Kris D'Amico Photography

September 6th, 2010 by Kris

My good friend Chad McClarnon always says the same thing when you ask him his lighting technique, “I want a window there, so I put one there.” What a great simple straight forward technique! Sometimes there is a bit more to it than that, but often times not. Just think about that the next time you are stumped on how to light something.

So here’s a little example of this technique at work:

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August 30th, 2010 by Kris

Just quick post today, I’ve got several deadlines this week and of course I’m already behind. I did want to post up so advice that I’ve gotten from the collective wisdom of Google and the interwebs. When I started this photography business ten years ago, I started it with $450 and no real direction, so it was essential that learned how to buck up and make the few deadlines I did have as perfect as possible. As you freelancers and Sole Props know, when you’re the boss, you kind of have to be a jerk to yourself. Anyway, here are a few things that I do to stay on track.

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August 24th, 2010 by Kris

Now, we all know how tricky it is to shoot black on black and I get a lot of questions about how I manage to shoot black on black and white on white. My answer is simple, hire a great retoucher. ONLY KIDDING, but seriously a great retoucher will make your life easier. We all know though that I am a huge fan of shoot it right the first time and will make post easier, your retoucher will thank you. Even if your retoucher is you… but I digress, here’s the shot that I’m going to talk about.

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August 10th, 2010 by Kris

As several of you know, I’ve been traveling quite a bit over the last few weeks. We were in San Francisco, Napa, and Sonoma, then in New York, Atlanta, and soon out to West Virgina and North Carolina. Almost all of this work is coming from a wonderful realtionship based around food. It is always interesting to me, to see how certain passions can make way for opportunities.

Several years ago, when I left my job as a server and bartender to pursue photography full time, I left for a big(ish) gig shooting holiday foods. And up until recently I have only photographed a handful of food images, mostly for fun. So, in a manner of speaking food has kept our family “fed” for a time in the past and now it’s “feeding” us again.

I share this with you only to say, follow your passions. Do what you need to do to make sure you can still pursue your art, but don’t loose sight of your other passions, they will lead you. Stay in prayer about your business, put your family first, and the rest will fall in line.

Now go shoot something amazing and go show it off!

Till next time.

-KD

June 22nd, 2010 by Kris

So, I’ve recently been faced with an interesting challenge. It seems that many photographers, specifically in my price range and geographic location are missing a key element in their business model; Attention to Detail. So people are hiring me to re-shoot images from folks that simply lacked the attention to detail to make a successful image. Technically there’s nothing wrong with several of the images, but we all know that just because something’s technically correct, does not mean it’s art. Right?

There are several websites out there that outline how to have better ATD, but those mostly deal with “self-help” or corporate training. Here are my 3 steps for creatives to up your attention to detail.

1. Think about your audience. Take a minute and do an old fashioned strategy session in your own head, who’s looking at this, what’s the MOST important element, what really not that important, but needs to be there because of specific requirements.
2. Slow down and look. Trust me, I know this is difficult to do when the client is gazing over your shoulder and the clock is ticking down, but the difference will be marked. Look at your elements and make creative decisions about form.
3. Be self-aware. At the risk of sounding too self-help-ish, it has always helped me to take a breath and say, “This is just a picture, how can I make the best image possible.” You know your clients, your end users, you have a handle on what they’ll respond to and what they’ll glaze over. I guess I’m just saying use your time wisely.

That’s it for this time. Be well and go make something amazing.

KD

June 13th, 2010 by Kris

So, as many of you know, I’ve been pretty busy over the last 3 weeks. We’ve had several projects that crossed and blurred the lines between traditional ads, viral marketing and cutting edge public relations messaging. It’s gotten me thinking about that age old question that all artists deal with when working in the marketing and advertising world, “What do I do?” Read the rest of this entry »

June 8th, 2010 by Kris

So, here is the great irony of time management. I was supposed to put this post up last week and because of my poor time management, I missed my own deadline. Funny that!

So, without soaking up too much of your very valuable time I wanted to touch on some of the tools different people use to keep themselves on schedule.

Personally I use Google’s Calendar and Tada List by 37 Signals.

We’ve all seen Google Calendar and it’s pretty straightforward to use, I did download a little thing to keep iCal and Google sync’d up and then I read this help article. It seems to keep most things sync’d up between my phone and the online version.

For those of you who DON’T know about 37Signals and basecamp, you really should get to know them. They are an old web design shop that went the way of product design and wow, they do some amazing stuff. Do Tada List is pretty simple it’s an online to do list that you can share with whoever. For me, I use it when I’m in over my head. I jot down from the most important to the least important things to do that week and share it with my key personnel (aka my wife and sometimes my sister). Anyway, it’s definitely worth checking out.

