Lauri Novak kicked off the week by giving us six ways to get out of a photography slump. Then, the Photofocus Editorial Board wrote on face-to-face camera sales, while Andrew Ford gave us some great ways to increase video engagement. Nate Torres presented tips to photograph outdoor portraits and Michele Grenier documented her first experience photographing an international sports event. Finally, Vanelli chatted with Arlene Evans about the closure of PDN and the state of the photography industry.
Editorial: Are face-to-face sales dead? - With shows like PhotoPlus, Imaging USA and WPPI not having as many camera companies exhibit, we had to ask ourselves a question. Are face-to-face sales dead? In this piece compiled by the Photofocus Editorial Board, we dive into why camera companies aren’t as present at trade shows, and what this means for the future of the industry. The Editorial Board is made up of Kevin Ames, Bryan Esler, Vanelli and Levi Sim. First it was PhotoPlus, with Sony not exhibiting. Then it was Imaging USA, which only had Canon, Fujifilm, Sigma and Sony present. And at WPPI, Canon, Nikon and Sigma will be the only camera makers with a booth. Why are camera companies no longer relying on trade shows to market themselves and make sales? At one time, everyone who bought a camera at least looked at it in a camera store. They may have started the search at a trade show, then got more information locally before making their purchase. But as the camera market evolves, many camera stores have closed across the country. For a period of time, trade shows became a place where people could see and most importantly, touch and experience several cameras in a short period of time. What does the absence of camera companies mean to a photography-oriented trade show? Simply put, fewer cameras are being sold. But at the same time, photography is more popular than at anytime in its history. What’s the point of having a booth? Person-to-person work is the most valuable thing a company can invest in. Lately, though, the trend seems to be relying more on a company’s influencers to push the brand on social media. This works to a degree, but lacks the personal touch. Most consumers don’t have a personal relationship with the influencer, therefore reducing the impact over time. However, when a company chooses to make a personal connection via a trade show, that consumer shares that connection with their friends and followers in a much more personal way. Consumers get one-on-one face time with knowledgeable representatives, and are allowed to try out new gear before they buy. While that comes at a cost for both parties — the cost of the booth and space for the vendor, and the cost of the attendee being at the show — we believe that expense to be worth it. As editors for Photofocus, we’re often asked for our opinions about a certain camera or piece of gear. We can give our answers because we’ve built personal relationships with companies, which have primarily been built via trade shows. If we’re influencers, that’s only because we’ve spoken with companies directly, tested out their products and built personal relationships over the years. We believe that trade shows are one of the most valuable things a company can partake in. That’s not to say that every camera maker needs to keep up with the Jones’ (aka, Canon), either. A small booth can still work wonders at building lasting relationships with customers. Both camera makers and attendees should be somewhat prepared, knowing what questions to ask (and how to answer them). By having speakers educate attendees, it helps to broaden the scope and bring in new consumers. Lensbaby is a great example of this. They attend shows regularly and have a small demo area where attendees can try their lenses and get support. They have a huge customer base that spans photography genres, and it grows with every show. But they haven’t built the enormous booth and stages that others do in order to look like a big company. At Photofocus, while we typically don’t have a booth at shows, we do our outreach in other ways. At PhotoPlus, we hosted a photowalk after the trade show closed for the day. And at WPPI, we’ll host another photowalk, plus our readers’ breakfast, giving you a chance to sit down and meet the team, ask questions and give input. The future of the camera market According to Statista analysis of photos on Flickr, 54% of its photos were made with an Apple camera — either an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Following that is Canon (23% and Nikon (18%) in 2017. 1.2 trillion photos were made that year, suggesting that at least half of those were captured with a nontraditional camera. Many camera makers are in a shift today. They’re trying to please their traditional audience through upgrades to a traditional DSLR lineup (like the Canon 1DX Mark III or Nikon D750), while others have gone full-on into the mirrorless world. It’s clear that mirrorless is the future for photographers, but the struggle for traditional camera makers to make that leap has certainly slowed down innovation and acceptance. With the fact that camera companies are pulling out of trade shows, it’s clear that the market for cameras has continued to contract. However, the number of camera introductions is encouraging. Every camera company came out with at least one new camera in 2019, and we don’t expect that trend to change. Even as the sales of traditional cameras shrink, photographers are still buying new cameras and upgrading as new desirable features are made available. Camera manufacturers are starting to rely on alternative means of getting the word out about their new equipment, including working with influencers and with websites like Photofocus. (Note: Photofocus is not paid or contracted to give a specific opinion or spin on camera gear. Our reviews are 100% honest). Methods of connecting with camera buyers is evolving, and evolving quickly. Where do we see trade shows in the next few years? For one, don’t expect them to die out. Instead, expect them to consolidate and become smaller, and in some cases, more personalized. There will be alternatives, for instance pop-up events where a manufacturer provides a more individualized experience throughout the country. Sony showed how effective this could be with its own show, one blocks away from PhotoPlus. So while face-to-face might be fading away at trade shows, there’s
Covering my first international sports event, part one - A few months ago, I had the incredible opportunity to be covering my first international sports event. Even more, I’ve had the chance to use a legendary lens for the occasion! How did I make it happen and what cool shots did I get? When preparation meets opportunity Those of you who’ve been following me know that I’ve been specializing in strength-related sports in the past few years. Olympic weightlifting (O-Lift) is one of my favorites of all. I love the athletes, the movements and the explosiveness of the discipline. I covered dozens of local and provincial O-Lift meets as an official photographer and consistently upgraded the caliber, leading up to the Canadian Nationals in early 2019. At this point, I am confident in my skills, I know what I am doing and I keeping on upgrading my game. I saw a huge international sports event — the World Masters Weightlifting Championship — being held in my own country (Montreal, Canada) that year. Even more, the venue was only a few hours drive from home. This was my chance. I got in touch with the organization early, prior to the competition. We negotiated an agreement and little did I know, I just booked the biggest challenge of my professional career. For those of you who might not be familiar with this huge event, let me put it in perspective. It is a huge competition where nearly 800 of the best master’s athletes (35+ years old) from all over the world get to compete. The competition lasts for a whopping nine full-packed days. Needless to say, I was honored and excited to be part of this edition … and also a little scared. I was committed and I had to deliver. Go big or go home When the covering of this prestigious event has been confirmed, I knew I had to go big. This first international sports event was a once in a lifetime experience and I wanted to create the very best memories I was capable of. I’ve been working hard to develop my O-Lift photography skills and boy was I ready for this. I knew the movements, the timing and owned the best gear money can buy. Even so, one small (BIG!) detail would be a game-changer. That it would upgrade my arsenal to an Olympics photographer level. I needed Sony’s fastest super-telephoto prime lens. A card up my sleeve I’ve been collaborating with the Sony Canada team for a few months and I decided to take a chance. Go big or go home as they say. I reached out to my rep and explained to him the opportunity I had. If there was any kind of chance they could lend their legendary 400mm f/2.8 GM for the time of this event, I would jump on it. You know how I am a sucker for primes … At that time, the 600mm f/4 and 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 weren’t on the market yet. Even if they’d have, I’d still have asked for the 400mm f/2.8. The widest aperture was my top priority for this event. Weightlifting is an extremely explosive indoor sport that requires high shutter speed. After a few emails and phone calls, I had to face reality. They already had a lot going on in this period of summer and they didn’t think it would be available for the World Masters (WM). At least I tried! I did everything I could. It wasn’t in my hands anymore … but I was still hoping for a miracle. Lenses work in a mysterious way Three days before my departure to the WM, a Sony Canada staff member sent me an unexpected email telling “the SEL400F28GM was on its way.” I thought there’s been a mistake or I just didn’t understand the bunch of numbers and letters right … but it was happening. They were lending me the Sony 400mm f/2.8 for 10 days. I learned afterward that the Sony team worked very hard to make it happen and I want to thank them once again for their amazing support! To say that I was excited would have been an understatement. I WAS F*#ING PUMPED AND READY TO OWN THIS $H!T. The best is yet to come! In the second part of this series, I’ll going in the heart of the competition’s action in Montreal’s Olympic Park. You’ll learn about my gear (camera bodies and lenses), my setup (you won’t believe where I was sitting), my settings (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) and get to see some of my favorite images of these whole nine days.
InFocus Interview Show: The evolving photography industry, with Arlene Evans - Content Director for Emerald Expositions, the group responsible for Photography conferences WPPI and Photo Plus along with magazines PDN and Rangefinder, Arlene Evans talks about how photography magazines are changing the photography industry.
