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Hollis
7-Jan-2008, 06:17
Hello all. I have finally decided that I am going to take my savings that were intended to start a business and travel across N. America and internationally for the next year or so (starting in March). I need to do this so as to really bolster my portfolio (a lot of non-LF work, documentary, PJ, etc.) and hopefully land some serious clients. Therein lies the conundrum. I can plan a trip no problem but I am starting to draw blanks as how to drum up interest and eventually business towards this trip. I have thought about contacting different publications and galleries but it just seems to be stagnating. Any ideas???

John Kasaian
7-Jan-2008, 09:11
Your trip sounds like a lot of fun and I'm sure you'll get some fine images out of it, but....
how neccessary is it?

Some of the best and most successful photographers I know can get great photographs out of thier own "backyards." I'd expect you are more intimate with where you live and the surrounding areas that you can find beauty in what others will gloss over---that is a talent that can bolster your portfolio and bring you clients (which will hopefully bankroll your travels.)

Looking at pictures of photographs in favorite books, I can visit a dying 19th century Paris, Yosemite Valley in all it's splendor, cafe society in 1920's Hungary, and a host of other images. What most of them have in common is that the photographers who fired the shutter knew the territory better than the hundreds if not thousands of photographers who took the same pictures with thier Brownies.

Take a look at Jim Galli's images on his website. You'll see phenominal photographs of simple crossroads in the Nevada desert----hardly the glitz of Paris but incredibly beautiful images it thier own way.

There is a famous japanese photographer whose name escapes me. He had a splendid portfolio in View Camera a few years back and the sbject matter wasn't postcard images of Tokyo or Mt. Fuji but...drains and culverts along japanese roadways!

Examples such as these say more I think about the vision of the photographer than the Kodak picture spot "stand here and shoot thataway" images of stereotypical travel photography.

This dosen't mean I wouldn't jump at the chance to photograph in say Italy, Switzerland, Armenia or Peru, it's just that I don't feel like I need to spend what's left of my recently evaporated savings on the trip.

Good luck!

Donald Miller
7-Jan-2008, 09:46
Hello all. I have finally decided that I am going to take my savings that were intended to start a business and travel across N. America and internationally for the next year or so (starting in March). I need to do this so as to really bolster my portfolio (a lot of non-LF work, documentary, PJ, etc.) and hopefully land some serious clients. Therein lies the conundrum. I can plan a trip no problem but I am starting to draw blanks as how to drum up interest and eventually business towards this trip. I have thought about contacting different publications and galleries but it just seems to be stagnating. Any ideas???

Hollis,

A good post and I, for one, have been where you are now.

Sometimes a fresh place gives one a fresh vision. I applaud you for reevaluating your life and your priorities. Now to your question, there are any number of avenues to market your work and your capabilities. You seem to be casting about for direction in this area. You say that you want to maybe develop some new clients or to maybe get published. I think setting priorities based upon the realities of your own particular situation may be in order. This brings to mind several questions that I hopefully would be posing to myself given the same circumstances.

What is it that gives you meaning in your life? Is it making this photographic journey a financial success? or is it just the very act of seeing something for yourself and photographing it? Are you relying on this photographic odyssey to fund itself or to provide for income in the future? Do you enjoy artistic work or do you find your juices start cooking when you envision doing corporate work on a deadline? Do you have a portfolio of finished work to show to galleries as you travel about? How about contacting travel magazines about doing travel articles as you travel about? How about shooting stock images while you do your own work? How about writing a book complete with images about your personal journey at this point in your life? Now there will be those who will tell you or I that we are batty as hell for thinking of doing these kinds of things...there will always be naysayers...if the appear, and they will...just recognize that they can argue for their limitations and they can have them.

I mentioned earlier that I had been in the same place at one time. Eight years ago I underwent back surgery...followed by open heart surgery four years ago. After that, I came to the conclusion for myself that I was going to either run out of money or of time before the other...I had no idea which would deplete first so I quit worrying so much about tomorrow and focused more on living today. I would rather run out of money before I ran out of time. In the past year I spent one month in the Philippine Islands and I have spent the last nine months in Italy...a pair of truly new experiences. Many wonderful and meaningful images have resulted from this.

I wish you the very best in what you find for yourself...remember that no one knows you as well as you, yourself.

Kirk Gittings
7-Jan-2008, 11:12
I really agree with Donald's sense of what mightbe accomplished personally on such a potentially life changing experience.

But in terms of financing or getting commitments to publish or show the work.....
I need to do this so as to really bolster my portfolio; how to drum up interest and eventually business towards this trip

I assume from this statement that you don't have much of a track record with galleries, magazines or commercial clients. Unfortunately it is a bit of a Catch 22. You don't have the portfolio to get the clients, yet without the clients it is hard to build the portfolio. Clients are unlikely to invest in an unproven artist with vague ideas about what they want to do. Clients prefer, doable, clearly defined projects with delivery dates etc.

I would suggest breaking your travel up into a scouting trip and a real trip. A wide ranging scouting trip may help you define what you want to do photographically and may give you enough of a "preview" portfolio that will generate interest in potential clients. Then, when your project is clearly defined you can go back finish it in a dedicated focused way with some real prospects of exposure or business prospects.

