Communication, Art Direction & The Business of Photography

Communication, Art Direction & The Business of Photography

By William Lulow

The way art directors choose photographers or any visual artist these days, is important to know about. There are many people out there working for various publications and corporate entities in positions to help their companies illustrate the various communication pieces that are published, including any digital presences like websites. How the company communicates with its readership, be it online or in print, will determine, in large part, the kind of images it uses. There are several ideas to keep in mind if you are a photographer hoping to land some of these assignments.

• Make photographs that interest you. If you are interested in sports, make images of people engaged in whatever sports you happen to know about. Your interest and love for a particular subject will reveal itself in the types of images you make. So, this should be the number one reason to make pictures.
• Make photographs that involve you thinking about whatever it is you are shooting. If it is food, then think about what would make the food look great. If it’s flowers, think about how to shoot them from different perspectives, etc.
• Make photographs of things to which you can easily get access. I have photographed a number of famous people because first, I love photographing people. Second, I have been given the chance by several clients to have sessions with these people. It will never help to have a great interest in photographing something or someone to which or to whom you can’t get access. People know me mostly through my portraits, which tend to be studio shots under very controlled conditions because those are the ones I love to make.

Even with the proliferation of digital images and the fact that making images has become easier in one sense, it still takes a talented eye and more than a casual acquaintance with digital technologies, not to mention a good knowledge of lighting, to create stunning pictures these days. Photography, as an art form and as a means of self-expression should be quality driven throughout. That is, we should seek to obtain the very best images possible for any given situation. We should be stopped by arresting images. We should be able to dwell on them and discuss them. We should be able to analyze how they were made and talk about their impact. And, if they are used for an advertisement or to illustrate a piece of writing, should be even more impactful.

Not many of my students these days are aware of some of the more famous photographers of the past. So, I am always trying to introduce some of their names and work to those who aren’t aware.

Many famous photographers were able to achieve some notoriety by the types of images they made. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the famous French photojournalist, believed that in order to capture a certain reality, he had to become almost invisible inside the scene. He raised this notion to the level of art. He used quiet cameras (Leicas -rangefinder cameras with no noisy mirrors). He used black camera bodies (or put black tape on them) so that they wouldn’t be shiny. He sometimes sat in one place for hours waiting for just the right elements to come together to make a perfect image.

Philippe Halsman, the famous portrait photographer, used the relationship between himself and his famous subjects to elicit responses that became iconic images.

Richard Avedon, the famous fashion photographer, used his studio’s plain white background to set his subjects apart from surroundings and force the viewer’s eye to concentrate on the garments.

Lee Friedlander, the famous art photographer created perfect compositions to document the everyday world of his travels.

Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and others from Roosevelt’s Farm Services Administration in the 1930s, used their cameras to record in exquisite detail, people and places of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.

There is a story about the famous photographer Paul Strand, (not an advertising photographer) who tried to use his photographs to raise people’s awareness of the environment, being hired by the CBS broadcast network in the 1950s, to make an advertisement about how television was getting more and more integrated into people’s lives. He actually declined the assignment because he never saw himself as an “advertising photographer,” and had to be coaxed by an art director to make the image. He finally consented and made an iconic image of television antennas on the rooftops of buildings in New York City that wound up being used in many places. The assignment was offered because of his many images of the urban landscape, certainly not because he already had TV antenna images in his portfolio! But, nevertheless, it is a good example of how an art director knew that Strand would come up with something innovative on his own. (Note: you can find the picture on line by entering the following information on Google – Paul Strand, TV antennas ad for CBS.)

When you make the kinds of pictures that really interest you, your involvement in the process becomes evident in the quality of the images you create. Whether or not they are immediately commercially successful is dependent on many things that need to be done to promote them.

Part of success in this industry is making sure your images are in front of the right people when they are looking to hire someone. Since we never actually know when that is or what kinds of images they are looking for, it makes sense to have some kind of campaign that strives to get your images “out there” on a consistent basis. The most obvious way to do this is to have a “rep”, someone who has contacts at advertising agencies and various publications, who can call on these people to present your work. Now “reps” will usually take 50% of the fee for whatever work you do, and they have to make a living as well (pay rent, send kids to school, take vacations, etc.). So, if you are not already billing at least $300,000 annually, no rep will really be interested in you, unless, of course, your images are flying out of your portfolio and onto your clients’ walls. Reps, as a rule, have a stable of artists they represent because they know they can’t make a living from just one. So, now, your images have to be so unusual as to attract attention from many different buyers. You have to have a “vision” that gets shown regularly in your body of work, just like the more “famous” photographers mentioned earlier. Not something easily done by beginners. (Although it has happened!)

Photographers like me have been used to making images on call from various sources including catalogs, magazines, newspapers as well as advertising agencies. All have had art directors whose job it was to come up with a design concept for whatever piece they were working on, as well as have an idea about what kinds of images were needed. These days, however, art directors are often looking for the photographer to have a concept and the knowledge to execute it, then to apply that same style to whatever it is they have to advertise. If you can do that, you are in a position to get hired as a free-lance photographer.

If you plan to run your photography as a business, you need to have a lot of repeat clients who come to you for concepts and quality execution time after time. That’s what much of catalog work was like back when I started in the 1980s. I had clients who had assignments for me to shoot almost every week. That’s how I built my business.

These days, if art directors are looking for a different style each time they have an assignment, it becomes more difficult for even a photographer they know and have worked with, to build a business. Then there is also the question of fees. With many agencies and companies trying to reduce expenses, the days of big budget advertising shoots have passed. There are still some of these assignments around, but they are usually reserved for photographers with big names. So, to have a “business” you need clients that have constant need for the type of photographs you produce. I have seen beginners who were good photographers get a spread in a magazine, but it’s quite a different thing to be hired on a weekly or even a monthly basis by the same publication. One other way you can have a photography business is to set up a portrait studio, say, and have different people come to you on a regular basis. This is truly a business that would require a “brick-and-mortar” studio with all the daily expenses that go with it. Here, you really need to be a good businessperson to make this work. You have to develop a business plan and stick to it. You have to know how to price your work with a “break-even point,” and what you need to do to make a profit each week. If you are not up to these kinds of calculations, better not start a business. Remember: amateurs are those who do something because they love it. It is not a pejorative term. You can always photograph what you love. Making it work to support you financially takes an entirely different talent.

At any rate, communication has to start with you as the photographer. You have to have your work get in front of those people who are in a position to hire you. How this is done is complicated and I will write more about it in a later articles.