hosted a presentation on metadata that drew more than 20 photographers to an after-hours event at liveBooks offices last Wednesday evening.

Digital photo files can include descriptive, technical and administrative metadata. Virtual compartments in image files can hold several types of data – from pixels that make up an image to the text that identifies and describes the image. Metadata contained in an image file can list an image’s creator, copyright holder, source and description. It can explain rights released and available to an image. It can list how and when an image was created, its size, color characteristics and more.

PCWorld Senior Editor Melissa Perenson launched the metadata meeting last week with an example that illustrated why metadata is so important.

“Somewhere I have a photo of my parent’s surprise 40th anniversary party, but when it came time for their 50th anniversary party, I couldn’t find it,” Perenson said. “It may have been in a filing cabinet or on a hard drive that is long-since dead and I didn’t even realize it.”

Had she been able to use metadata to more efficiently identify and store her now 10-year-old images, Perenson said, she may have been able to locate them more readily.

“This demonstrates how metadata is critical both for the retention and preservation of our images,” she added. "It’s also critical if you want to do something with your images, such as find or license them.”

So what is metadata?

Travel photographer David Sanger noted that metadata “really is any information associated with an image.” 

He projected an image on the room’s video screen of a slide with an older-model automobile on it labeled “1986 Chevrolet Caprice, Big Rim Miami.” Said Sanger: “This is the way we used to do it, by putting a slide ID and a caption on a sticky label.”  With the rise of the Internet and advances in photo workflow software, Sanger added, things have changed dramatically.He projected an image of Einstein as a boy and an associated computerized page that displayed a staggering amount of data on who else was in the photo, when it was taken,

a list of keywords the size of a pocket dictionary, and information about how and where it can be licensed.

“The principal is that you want the metadata at a minimum to describe the ‘who, what, where, when and why’ – the basic rules of journalism,” he said. “The first place to start is with a file name. File names ideally describe the content in the photography so you know right away from looking at it what it is.”

Sanger noted that with some cameras, the moment an image is shot it gets a number associated with it that stays with it and with every version of that image, whether it is a JPEG, a TIFF, or a NEF. Such cameras also may attach technical metadata, such as the shutter speed, location-specific information using GPS, and even the serial number of your camera. In addition, some cameras allow you to apply a copyright directly into a file when the shutter is pressed.

Brian Pobuda, a corporate photographer who also consults as a digital asset management specialist, agreed that file naming is the most critical place to begin. 

“To me, metadata starts right there,” he said. “Never let out an image without least your name and the date and the subject matter, because it’s a way to keep track of your babies. I always consider photos babies and you want to give them a good home, so put a file name on them because any good digital asset management system will pick up file naming as keywords, and that’s very useful. You’ll never regret it.”

In addition to helping a photographer identify his or her image files, metadata can also help a him or her track files and speed workflow.

Benefits of Metadata

So why else attach metadata?

“Well, copyright is one reason,” said Sanger. “If you have an image and it has a caption, keywords and a copyright, major search engines such as Google Images will pick that up, too.”

Rafael Solis of ImageSpan said that “if you don’t have metadata associated with your image, then there’s a dis-connect between the buyer and the content owner. In other words, anyone who is looking to buy or use your image may not only be unable to find it, but they won’t be able to find you to license it.”         

That’s why LicenseStream enables its users to apply a range of metadata, including the creator’s name, Web address, keywords and captions. Solis pointed to a LicenseStream screen that showed an image of a sunset titled “San Francisco Purple Haze,” and noted the image is accompanied by a unique identification number. “That unique ID if decoded essentially communicates who owns the image, what are the different license types available for that image, any restrictions.” Once your work is published to the Web, metadata can help protect you’re your rightful financial compensation.

“Great metadata enables tracking,” Solis said, “which goes hand-in-hand with the ability to search for it, query it, and facilitate a transaction to monetize it.”

In fact, LicenseStream Content Tracker with Digimarc for Images uses metadata to track and find images that are uploaded through LicenseStream. Digimarc for Images adds an imperceptible digital watermark to communicate copyright ownership and information on how to contact the owner wherever the image is found online.

