Kris D'Amico Photography

April 26th, 2012 by Kris

1. Include mini-contact forms wherever you can. That means at the bottom of your portfolio, on your home page, after each blog post, and multiple times on your about page.
2. Make call to action buttons big and impossible to ignore. The second a client decides he wants to hire you, there should be a very obvious place to get in touch with you. Don’t make them search for a discrete contact page or navigate all your pages looking for an email address.You want them to notice your call to action button BEFORE they make the decision to hire you so that when they do make the decision, they know just where to go!
3. Don’t use “email me” links–use forms instead. If you’d like to give your email address out, that’s fine. But you should include more than just an “email me” link on your site.On your contact page, and throughout your site, include actual forms that will allow your site visitors to contact you (see point 1).
4. Step out of your confort zone. You might feel like it’s too assertive to include multiple contact forms, giant call-to-action buttons, and forms on every page.Stop worrying about it.Your site visitors are there to check out your work and possibly hire you.They know that’s what your site is about. Imagine if you went to the grocery store and the store manager thought it was too presumptuous to put the cash registers right at the front of the store, or thought it might annoy customers to highlight sales and lower prices on particular items.Crazy!

April 25th, 2012 by Kris

I recently did a shoot for one of my buddies, Lance T. Miller. He designs cards for the magic and gaming industries. Interesting stuff, well here are few shots from the shoot and a link to his site if you’d like to grab a pack or box or what have you. Special thank you to Jason Michaels for being our resident card artist for the shoot. Cheers!

Read the rest of this entry »

April 9th, 2012 by Kris

I’ve got a large job coming up here with a very high profile client. And I’m all blocked up… Sure the agency has send over some stuff. Much of the “idea” work is done, it’s just up to us to come with something “brillant!” Here are few things that I found on line, I’ll let you know if any of them work. Read the rest of this entry »

April 5th, 2012 by Kris

“Here’s to the corkscrew – a useful key to unlock the storehouse of wit, the treasury of laughter, the front door of fellowship, and the gate of pleasant folly.”  -W.E.P. French

Have a great second half of your week!

March 27th, 2012 by Kris

This is something I’ve struggled with for years, now I’m no expert but this seems to have been working for me and so I’ll share it with you. Here’s a down and dirty hit list of what I’ve done or do, whatever. Ready?

1. Go here and go thru the portfolio selection process
2. Pay a consultant to help you edit your work from your top 500 down to your 80-100 marketing images, I’d recommend Amanda Sosa Stone, she’s a rock star.
3. Email your friends, family, old clients, whoever’s in your contact list and have them look at your “new” portfolio, these folks are your unofficial sales folks. I think I get 3 or 4 jobs a year, just from my dad and mom just talking to their friends.
4. If you choose to buy a list then you’ve got a call sheet, if not, google local folks.
5. Once you get a few hit backs, hop on the phone. Calling people is VERY painful for me, but exposure is the name of the game! Write yourself out a script. Be polite and by George keep it short and to the point, most of these folks are doing 2 or 3 people’s jobs.
6. Follow up all your calls with emails.
7. Repeat the last 2 steps once a month.

March 23rd, 2012 by Kris

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.” -Thomas H. Huxley

March 20th, 2012 by Kris

Just found out that our photography work was featured in several ADDY® winning submissions to the Nashville Ad Fed’s ADDY awards. Although, we didn’t win any ADDY’s directly, we’re proud of our peeps and that our images helped lift up their work! Congrats to Caddis Interactive and IO Studio, both great clients and both do great work!

The 2 winning submissions thru IO Studio:

Silver ADDY® Award - Soldier with Green Smoke  for  Army National Guard

Silver ADDY® Award - Gas Mask Soldier  for  Army National Guard

March 19th, 2012 by Kris

I just had a conversation with a client and we were talking about how easy it is to get bogged down with the business of being in business. He and I both agreed that at the end of the day we need to assess our goals to determine where our attention needs to be. Here’s a few bullet points to share some of our conversation:

• Set 5 year goals. Think about which needs to come first: Financial stability or great creative?
• Think about why you do what you do. Is it for the art? Is it because it fell into your lap? Or is it all you know?
• Regardless of your goals, understand that the “world” doesn’t care if you succeed or fail. That’s on your shoulders.
• Find other people who share your point of view, people who do what you do, get together, share ideas, understand this is a community. Van Gogh was a great painter, but before he was a “insane” artist he was a teacher and a leader in his community.
• Above all, do personal projects, even if it’s a sketch on your napkin. Do something for yourself. Every day.

Have an amazing week.

-KD

March 15th, 2012 by Kris

March 14th, 2012 by Kris

One of my wonderful clients, Military Systems Group, had me do an exploded view of one of their products for a sales flyer. I thought it was cool enough to post up here. Enjoy.

Here’s a shot of what the system  looks like put together: