Lesson Info

Niche Branding

this leads me to a very weird pivot point, which I think is very important, which is about niche branding. And I bring this up as a pivot point because we're talking about growth we're talking about, you know, setting intentions for ourselves and for our art. And that might lead us naturally to a conversation about branding. Well, you might think what I'm saying to you. Pick a style, pick a voice, pick a technique pick a medium that you love, you know, and and let all of that come together under your inspiration, which could lead you to a brand. And a brand is very often a singular thing that you focus on so that you can create money around what you dio. But people often think of branding as niche branding like you pick one thing that you're going to do and then you do that thing. I don't particularly agree with that, and the reason why I don't agree is because branding is too often labeled as the thing that you produce, and how can you create a story around that? I think that if you b...

rand yourself around an idea rather than a thing than you are going to find more success at being able to rebrand and change what you dio and maintain support from your audience. I am very interested in this because I have been a photographer for 11.5 years. I have done ah lot of images. I have created a lot of work and a lot of it has looked very similar because I have a very consistent style and I remember coming up on a point where I felt bored by my own work. I felt bored by what I was doing time and time again, and I was worried that if I changed what I did, I would lose people. People would say, See, I'm not interested. Um, I really like this other thing that you did and now you're doing something different and I don't appreciate it, and that is a fear that is valid. People will leave when you change what you do, people are going to go. So what? First of all, your creativity and your inspiration is not dependent on other people. Second of all, if you brand yourself around an idea and not a particular thing, people will follow you for you and not for the thing that you're putting out. And that is what I have done over the past decade is to brand myself into an idea, an idea of passion, of innovation, of curiosity and because I have branded myself into an idea. It doesn't matter if I change what I dio. There are still people who will follow me for the idea and not for the thing, not for the product. And I have put this to test. Recently, I started doing mixed media. I started doing sculpture. I started painting on my prince. I started doing a lot more writing, and I still have people saying, No matter what you dio, I will be here to support you because I'm supporting the ideas that you stand for, not the art that you make. That is a revolutionary idea in branding because you will watch 100 classes that tell you you have to brand into a specific thing. You have to have this amazing product, and I'm not saying that they're wrong. But those ideas of branding don't consider longevity and the fact that you are a human being with different versions of yourself waiting inside ready to get out. So if you think that right now the thing that you're doing is what you're still gonna want to do in or 20 years, you might be wrong. You may be so sure. And when I started photography, I was so sure. I said, this is the only thing I will ever want to do in my whole life. I love it and it's not, and I don't love it all the time. And that's okay. It's okay. Toe walk outside of the zone that you've created for yourself, the box that you have put yourself in and trust that other people will follow if you tell them. Thio, if you're smart about how you brand yourself, branding can be about legacy. And if you worry less about your product changing and you worry more about the legacy that you're leaving and how you can bring people into your fold, then you're gonna be okay. It's gonna be fine all of that to say we will talk about branding more later in the class. So we're gonna go into more depth about how to do what I just said, since that was sort of a conceptual overview. But all of this comes together in your artistic timeline because timelines very often go like this. You have an interest. That interest turns into a passion. That passion turns into a main manic hobby that you just can't stop doing. And then after that, it turns into a career, and at some point you're going to feel burnout. You're going toe, find milestones that are important and others that you thought were gonna be great. That turned out horrible. You're going to find all these different points on your timeline that serve you that don't serve you. And I want to share my timeline with you in depth.

Class Description

Lessons

1. Class Introduction
2. Overview of Brooke’s Journey

   How Brooke went from creating only for herself to building a multi-faceted career in fine art photography.

3. Your Timeline is Nonlinear

   How to incorporate the idea of wealth into your journey as an artist.

4. Using Curiosity and Intention to Build Your Career

   Too many people rely heavily on either intuition or goal setting as a means of propelling their career forward. Brooke believes that there is a blend between the two that sets most professionals apart.

5. What Factors Dictate Growth

   A look at how improvement in the categories of technique, conceptualization, clarity of voice and vision, and impact all work together to create growth.

6. Organic Growth vs. Forced Growth

   The most successful artists are able to use inspiration strategically to create innovative works that regularly impress their audience.

7. Niche Branding

   If you brand yourself into a story, you will be less likely to fall victim to boredom within your branded niche.

8. Brooke’s Artistic Evolution and Timeline

   Watch as Brooke shares every important event in the past eleven years as an artist to see which were the most helpful in propelling her career forward.

9. How Can You Get Ahead if You Feel Behind?

   When you learn to celebrate small successes like they are big successes, you will rewire your brain to find optimism in the journey rather than pessimism.

10. Ideation and Conceptualization to Identify Meaning in Your Art

    Walk through several categories of meaning to figure out how you create and how others perceive your creations. You will learn how to layer the concepts of your art, create controversy in your ideas, how to make viewers feel something, and figure out where you land on the scale of fixation.

11. Idea Fluency

    Learn abou how your ability to generate many good ideas in a short time is directly influenced by brain science, and then learn how to control your own idea fluency through exercises.

12. How to Represent an Idea

    Ideas are represented by four elements: visual, symbolic, experiences, and emotions. Learn how to control those elements in your work by figuring them out in your work.

13. How to Innovate an Idea

    By examining your sense of style, sense of idea, and sense of innovation, we will walk through exercises to not only create what is in your mind, but to take it further to stir yourself and your audience.

14. Creating a Dialogue With Your Art

    Dialogue comes from provocation and response. Take a look at how to provoke an audience through visual and thematic clues, and then how to issue a definitive call to action.

15. Conceptualization For a Series vs. a Single Image

    Find out the differences between coming up with ideas for a single image vs. a series and see examples of series Brooke has created to deconstruct how they work.

16. Transforming a Single Image Into a Series

    A look at how to take a single idea and transform it into a cohesive series by focusing on visuals, theme, and through-line.

17. How to Tell a Story in a Series

    Storytelling can unfold thematically, abstractly, linearly, and/or concretely. Here you will look at how story structure can help create a more impactful series.

18. How to Create Costumes From Fabric

    Look at which fabrics work best for costuming, how color plays a role in costume selection, and how to tea dye or coffee stain costumes.

19. Brooke’s Most Useful Costumes

    See which costumes Brooke uses again and again and how to build a costume wardrobe with a few essentials that won’t break your budget.

20. Using Paint and Clay as Texture in an Image

    Brooke will demonstrate how creating texture on both skin and costumes can create a more dynamic look in the final image.

21. Create Physical Elements in an Image

    Brooke will share ideas of how to create sculptural elements in your images, like using wire, paper mache, and more.

22. Shooting for a Fine Art Series

    How you can create cohesion and conceptual flow across images in a series.

23. Conceptualization: Flowery Fish Bowl in the Desert

    A description of the image being created and why it is conceptually and visually relevant to the rest of the series.

24. Wardrobe and Texture

    How to choose wardrobe based on the concept of the image, and how to add texture to make the image more visually appealing.

25. Posing for the Story

    Brooke will photograph three different poses, each one changing the story of the image, to demonstrate how pose can alter the viewer’s perception of the series.

26. Choosing an Image

    Brooke will explain why she chose one image over another to demonstrate the need for angles and dynamic movement within an image.

27. Conceptualization: Rainy Plexiglass

    A description of the image being created and why it is conceptually and visually relevant to the rest of the series.

28. Posing for the Story

    Brooke walks through poses that become more and more complex, from posing the model behind a Plexiglas sheet, then adding water, then adding syrup.

29. Creating Backlight

    Using a portable LED light, Brooke moves the light from the side to the back to create a more abstract image.

30. Photo Shoot #1 - Creating a Simple Composite
31. Photo Shoot #2 - Creating a Dynamic Composite
32. Photo Shoot #3 - Creating a Storytelling Composite
33. Shooting the Background Images
34. Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Working With Backgrounds
35. Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Retouching the Subject
36. Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Color Grading
37. Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Floor Replacement Texture
38. Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Final Adjustments
39. Editing Samsara Shoot #2 - Cropping and Editing Backgrounds
40. Editing Samsara Shoot #2 - Selective Adjustments
41. Editing Samsara Shoot #2 - Adding Texture + Fine Tuning
42. Editing Composite Shoot #1 - Compositing Models
43. Editing Composite Shoot #1 - Expanding Rooms
44. Editing Composite Shoot #1 - Selective Color
45. Editing Composite Shoot #1 - Selective Exposure
46. Editing Composite Shoot #2- Masking Into Backgrounds
47. Editing Composite Shoot #2- Creating Rooms in Photoshop
48. Editing Composite Shoot #2- Compositing Hair
49. Editing Composite Shoot #2- Global Adjustments
50. Editing Composite Shoot #3- Blending Composite Elements
51. Editing Composite Shoot #3- Advanced Compositing
52. Editing Composite Shoot #3- Cleanup
53. Materials for Alternative Processes

    Brooke shows some materials she uses for alternative processes, or applying texture to an image after it is printed. She shows oil paints, wax, and more.

54. Oil Painting on Prints

    A look at applying oil paints to canvas prints and how that adds value to original prints.

55. Encaustic Wax on Prints

    A look at applying encaustic wax to canvas prints and how that adds value to original prints.

56. Failure vs. Sell Out

    Brooke shares how the most successful artists straddle a line between personal work and consideration of audience.

57. Create Art You Love and Bring an Audience To You

    When you identify areas of your process and craft that are non-negotiable vs. negotiable, you begin to identify how you can work best with clients and what you need to keep sacred.

58. Branding Yourself Into a Story

    When you consider that branding is a mixture of personality, art, storytelling, and business, you can feel more at ease with your brand not just being one single thing.

59. The Artistic Narrative

    Defining what stories you want to tell about yourself directly influences how you tell the story of your brand through your business.

60. Get People to Care About Your Story

    Your brand must inherently bring interest and value to the people who are viewing it. Take a look at how you can begin down that journey.

61. Get People to Buy Your Story

    From identifying your clientele to figuring out how you can meet their needs, shifting someone from an admirer of your art to a patron of your business is important in becoming a full time artist.

62. Getting Galleries and Publishers to Take Notice

    Steps we can take to get representatives to pay attention, like the importance of regular interaction and becoming a resource.

63. Pricing For Commissions
64. Original Prints vs. Limited Edition Prints vs. Open Edition Prints

    Brooke goes through the benefits of selling original prints and how they can be done simply to add to your arsenal as an artist.

65. Class Outro
66. Live Premiere
67. Live Premiere: Layers of Depth 1
68. Live Premiere: Layers of Depth 2
69. Live Premiere: Q&A
70. Live Premiere: Photo Critique