Content Tracker can then find the owner’s images and report back on where and how they are being used so the creator can take steps to address unauthorized uses. The creator can then opt to send an email requesting that the image be licensed, linked back to the creator’s website, or that the author be credited.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a closer look at the application of metadata, why it’s important for your business, and provide links to websites where you can learn more about metadata.

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the "Comments" link below.   

You’ve been pursuing photography assignments with a speed to rival Tim Lincecum’s two-seam fastball, you’re up to your elbows in editing, and the e-mails just keep coming. You need a break, so you’re praying for just a couple of easy photo shoots, free of friction. 

But is another routine shoot the way to avoid burnout?

Probably not. In fact, taking on new types of assignments and mastering new technologies may be the best way to reignite your creativity. At least that’s the advice of a few veteran professional photographers, including LicenseStream subscriber and Pulitzer Prize winner Deanne Fitzmaurice.

Fitzmaurice knows something about taking on challenges. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for an essay she created for the San Francisco Chronicle about a nine-year-old Iraqi boy who was badly injured when he picked up a bomb, mistaking it for a ball.

© Deanne Fitzmaurice Frank Capley and Joe Alfano get married at City Hall in San Francisco in June 2008.

"You can sit around and wait for an assignment to come to you,” Fitzmaurice said, “or self-assign a story that will prompt you to present new material in a new way.”  Fitzmaurice did just that when she found she needed new inspiration about a year-and-a-half ago. “I went out and did a story that followed a gay couple through their marriage and all of these doors started opening for that story,” she recalled. “Time magazine ran one of the photos from it, MSNBC ran it as a multimedia piece and then Time chose a different image from that same group of images for a story about Pictures that Mattered in 2008.”

Fitzmaurice said that by creating a story with multimedia elements, she probably enhanced the story’s appeal.

“I had recorded ambient audio while following this couple, and then I went back and interviewed them and brought all of these pieces to MSNBC,” she said. “MSNBC ended up putting it on their Website as a video by using the still images and incorporating the audio from the interview and the ambient sound that I’d collected.”

 The experience provides a good example of two ways to get unstuck. 

“First of all – go out and shoot the stories you care about whether they’re assigned to you or not,” she said. “Then if you can, also shoot video and collect audio. Adding these elements offers such a rich way of telling a story, and enables you to add layers of information to your photographs.

You’ll also find that there are multiple places where you can license these different pieces of media.”

Lee Roth, a LicenseStream subscriber  and celebrity photographer who shoots more than 150 red carpet events per year, breaks up his routine by participating in different types of photography. "There is an art to getting that great shot on the red carpet, but it is not an artistic process," Roth said. “On the red carpet, we often have 35-45 seconds to shoot a celebrity, there are 40-60 camera people all yelling at once, and we really have no control over the set, the lighting, the pose, the talent. So there’s really little artistic control at all.”

© Lee Roth / Roth Stock Hornbeck Homestead, FFBNM, Colorado

To counterbalance such high-stress assignments, Roth photographs scenery and creates glamour shots of models, both of which give him artistic control over the location, the lighting, and the talent.

Roth also stays inspired by engaging in activities that help him refine his photography skills.

For example, he said, “Just yesterday, I served as an assistant for a photographer who is extremely talented with lighting. I looked at the opportunity to be an assistant as a way to appreciate and learn from his techniques.”

He also strives to keep current with – and gain inspiration from – new technologies.  “I participate in webinars that highlight new technologies at least once or twice a week,” he said.

©Alex Centrella San Francisco Giants’ pitchers Noah Lowry, Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jack Taschner in the dugout at Chukchansi Park, Fresno

Long-time Fresno-based photographer and photojournalist Alex Centrella agrees that taking on new types of assignments and trying out new technologies are the keys to remaining inspired. “About three years ago, I started doing sports photography, and so the National Press Association sends me to shoot games for the Fresno Grizzlies and for the San Francisco Giants,” said Centrella, also a LicenseStream subscriber. “More recently, I’ve ventured into food photography.”

