Kris D'Amico Photography

August 16th, 2010 by Kris

Just a quick post, but I feel like I get a lot of email and phone calls about folks wanting to work with us, but they are either not sure how they can help or they are hyper niche focused that we could work together on one job twice a year. Trust me when I say, I know how you feel. For years I went around to agencies, big and small, saying “I just want to shoot.” Before that I’d call these photog’s with these huge studios and say “I just want to help!” So, can we take votes on how many of those jobs I was awarded? Yeah.

So, here are a few tips from some guys that have a feed on the knowledge of the universe, ok, maybe not, but they’ve been shooting for a long time and let a few trade secrets slip. Here’s a few:

1. Scott Lowden took me aside after I came in to show my book and just asked, what is it that you want to shoot? I said people. So, he’d call for gigs with people. It was that simple. Know what you want to shoot, pick something and stand on it. Nothing too specific, but something to narrow the scope and make you at least sound like you’ve spent 2 minutes thinking about what you want to do.

2. Franklin Viola told me to never to apologize for what’s in my portfolio. Here’s a big one for me, I used to go in and stumble thru my folio and blabber on and on about it. Here’s a follow up, don’t apologize for your work and don’t speak about it unless you’re asked. I know that sounds kind of harsh, BUT more than likely people will respond to different pieces than you expect. Just keep that in your mind.

3. Brian Robbins made one simple point that I will always remember. Work until the job is finished. That’s in, if it’s a 5 hour day or an all night gig that lasts 14 hours, just keep working until the job is finished.

So, I hope that one of these might resonate in your adventures this week!

KD