Six ways to get out of your photography slump - A fellow photographer just asked for help because they have been in a photography slump for the last four months. I thought I’d share my reply and ideas to help us all when this happens. Face it — it happens to all of us sooner or later. Just get out and photograph something Sometimes just getting out with your camera and shooting anything or everything helps. Don’t worry about creating good images, just shoot what you feel, what you want. Even if you delete them all, it’s the act of doing it, of getting out even when you don’t feel like it that will get you moving back to feeling like creating. Create a personal project that pulls you out of your slump Pick a subject or theme to shoot for. Make it a weekly or daily thing. Give yourself a deadline. This could range from portraits of strangers to documenting the growth of your garden. Maybe it’s something that you’ve thought about before but never acted on. Read and learn about something new Pick up a photography book or research online ideas for things to shoot. There are so many aspects of photography. Is there something you want to learn more about or is there a photographer who paved the way for us all that you would like to read about? Is there an editing technique you’d like to try? Go for it — I guarantee it will spark your creativity and get you motivated to create. Go to a museum Take in art and be inspired by the colors, light and compositions in paintings. We can learn a lot about the basics of these things by studying the masters and other artists. Even statues can teach us about form and shape. Be inspired. Phone a friend to get you out of a slump Call up a photography friend and make a date to go out and wander with your cameras. Again, this doesn’t have to be about creating your best image ever, it’s about getting out and doing. Being around someone else who shares your passion will help reignite your motivation. Sharing ideas and just seeing what someone else sees can be helpful. Watch old movies (or new ones) Many of the older films have incredible cinematography. Pay attention to the light and shadows used to create mood and emotion. There are also newer films that do a good job of this but the older films are free of computer-generated imagery and had to rely on music and lighting to make their audience see and feel each scene. We all go through this. All of us. I have barely picked up my camera in the last four months myself. Time to take my own advice and get out of this slump.
How to take outdoor portrait photographs: 10 (simple) tips - The relatively controlled and static nature of a studio is often the most ideal place to shoot a portrait. After a while, you get a feel for the studio; its space, the light and how your equipment interacts with it. However, there is an undeniable sense of dynamism when you take your portrait photography outdoors. Outdoor portrait photography can be spontaneous, producing results that can even exceed your expectations as a photographer. When you’re outside, you have a blank canvas and each natural element brings with it an entirely new color to your palette. While you may not be in full control of the colors at your disposal, a good photographer learns to be quick on their feet, working with what they get. While studio portrait sessions are all about control, outdoor portrait photography is about catching lightning in a bottle. What is the best camera setting for outdoor portraits? Photographers may disagree on the “best” of anything related to their craft. Like any tool, there’s a time and a place for almost anything. And like any craft, there’s also the freedom to break with tradition and forge your own path. However, a fundamental principle of outdoor portrait photography is often this — shoot with a lens longer than 50mm, shoot with your aperture wide open (for great use of natural light and background blur) and never use your automatic setting. 10 simple tips for how to take outdoor portrait photography Beyond your camera’s settings, there are a few other outdoor portrait photography tips for beginners to learn that will lend themselves well to successful outdoor portrait photography. 1. Use a fast lens with a wide aperture You want a fast lens that’ll focus and shoot with precision but you also want a wide aperture (the f setting on your camera lens.) The faster you shoot and the wider the aperture, the more blurred your background will be. In the industry, we call this blurred effect “bokeh” and it’s a popular component of outdoor portrait photography — it gives your subject perfect clarity while removing much of the background detail. 2. Shoot at the widest aperture Along those same lines, you’ll always want to adjust your camera settings so that you can shoot at the widest aperture possible. Your ISO settings and shutter speed settings can be adjusted on the go to achieve this. Simply setting your aperture to the widest setting will end up with lackluster results, so ensure you compensate for it. 3. Shoot on an overcast day (if possible) Outdoor portrait photography lightning can be counterintuitive. Amateur photographers might assume that a sunny day means more light and that more light is a good thing. However, the exact opposite is true. The more light you have to work with, the more unwanted glare, shadow and squinting you’ll have to deal with on your model. A cloudy day brings with it a more natural, diffused lighting that will photograph cleaner. 4. If shooting on a sunny day, shoot in the shade Some days you schedule a shoot and have no choice but to bear with the overwhelming light thrown off by the sun, especially in the summertime. You can’t always reschedule a shoot, so you’ll often be forced to forge ahead even under less-than-ideal conditions. However, outdoor photography isn’t meant to provide you with perfect conditions — it’s supposed to challenge you to improvise, and who knows, at least your photo will have beautiful warm tones. Shooting in the shade or using a light reflector will help you overcome the sun’s glare. 5. Shoot in RAW format RAW format is an uncompressed file format that most DSLR cameras should allow you to shoot in. Believe it or not, even when you shoot manually and in high resolution on your DSLR, your camera is still making key decisions about color contrast and exposure. Your camera will ultimately compress that high-resolution photo, thereby lowering its maximum quality. Shooting in RAW tells your camera to not touch anything when you snap a photo — your camera will leave it exactly as it is, allowing you more control in post-processing to fine-tune what you want without anything else getting in the way. 6. Wait for the “Golden Hour” You might have heard the term “golden hour” thrown around even without completely understanding it. To put it simply, the golden hour is an hour (or less) where the sun begins to drop on the horizon before it officially sets. It is right before nighttime. As the sun lowers, its light diffuses through the atmosphere in such a way that it casts a magical, delicate orange light over the world. You might have seen it with your own eyes — you might have even stopped in your tracks and thought “Everything looks particularly beautiful right now” without realizing that what you were expiring is a coveted 1-hour window for photographers all over the world. 