I'm not sure how old you are, but I'd say go for it. The older you get with mortgages, kids etc. it is nearly impossible to take off and do these kind of trips. Best of luck.

Daniel Grenier
7-Jan-2008, 11:14
Not a direct contribution to your question, Hollis, but just a confirmation of sort that truly excellent photographs can result from such trips. I have seen a number of images Donald produced from his Italian trip and if they are simply outstanding in every way. I think Donald is blessed with a hell of a good eye but it is entirely poosible that much of this top notch quality is a result of his being on an extended trip such as he took and as you are planning.

Good luck to you.

Gordon Moat
7-Jan-2008, 11:39
The December Photo District News has an article on Travel Photography, in case that is one of the things you are investigating. If you are trying strictly galleries and art photography, then the same approach as everyone else not traveling would apply, other than that you may be able to visit (now) distant galleries.

If you consider yourself a good writer, you might try contacting some travel magazines, either on-line or print version. Let them know what you are planning, and see if they might be interested in some articles. It never hurts to ask, even if their answer to you might be "no".

If you are looking at stock imagery, you might want to try getting established/accepted by an agency prior to traveling. Then the issue will be getting your image files (assuming scanned film) into the editor at the agency (assuming a better agency, and not some place like Alamy).

Your other way of doing this is to self-fund a book of your journeys. Once you have enough of the book concept figured out, you can try contacting various publishers, and see if you can generate any interest. Of course, this is another direction in which it would help to be an interesting writer, as well as having compelling images.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

Hollis
8-Jan-2008, 10:06
Thank you all for all of your input. To clarify a few things... I am not looking to make this trip self sustaining from the get-go but rather to have it lead to more and more opportunities in the future. Photography to me is well, the only thing to me. It is not a hobby, not a pastime, it is my career, my life and ultimately, will probably be my downfall but that will take awhile so Im not too worried about that. I do have some experience with galleries and have been published before but it always seems like I am starting from zero when I approach them. Im sure my age (26) plays a part in that but I think also because I don't have an agent (galleries can be pretentious that way) has an effect.
As far as a scouting trip, I have been doing that for the last 8 years. I think my issue is that I have too many locations in mind. As it stands, in no particular order, I am looking to go back to Baja for a month or two, Mexico City for 2 weeks and then Cuba for 2 weeks in June, then off to Kenya and Darfur for some documentary work (actually a paid gig) in July, then possibly a drive up the East Coast all the way to Newfoundland and then West across Canada and back to Alaska (used to be home) and then I guess work my way south.

The stock idea is a great one and as soon as I read that a little light went off, thanks Don. Do you have any experience with this?

Again, thanks to all of you and keep the comments coming.

Oh, and here is where I stand right now...

www.hollisbennett.com
www.hollisbennett.com/recent

Pat Kearns
11-Jan-2008, 12:07
I looked at your recent images on your link and they are very nice. If you have the means and your health, then go for it. The adventure of your life starts with the first step. Whether it be, "youth and vigor" or "piss and vinegar", I wish you the best. Good light and good luck.:)

Rob_5419
11-Jan-2008, 16:26
Hollis,

why don't you get an assistant's post if you want to further your photographic career? It's what most of my colleagues and I did. I don't know whether these are hard to come by, or so lowly and looked down on that they aren't worth bringing up.

Pat thinks you have a good portfolio already - why don't you try and market that? You're describing two different tasks - one which has more to do with the spirit of adventure and self-discovery on the way (Jack Kerouac, la la la!) and the other is about marketing your photographic work. I get the impression your leitmotif for going has less to do with existential issues, and more about the praxis of living and scraping that living (I sold my soul to wedding photography and stayed home and never travel outside of the UK, except a boat ride to the neighbouring communist bloc - France :) Far less exemplary ahem..)

If you're intent on working and funding travel photography somehow, you'll need the contacts to approach before you head off, unless you wish to go down the anonymous stock library route (the evil Getty Images will screw you, and the more spineless photographers handing over their life's work to that commercial leech is already destroying any possible hopes for small independents.

You might write to a few travel photography magazines and ask if they have any forthcoming interest for articles or need for images from a certain travel destination. Really, the market you target depends on your interest. I'm not sure what that is, looking at your portfolio. If you're really stuck, just advertise for a naked blonde to go travelling with you and get her to pose in front of your compositions of desolate and abandoned spaces and you'll be sorted.

Sigh....if only I had thought of that when I was 26....

Good luck!

Hollis
21-Jan-2008, 22:28
I like the naked blonde idea, thats the good stuff. Thanks for the comments on the work, its all very fun to make. As far as assisting goes, Im over it. I have been doing it for the last 5 years or so and am very burned out with it and just can't handle all the attitudes and bullshit that comes along with the biz. I have worked for Getty/Corbis/all those folks and yes, they are evil but Ill still cash their checks.

Looks like I have Iceland, N. California, Yukon Terr., Nunuvut, Darfur and Thailand on the books.