Matchbox Promo

Late last year, when it came time to let people know about the APA SF Something Personal Exhibition, I wanted to do something different.

I acquired white matches in white matchboxes from the internet.

Printed my flame image...

and information on a sleeve, and glued the sleeve over each matchbox.

I ordered custom stamps with an additional flames image of mine, and put all of them together in a white bubble wrap mailer.

Each of the 35 matchboxes included a link to my website, where the recipient can download an invitation, view the series, read all my blog entries on the project, and more.

Everybody at the show who had received one, mentioned they loved the matchbox, and in followup calls to those who couldn't make it, they often had the matchbox on their desk or in a pocket.

Addicted to DIY Promos

Over the last six months I've made three promos at the office, and I think I'm addicted now. It started with a suggestion by Chris Milliman. He said he'd been sending out small collections of prints to select buyers for some time, and always got really good feedback.

Frankly, sending out 2034872304563056 emails or postcards is really not that appealing to me anyway, so I thought I'd give his method a try. I have found that it takes a lot longer to create a promo in this way, but it's not only more satisfying, but puts a certain wind under my wings when it's time to do the follow-up calls.

Last time it was the Make Shoes Move promo>. This time, Helpful Ideas for Busy Dads.

Design phase. If I ever wanted to call myself a designer, I have a long way to go.

Production phase. See the difference?

The genius part of this promo is including the Free Sample Media Player Caddy. Everybody loves a free gift.

I do like the glassine envelopes.

I did the window so I could show a photo, but not give the entire photo away. I toyed with the idea of making up a whole fake company that might produce things like this, but decided it would best to stay with one brand, mine.

After you look at the pictures, there's the Media Player Caddy, in all it's glory, followed up the Ol' Call to Action.

The question I come up against is about Handmade vs Machine Made vs Handmade that Looks Machine Made. I'm not sure where I am on that scale, or where I even want to be. Handmade is charming and personal. Machine Made is fast and inexpensive. And Handmade that Looks Machine Made might be the worst of both worlds, since if people think it's mass produced, all the charm disappears.

We'll see. Meanwhile, I end up putting in a lot of work and ended up with something I'm proud of.

Helpful Ideas for Busy Dads

Following up on Creativity Stops and Starts, in addition to those two ideas, a ton of others came to me. For example:

• A knotted crib sheet dangling over the side of the crib
• A dog harnessed to a stroller
• Two bedtime stories clamped together
• A hospital-style call button in the crib
• iPhone baby rattle app

It's nice when you get so many ideas you have to create a chart to make sense of them.

I settled on a feeding theme, thus the Media Player Caddy.

The Feed-a-Whirl.

The Extended Stay.

The Eat N Clean.

In talking with Jackie about the photos, she said it would be a good Father's Day promo. FACEPALM. Of course, she's brilliant, so I got to work making up the promo. Stay tuned.

Infringement in the New Photography Era, Part III

So, following up on Part I and Part II, what to do about licensing and infringement in the New Photography Era?

This image was in use as someone's MySpace background.

What I want: my images to be published and to get paid. What I have got so far: they remove the images. So that's not really working.

It's barking up the wrong tree, in all likelihood. Most of these infringers are not making any money, have little appreciation of professional photography and what it takes to make it, and sparse or incorrect understanding of intellectual property rights. And I can't say I blame them. My livelihood is dependent on it, I'm interested in it, I've studied it, and still sometimes the concepts slip away from my understanding, and I have to chase them down. And many of my peers seem to be uninterested.

Content creators have interests, but their interests are varied. I want to make a profit on my images, but some people are only interested in attention. For others, giving away some content to sell other works, while others may give away content to sell consulting services.

So it's left to professional organizations, advocates, and corporations to stand up for content creators. The professional organizations fight for the content creators, but they're perhaps a little slow. The advocates are vocal but pull in different directions. And the corporations have a lot of power, but only their own interests at heart, which are usually in conflict with the content creators.

For example, some organizations:

• APA
• Creative Commons

Some advocates:

• John Herrington
• Burns Auto Parts

And of course, corporations:

• Getty Images
• Disney

I don't agree 100% with any of them. But I do know that my images, services, and vision have value, and that it's up to me to manage the perception of that value. So when it comes to infringement, small or large, I will continue to do what I can to moderate it, because, as they say, the way you do anything is the way you do everything.

Accessibility

A couple of years ago, I participated in my first portfolio review. The whole thing was put together by Lisa Wiseman back when the NAOPA was doing a lot of events. There were two buyers from local agencies, an editor from a magazine, and a rep. I had just finished my first book, and even though it was a pretty small event, I was excited and intimidated. I was still at the tail-end of the dying-for-someone-to-tell-me-I'm-a-real-photographer phase (hint: you will probably not believe anyone who is willing to tell you this), and I'd only really shown my work to friends, family, and photography peers, so my insides were all churning.

There was some sort of take-a-number arrangement to ensure that each participant met with each buyer, but I think I was late or there was some snafu or the planets aligned or whatever. I any case, I met only with Jen Small, who was at Ogilvy, I think. In writing this now, I can tell I was quite nervous, as all these relevant details are now fuzzy or missing.

To make matters worse, this guy, who wasn't really involved in NAOPA, barged on my session with Jen, because he insisted that she look at his book after mine, and wouldn't leave while she looked at mine.

She looked through my book, alarmingly quickly, and we talked for a bit. She had good things to say overall, and she has a cool perspective. The thing that has stayed with me was her response to a concern I had.

I told her that I thought maybe my work was too dark, too grim, too anti-example, for advertising.

She told me that she has a list of a hundred photographers that can do happy, sunny, uplifting, sweet work. And she has a list of like five photographers that can do dark, grim, anti-examples, and make it work.

And ever since then, I've looked around, and that ratio's about right: twenty to one. Twenty ads of an attractive person talking on a cellphone to one ad of a shattered phone because someone sat on it. Twenty earnest groups of young adults having fun on the beach to one guy about to get run over by a train because he's not paying attention.

I'll take the ratio. I'm just glad there's room.