So, some of the other suggestions I’ve received are TeuxDeux, from Freyanator. It’s another web based to do list that’s laid out in a day by day system. Very cool stuff. The ladies over at Dandy Lion Events also turned me on to Time Management Ninja. It’s a blog with sections dedicated to how to be more efficient with your email, your blog, your technology, etc. Definitely worth adding to the regular reads in your RSS feeder. That’s all for now! Have a great week and we’ll talk to you very soon!

KD

May 10th, 2010 by Kris

From an email blast I receive from Ivan Levison, a great copywiter.

“If someone wants to optimize their Web site for the search engines, what’s the first five things you’d tell them to do.”

Here’s [Mary O'Brien's] advice in her own words . . .

#1. Develop a Relevant Keyword List

Developing an effective keyword strategy for B2B SEO can be very challenging. Start with a brainstorming session and pull together as large a list as you can. Try to include every term possible that a potential prospect might search on. Focus more on broad keywords and don’t get caught up in industry or company brand lingo. Think of all the types of products and services you sell.

#2.  Decide which phrases to target

Once you’ve created your list of potential keywords, you need to discover how popular those terms are. Use a tool like Wordstream or Google’s Traffic Estimator to find out the historical popularity of those keywords or take the data from your AdWords campaign and extrapolate, based on searches and ROI. This will give you a better idea of the most relevant terms to target for your SEO.

#3. Create content to match the keywords

Develop pages that specifically focus on each term you have selected with good site architecture around each one. Try to speak to prospects’ needs in your copy, but also consider the search engines and what they are looking for when they crawl your site. Watch your word order, singulars and plurals and the length of your copy. Longer copy is typically better for B2B prospects as it allows you to provide education on your product or service. Search Engines also appreciate longer copy and you have an opportunity to position your keyword more frequently within it.

#4. Focus on your external links

Establish a good linking strategy by thinking of all the ways you can reach your audience through your content. Post on article sites, tweet, blog, have company members appear as guest bloggers, distribute white papers, create webinars and case studies around your articles and products, etc. Anything that can position your company as a thought leader is a good thing especially if it provides a link back to your site.

#5. Focus on your internal links

Work all of these extra content pages into your navigation. Some of these pages will be accessible through your site-wide navigation while others may be in the sub-navigation of a particular section or only be available through text links in the body copy of a page. Keep the content pages for your most targeted and highly searched terms closest to the home page with the least amount of clicks to get to them. Content pages related to less relevant, more obscure, or niche terms can be accessed from deeper in your site.

Ivan’s Information:
Phone: (415) 461-0672
E-mail: ivan@levison.com

May 9th, 2010 by Kris

Here’s a little note from Seth Godin blog, from about a week ago. And yes I am that behind on my blog roll… deal with it. It’s after the break.

We’ll be on location this week, so have a good week and if you haven’t already go volunteer or help in your community. If it’s an unprecedented oil spills, 1000 year floods, or just a bad economy, take 20 minutes out of your week and help someone else out. It doesn’t matter who, neighbor, friend, or complete stranger. You never know when you’ll need the favor returned.

KD

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May 4th, 2010 by Kris

If your living depends on video in ANYWAY, you’ll want to read this.

Excerpt from the article:

“You see, there is something very important, that the vast majority of both consumers and video professionals don’t know: ALL modern video cameras and camcorders that shoot in h.264 or mpeg2, come with a license agreement that says that you can only use that camera to shoot video for “personal use and non-commercial” purposes (go on, read your manuals). I was first made aware of such a restriction when someone mentioned that in a forum, about the Canon 7D dSLR. I thought it didn’t apply to me, since I had bought the double-the-price, professional (or at least prosumer), Canon 5D Mark II. But looking at its license agreement last night (page 241), I found out that even my $3000 camera comes with such a basic license. So, I downloaded the manual for the Canon 1D Mark IV, a camera that costs $5000, and where Canon consistently used the word “professional” and “video” on the same sentence on their press release for that camera. Nope! Same restriction: you can only use your professional video dSLR camera (professional, according to Canon’s press release), for non-professional reasons. And going even further, I found that even their truly professional video camcorder, the $8000 Canon XL-H1A that uses mpeg2, also comes with a similar restriction. You can only use your professional camera for non-commercial purposes. For any other purpose, you must get a license from MPEG-LA and pay them royalties for each copy sold. I personally find this utterly unacceptable.”

Seriously, you need to read the rest.

Original Post by Eugenia Loli-Queru.