However, he advises younger photographers not to focus too narrowly on certain technologies.

“They may work a lot with HDR or fool around with Photoshop but then they get stuck doing those things,” he said. “I’d suggest they really learn the basics of photography – even basic film photography – and then try out all kinds of different software and play around with it all until they feel comfortable.”

He applies the same advice to genres of photography. “Pursue photojournalism if you want to,” he said, “but be prepared to shoot food, sports, architecture and any other avenue that interests you.”

Centrella added that he has learned to use social media tools – especially photography forums – to stay in touch with colleagues around the world. “It’s a way to find out what’s going on, who and what’s working during slow months, and what lenses people are using for particular shoots,” Centrella said.

Centrella also counters burnout with another tried-and-true way to counter stress:  “I can go fishing and take my camera, which is fantastic. It’s fantastic because it means I’m always looking – and always finding – new sources of inspiration.”   

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the "Comments" link below.

Photographers usually are so busy lining up their next shoot that it’s tough for them to find time to deal with another aspect of their business: distributing royalties.

LicenseStream removes a lot of the pain of collecting royalties for the principal content creator or owner, since its automated licensing service typically accepts payment upfront.   It goes a step further by providing a service to distribute royalties directly to anyone collaborating on a LicenseStream user’s image or project.

For example, say you regularly rely on help from a food stylist and a lighting assistant to shoot a mouth-watering image of a glistening steak for a magazine cover. You want to keep your assistants happy by ensuring they get their share of payments for each assignment on a timely basis. However, you may not have enough time between tightly-scheduled shoots to calculate and send checks manually to all of your helpers.

With LicenseStream you can easily set up royalty profiles for each of your assistants so they receive their royalty splits automatically via mailed check. Simply log into your LicenseStream account, go to the Business/Store Manager and click on the Manage Royalty Profile in the lower right-hand box.

Then: 

• Go to Options & Tools in the right margin, click on Add/Edit Royalty Profile and the bar will open up and prompt you to provide a Royalty Profile name. Provide a name and click to Add Royalty Profile.
• Click on the Royalty Recipient tab. The Royalty Recipient tab will open up and prompt you to add the name, city, state, country and zip code of a royalty recipient. In the example below, we’ve named her Mary Lightbright, a name which then appears on a list on the right side of the page under Edit Content Provider Share.  We then added a couple of other fictional characters (John Ham the food stylist and  Imogen Maker the videomaker)
• Type in the royalty share for each recipient – 10% each for Mary, John and Imogen. Click Save Royalty Profile and – voila – you’re done!

There are 3 areas where you can apply the Royalty Profile you just created to one or multiple content items:

• After uploading an image.
• On the Prepare Content page, where you may select one or multiple items.
• Under the License & Royalty Information area, where you may select the appropriate Royalty Profile, add/update other metadata and then click Prepare Content on the bottom of the page.

To apply an existing Royalty Profile to an existing single image or other piece of content:

• Click on the Manage Content tab at the top.
• Locate the image you want to associate with this royalty split.  Mouse over the image and click on the Edit tab.
• On the Edit Content page, click on Licensing and scroll to the bottom of the page to Manage Content Splits.
• Under Manage Splits, click to Add Imogen, John and Mary to the Manage Content Splits side of the page and assign them 10% each.

 

To apply an existing royalty profile to multiple existing pieces of content:

• Click on the Manage Content tab at the top.
• Select the content to which you'd like to apply the Royalty Profile.
• Under the Actions area, select Add Selected to > Batch Content Editor.
• Under the License & Royalty Information area, select the appropriate Royalty Profile.
• Click to Save Information on the bottom of the page.

Alternatively, you may define and apply an entirely new set of recipients and percentages for the next shoot.

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the “Comments” link below. 

 

Yesterday’s LicenseStream blog post delivered five tips for writing grants that might help you secure the funding you need to keep body and soul together while you pursue a personal photography project.

Now that you have a basic overview of the steps to take, this is a good time to start looking at specific funding sources. Below we list five sources of specific grants and awards for the 2010-2011 year. Deadlines are listed at the end of each description. For more information about each grant, click on the name of the grant or funding source. In addition, see below for links to sites that list a range of grants. Good luck!

• Aaron Siskind Foundation Grant: The Aaron Siskind Foundation is offering a limited number of fellowship grants for the 2010 Individual Photographer’s Fellowship of up to $7,000 each, for individual artists working in still photography and photo-based art. Grant recipients and award amounts will be determined by a review panel based on artistic excellence, accomplishment to date, and the promise of future achievement in the medium in its widest sense. Recipients will be notified of awards in the late summer of 2010. Application period: March 1-May 17, 2010. 
• Inge Morath Award: Named for an Austrian-born photographer who was associated with the well-known photographic cooperative Magnum Photos for nearly 50 years and who devoted much of her enthusiasm to encouraging women photographers. This annual prize of $5,000 awarded is by the Magnum Foundation to a female documentary photographer under the age of 30 to support the completion of a long-term project. One award and up to two finalists are selected by a jury composed of Magnum photographers.  Winners are announced in July 2010 on the websites of the Magnum Foundation and the Inge Morath Foundation. Deadline: April 30, 2010.
• Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography: Since 2005, Getty Images has awarded five Grants for Editorial Photography annually to professional photojournalists. Each grant provides $20,000, plus editorial, logistical and promotional support. Getty Images also awards four student grants of $5,000 per year to photojournalism students at accredited schools. The goal is to enable photojournalists to pursue projects about which they are passionate and that focus on significant social and cultural issues. Deadline: May 1, 2010.
• The W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography: W. Eugene Grant  was a photographer born in the American heartland (Wichita, Kansas) and perhaps best known for brutally vivid World War II photographs.  The award named for him is presented annually to a photographer whose past work and proposed project follows the tradition of W. Eugene Smith's concerned photography and the dedicated compassion he exhibited during his 45-year career as a photographic essayist. It provides photographers with the financial freedom to carry out major photographic essays. For 2010, the amount of the grant will be $30,000. An additional $5,000 in fellowship money will be dispersed, at the discretion of the jury, to one or more finalists deemed worthy of special recognition. Awards will be presented in a ceremony held in New York City in early October. Deadline: May 31. 2010.
• The Alexia Foundation: Known by her peers and professors as one of the most promising photojournalism students at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, Alexia Tsairis was a victim of the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. She was returning home for the Christmas holidays after spending a semester at the Syracuse University London Centre. The foundation offers a grant to students and professionals who want to produce a substantial picture story that furthers the Foundation's goals of promoting world peace and cultural understanding. The professional Alexia Grant recipient will receive $15,000 for the production of the proposed project. Application period: December 6, 2010 - January 14, 2011. December 6, 2010.

Click on the links below to find sites that list a range of grants, including some whose deadlines have passed:

• Photo Histories: Photo Grants of 2010 
• Photojournalismlinks: Awards, Grants and Competitions 
• Art Deadlines List: March 2010 

Have an award you'd like to highlight that is not covered in the links above? If so, please suggest it by clicking on the "Comments" link below. 

 

 

In a photography rut? Tired of shooting stock? Need a way to reawaken your artistic soul by plumbing it with a challenging project?

Perhaps it’s time to pursue a personal photography project. Such a project allows you to pick a subject you truly care about, something that may require you to explore new territory and even travel great distances to shoot the best pictures ever taken of the subject you choose. The great thing about a personal project is that it allows you the freedom to pursue work you feel passionate about and determine the size and scope of it, including how much time you’ll put into it and how you’ll tackle it.

All of this freedom is bookended by some hard work. At the outset, there is the challenge of securing the funding – most likely a grant – that will cover expenses and help you keep body and soul together while you pursue your passion. At the close, there’s the tricky business of choosing the very best 10-15 photographs that will allow you to tell the entire story.

To help you get started, we’ll give you five favorite grant-seeking tips. Tomorrow, we’ll follow up with links to Web sites of organizations that are now soliciting grant applications from photographers.

First the tips:

• Start by looking at a wide variety of types and sources of grants. Think out of the box: look not only for photo grants but also any funding or equipment source that may be related to your themes, your geographic area, or even your ethnic, religious or sexual identity. Look beyond photographic institutions to arts foundations, academic groups, political groups and of course corporate bodies. You may find that a major camera manufacturer or equipment supplier will help out by donating materials to you. You also should look to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as UNICEF, CARE, or UNHCR that may pave the way to other opportunities and even write a letter of reference for you – a must-have for successfully securing many grants.
• Consider teaming up with a scientist. As photographer Chris Lindner points out on the liveBooks Resolve blog, if you want to photograph science and be paid for your work through a National Science Foundation Grant, you’ll probably need either to partner with a researcher submitting a proposal or get your own science education grant.
• Track deadlines. Create a calendar – or better yet a spreadsheet – of grants that interest you, their deadlines and their award dates. Take the deadlines seriously. Be sure to track the date of each submission and the responses you receive. If you’re rejected, note the next date for reapplication and move on.
• Create a toolbox made up of submission building blocks that you store on your computer. These include:
  • a one-to-two page statement that describes your project and that can be easily revised to meet each grant application’s requirements;
  • a short and compelling autobiography that captures all the key points of your resume. As Jon Anderson points out in his excellent Lightstalkers blog post, Grant Writing 101, this gives you a chance to introduce ideas about photography and your work that may not fit into your proposal essay, but that may give the judges additional reasons to support you. Again, plan to alter these essays based on the requirements of the target grant; and
  • a file of folks you can call on for that all-important letter of recommendation.
• When writing your grant, look out for stylistic crutches that may put the judges to sleep. Keep sentences short. Avoid passive sentences whenever possible. Most of all, make your entry enjoyable and easy to read. A way to check your application for flaws is with readability statistics. If you use WORD, this is an invaluable feature.         

• Here’s what these statistics tell me about what to look for when editing this document:
  
  • Words per sentence: 15.6. That’s wordy, and tells us that we need to revise sentences that include more than one thought and perhaps break them in two.
  • Sentences per paragraph: 3.1. That's low and low is good. It means we're breaking own ideas into digestible nuggets. However, it may be skewed by our use of bullets.
  • Passive sentences: 7%. Not bad! It means that we’re writing in the active tense. The closer you can get to 0, the better.
  • Flesch Reading Ease Score: 60.9. This score rates text on a 100-point scale, and the higher the score, the easier it is for readers to understand. Experts aim for a score of about 60-70 for standard documents, so we’re within range.
  • Kincaid Grade Level: 8.6. Rates text on a U.S. grade school level, and this score indicates an eighth-grader can read this with ease.   

To learn more about this feature visit the 79 Grant Writing Resources blog. 

Check back to see tomorrow’s blog for a list of Web sites now soliciting grant applications from photographers.

Also, click on the “Comments” link below to share an idea or leave a question.

An illustration sometimes works better than a photograph. It can more easily be manipulated to convey an individual style, a mood, an abstract concept or an attitude.  Drawn to work together, illustrations can lend a book or a website consistency. An illustration can be a sketch, a simple line or a detailed drawing. It can be either hand drawn or computer generated. It can consist of simple black lines on a white page or ornately colored and intricate as the illuminated characters found in the Book of Kells.

At ImageSpan, we work with so many photographers that it’s easy to overlook the illustrators who use LicenseStream's automated licensing and royalty payment services. One such user is Lisa Sage, an illustrator based in Limerick, Maine. A former computer programmer, Lisa fell into a career as an illustrator in 2008 while – ironically – trying to learn more about photography.

“I had been in the photography forums, trying to learn all I could, and within one forum had answered questions from a woman named Judy about the difference between photorealistic illustrations and vector art,” said Sage, whose website, Sage Family Studios, features illustrations, paintings and photomontages. “To explain the difference, I used images out of my portfolio. Then out of the blue I received a call from someone at Oxford University Press and it turned out to be this same woman! She was looking for really detailed illustrations and asked me to be part of the upcoming project.”