7. Invest in wardrobe & makeup Whether you do makeup and wardrobe, your model does it themselves, or you hire a professional to tag along on your shoot, you’ll want to make sure that both wardrobe and makeup are intentional components of your shoot. While it’s great to get a “natural” look with some of your photography, you’ll need to prove that you can control a session and do the kinds of things the professionals do, like intentionally dress and make up your subject in a way that complements your surroundings, tells a story, or exudes a certain something that shooting naturally often misses. 8. Shoot outside the box You made the jump from shooting inside a studio to shooting outdoors, so ensure you’re taking advantage of the biggest perk of outdoor photography — the sheer amount of spontaneity. Don’t keep your focus so narrowed on your subject that you forget to look around you. When you’re outside there are plenty of opportunities to improvise and go against your initial plans. And sometimes those photos are the ones that elevate your
Three ways to improve video engagement - Engagement is my favorite metric to track, as it represents the overall performance and health of your video. Unlike so-called vanity metrics such as Views (which show the reach of your video), metrics like Audience Retention tell you the percentage of the video the audience watched/engaged with and exactly what parts were watched. Analyzing this metric will help guide you on what your audience really wants to see so that you can do more of it in the future! This is important because video is powerful. The more time people spend watching your content, the more likely they are to engage with you. This means giving you a “Like” instead of just a view. Eventually, viewers will start to comment on or share your content. If they come back later, it could be to make an online purchase on a commerce site or request more information from a B2B site. The Holy Grail is to have highly engaged viewers become an advocate of your brand, freely promoting your content. Getting started You’ll want to first become familiar with your digital marketing channel of choice to see how they obtain their metrics, as channels may count or present metrics differently. Then, you’ll need to read the graphs and other data provided for your video. Below is an example of an Audience Retention graph for a video in YouTube and a video in Facebook. The graph line shows the percentage of total viewers watching the video at various times. It is typical for your engagement graph to receive a drop off at the beginning (as some people realize this video isn’t for them) and at the end (when the video is wrapping up and contact information appears), but the goal is to have the drop-off be minimal and gradual throughout the video. The gradual drop-off of the YouTube graph would be considered good, and a 74% retention is above the bench mark for a video of this length (which is one minute). The steep drop-off on the Facebook graph is not optimal, although Facebook videos often receive short 3-second views as people scroll by on their news feed, resulting in a sharper retention drop-off. It is worth noting that the graph can also rise up, as people may skip ahead or re-watch certain parts of the video. Re-watching could mean you have amazing content in a certain section, or that your content isn’t clear and a better explanation may be necessary. OK, now what? Three simple ways to improve engagement are finding what gets people excited to watch your content, tailoring your content to a specific social channel and keeping the length of your video content to a minimum. Generating excitement The title and thumbnail of your video is the “first impression” that you make on potential viewers. I recommend A/B testing your video titles and thumbnail images. If you have similar videos on YouTube, perhaps title one with the name of a person in the video, another with the topic and another with buzz words like “new.” See if a certain type of title gets higher view counts and engagement rates. If you are including videos in email marketing campaigns, try A/B testing with the email subject line. Adding the word “Video” to the subject line usually increases email open and click-through rate significantly. Just remember to keep the title and thumbnail relevant to the video. If you mislead a viewer with a title or image, they are likely to abruptly stop watching and that will cause a large drop off at the beginning of your engagement analytics. Tailor to a specific channel Your video may be performing great on YouTube, but not great on Facebook or Instagram. There could be many simple reasons why. For instance, Instagram tends to show the first frame of your video as the default thumbnail. Many people start videos with a fade from black, so they won’t be attracting viewers with that image. On Facebook, most people have audio off when scrolling through their news feed, so perhaps making a short version of your video with captions will catch people’s attention. Then, the post can have a link to the full video. Length matters Take a look at Wistia’s bench mark for engagement loss over time: Notice that the loss increases as time increases. This mimics viewer attention spans. Always be as concise as possible. A minute? Great. Two or three minutes. Fine. Five minutes? Only if there is a good reason. Now of course this varies by topic and industry (an engaging TED Talk can be 15 minutes without issue and a scientific lecture can be an hour easy). But, consider breaking longer content down into parts. For example, I had a 6-minute video and a 10 minute on similar topics with similar speakers. The 6-minute video had a much better engagement. I then broke the 6-minute video into two 3-minute videos and each video received even higher engagement. Your audience is much more likely to find time to view a larger percentage of short content. By following these tips, you can increase your video’s engagement. To become more involved with this, consider investing in social media management software or using video platforms like Brightcove. All of this should help your videos lead to an increase in sales, followers, or reach whatever your marketing goals may be.
