This is the first commercial photography course to be designed and taught by a photography consultant with over 20 years of experience working not only as a photographer, but as a magazine photo editor, advertising agency art buyer, and photography rep.
In this Commercial Photography Masterclass, I will teach you everything I know about the business of commercial and editorial photography. You will learn how to best build and present your photography portfolio to potential clients, and reach out for the jobs and assignments that you really want.
This course is geared toward professional photographers at all levels of experience who want a better understanding of how to work within editorial, advertising and commercial markets.
We are going to start by defining your niche, or specialty, and target market. This will be the foundation of the course, what I call your Lighthouse for editing your work. Then I will teach you effective and authentic marketing skills to help you land assignments that light you up.
Course organization:
•Module 1 is an introduction to commercial and editorial photography key definitions and key players.
You’ll learn about the different roles at the kinds of brands and magazines you want to shoot for, what the titles mean, who selects and hires photographers, and what they want to see in your portfolio. I will provide a glossary of industry terms and insider lingo for you to reference throughout the course and your career.
•In Module 2 we are going to home in on what niche of photography you want to specialize in and how to define your target market if you haven’t already or if you need to narrow it down.
This will be your Lighthouse for the rest of the course.
•Module 3 will show you how to edit your work to present a clear and outstanding website to your target market. We’ll also discuss print and tablet portfolios as well as branding.
•Module 4 covers everything you ever wanted to know about marketing your photography business for editorial and commercial assignments. You will learn about creating contact lists, networking, social media, email communication and print marketing. These lessons are packed full of guidance, examples, resources and actionable advice.
•Module 5 will give you an introductory understanding of rates, estimates, bidding, licensing and contracts for commercial and editorial photography.
With each module I will include examples, templates, homework, as well as helpful downloads.
When you are done with this course, you will have a well-defined brand, the tools to find the people who hire photographers, and an understanding of how, when and how often to reach out to them.
The lessons in this course are not intended to cover the business of wedding photography, family portraits, senior photos, head shots, fine art, selling prints or stock photography (what I refer to as retail photography). Those are all very lucrative areas to be working in, but not my area of expertise.
This course is not designed to enhance the business of retail photographers, however it is an excellent course if you are looking to transform your retail business into more commercial work and gain a better understanding of editorial and advertising photography.
The course information is derived from my experience working in the United States. Markets and rates can differ in other countries, but much of this guidance is applicable to global markets.
This course focuses heavily on marketing, communication and portfolio building. I will not be teaching about shooting, lighting or other technical aspects of photography.
Why learn from me? ? I am a photography business consultant with over 20 years of experience working in the photography industry as a photo editor for magazines and television networks, as an art buyer and photography producer for national advertising agencies, and as a photographer representative and agency owner in New York City, California, Texas and other markets.
I am also a photographer who has worked on commercial and editorial fashion, portrait and interiors assignments. My photography has been published in magazines, on the covers of albums, on digital billboards, in books, and in ad campaigns.
I have worked with brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Teen Vogue, The New Yorker, Esquire, UPS, Allstate Insurance, Universal Records, Disney, Netflix, Paramount, MTV, 7-Eleven, Mary Kay, Essence, James Avery, JCPenney and so many more.
I am thrilled to be sharing my deep knowledge with you in this course — not only from my experience behind the camera, but from all of the roles that I have served in over the past two decades. I am grateful for this platform to be able to share all of this information in one place, especially now, to help photographers keep growing and elevating their businesses.
I hope you will join me! #ImRootingForYou ✨