© Lisa Sage/Sage Studios LLC   “Within” was chosen for a new edition of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series

Sage’s illustrations are regularly uploaded to the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) site, where she participates in the forums. One of her images, highlighted for an Image of a Week award on the NAPP site, caught the attention of the visual effects director for a horror thriller called “The Gates of Hell.” Sage soon found herself creating digital matte paintings for the film. While Sage was working on the film (released in 2008), the movie’s visual effects director suggested she launch an email campaign to various art buyers who might be interested in her illustrations. Sage sent postcards to art buyers at various publishers. An art director from Chooseco, a publisher in Waitsfield, Vermont, fell in love with an image on one of the postcards. It turns out the art director wanted it for the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series of chapter books for pre-teens that Chooseco was republishing and that were popular in the 1980s.   “As the art director from Chooseco went through galleries on my website, he was able to click on the images they had fallen in love with and go straight into LicenseStream,” said Sage.

“I was at Photoshop World last year when I received an email from Chooseco’s art director asking to negotiate pricing. Understanding that this art director was with a small publisher – instead of a large New York press – I went into LicenseStream to adjust the drop-down menu pricing, making it easy for the publisher to license the images at the prices they wanted. I re-sent emails to the art director several times before I received a note back from him saying that the images already had been licensed. It happened so easily, that I wasn’t sure – and couldn’t believe – that it had actually gone through!”

To top off that success, Sage went on to win the international Guru Award in the Photomontage category at that Photoshop World in March 2009. Sage now is working to finish a bachelor’s degree in information technology with a specialization in project management. Her hope is to take on larger and more complex projects. Meanwhile, she believes there is plenty of work out there for illustrators. "A buyer can spend a lot of time searching stock images that just aren’t obtainable because they’re too difficult to get,” she said. “For example, often a photo buyer needs an image of a happy family – but one not looking directly at the viewer so they look natural.

© Lisa Sage/Sage Studios LLC  "All That I See” caught the eye of a film’s visual effects director. It later won a 2009 Guru Award

Perhaps you need an image of someone cooking dinner or reading a book.  Or say you’re putting together a document that explains a process, such as the difference between people paying for credit cards and people paying with cash.  These all sound simple but it’s amazing how much time people spend just trying to get the right image.” 

In addition, an illustrator can create a series of images with a uniform look and feel. “It’s hard to make photographic images feel consistent across a Web site,” Sage added. “With branding, illustrations are often easier to work with because you are creating them. Also, anything geared towards children is typically done with illustrations instead of photos.”

Instead of commissioning an original illustration or photo, art buyers also can now search for an image by Sage via a major search engine or go directly to Sage’s LicenseStream store, choose the image they want, and license it with a few mouse clicks.

“With LicenseStream, everything is so simple that you can shoot out a license very fast,” said Sage. “I’m relieved that it takes so much pain out of the process of licensing my work. That frees up time for me to focus on what matters – creating the images.”

Have a question or an observation?  Click on the “Comments” link below to share your ideas. 

In case you missed it, ImageSpan this week with arvato finance services Limited announced their platform collaboration. This collaboration enables LicenseStream to deliver a global content clearinghouse that unifies, drives and accelerates the trade of digital content, including video, images, audio and text.

What does this mean? That we’re rolling out the first global solution to monetize content – ever!

The new global content clearinghouse combines ImageSpan’s automated content licensing, publishing and tracking platform, called LicenseStream, with arvato finance’s PaymentLounge premium merchant services consisting of global billing, accounting and payment components. 

This may all sound a little lofty, but it solves the real-world problem facing many owners of large stores of content: how to monetize content efficiently on a global basis. As a result, the thousands of individual photographers and illustrators who’ve chosen LicenseStream to help them make money with their content now are being joined by marquee publishers and media companies. The Chicago Tribune and The McEvoy Group – a publisher whose brand media properties include SPIN magazine and Chronicle Books – already are beginning to develop new markets, direct customer relationships and drive incremental revenues via the joint solution.

To learn more about this new global content clearinghouse and what it delivers, check out this week’s ImageSpan announcement.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice  defends the very graphic nature of the images coming out of Haiti as its people – helped by teams of international aid workers -- dig out from the debris that rained down on them after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the island Jan. 12, killing at least 150,000 and leaving millions homeless.

Fitzmaurice also worries about the plight of Haiti’s people as news coverage of it inevitably fades.  

“There was just one column on the front page about it in this week’s Sunday The New York Times, and so it seems to be quickly dropping off in terms of the news cycle," said Fitzmaurice, speaking by phone from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area. "And that means everything the news coverage helps drive – the donations, the relief efforts, everything – will decline.”

Debates continue to take place online and in other media over the usefulness of photographers and journalists in the disaster zone, over their roles once there (should they be taking photos or bandaging the injured and distributing water?), and even over whether the images they’re taking are just too graphic for the folks back home to absorb. Acknowledging these debates, Fitzmaurice cited several reasons photojournalists need to shoot and send back honest photos of what is happening in Haiti. 

“The images coming out of Haiti have played a big part in how people have responded to this disaster,” said Fitzmaurice. “Seeing those images has really moved people both in the U.S. and around the world to donate money, time, and other resources.”

She added that it is the duty of photojournalists, after all, to bear witness and record history.

“As a photographer, you can’t sensor yourself while you’re shooting,” she said. “You need to just be there, get the images and send them back. Then let the editor for each publication or news website determine whether the images are appropriate for their audiences.”

Fitzmaurice knows something about making split-second decisions about what to photograph and what to let go in a difficult environment. She had many such moments while taking photos for the Pulitzer Prize-winning essay she created for the San Francisco Chronicle of a nine-year-old Iraqi boy who was badly injured when he picked up a bomb, mistaking it for a ball.

“I went in and photographed him having brain surgery and there were times when I had to decide, ‘Okay, don’t shoot this,’” she said. “You have to be aware of your surroundings and think about whether the image you shoot may be strong enough to risk upsetting people and possibly jeopardizing the more compelling images that you may be able to get later on.” 

However, when she’s in the middle of a shooting a situation that may be difficult, she added, “I’m very focused on the fact that it is my job to be photographing the story at hand.”

As for the images coming out of Haiti since the earthquake, Fitzmaurice said she has been most impressed with the images sent by Damon Winters, a photographer for The New York Times. “I think he was one of the first people there and has documented everything, and shot images with compassion and integrity," she said. "I think his pictures have been very powerful.”

Fitzmaurice has been trying to get to Haiti herself since the earthquake and has been in touch with various foundations, non-profits and other non-governmental organizations that may need a photographer to get the word out about the work they’re doing. But covering the current breaking news story isn’t that important to her.

“I’d be happy to go in a couple of months or in six months from now,” she said. “These people’s lives have been drastically changed – these are people who have lost everything. So I’m drawn to those stories.”

Does she have a specific framework in mind for telling a story once she gets there?

“A lot of times it’s nice to have some kind of an idea of what you want to do, so you have a framework,” she said. “But I think real life is way more interesting than anything I could preconceive and so I like to let stories unfold.”

To be a good photographer and a good storyteller, she added, “I think you have to go towards stories you are passionate about, that you really are about. That’s when you do your best work.”

Fitzmaurice said she currently is drawn to the story of the children and the orphans of Haiti. “I’ve contacted NGOs who work with children," she said. “To prepare, I’ll try to do as much research as I can before I get there. Right now, everyone is in emergency mode, trying to solve problems, saving peoples’ lives.”

As efforts shift from search and recovery to rebuilding infrastructure, she added, “I think a lot of different types of stories will emerge, and there will be opportunities to go deeper. It’ll still be important for the people of Haiti, and for the people of the world, that photographers are there to tell those stories.”

For those interested in hearing more from Deanne Fitzmaurice, you can catch her at the following events:

• March 4:  ASMP Tucson 
• March 9: WPPI in Las Vegas - Presenting Masterclass on Photojournalism and Multimedia
• March 8-10: WPPI Convention in Las Vegas with Think Tank Photo (a camera bag company that Deanne co-founded)