Fine Art Photography: The Complete Guide
Lesson Info
How to Keep Licensing Organized
So we're gonna talk with licensing about organization of those files, organization of the whole spreadsheet keeping track of all these things that you have to remember when you're licensing an image, which gets highly complicated, where to license your images, where you might wanna upload your pictures to and have somebody sell them for you, or that you might want to sell yourself, and then how do we price licensed images? And I'm excited to talk again about pricing, because it is something that people really struggle with, that I have often struggled with, and I wanna try to just break down what it means to price a licensed image, as much as we can. And I'm gonna tell you right up front, it's a lot more complicated than pricing a print for a gallery. So just prepare yourself mentally right now. Okay. Organization. When we're talking about organization for licensed images, I don't necessarily mean where you keep them in folders on your desktop or anything like that, or how to back them...
up. What I mean is how do you keep track of which images have gone where and for how long and for what projects and things like that? So the title of the project is good to have, as well as the title of the image that you're licensing. Who is licensing it specifically? And I mention that because there are a lot of publishing companies, for example, that work with other publishing companies and they might, you know, totally innocently, give that image to this other publishing company that they work with for this other thing that they wanna do and it's not really meant to go to that person. So who exactly is the licensee? What region are you licensing within? When I say region, I mean what country? What part of the world? For example, this book is in a language that I don't know but it's in another language. Can anybody read that? No? That's okay. It's in a language that I don't understand because I have a lived a sheltered life and I don't know languages. But this was, let's just say, it looks like maybe the Netherlands or something like that. Netherlands! It is. Okay. So this was from the Netherlands and this image was licensed for this book cover so when I created this contract, one thing that I might have said was, "do you want this image to be sold anywhere else? Are you okay with that?" The price will change based on their answer. So they might have said, "please don't sell this image to anyone else in the Netherlands." Okay? So that would be restriction by region by saying, well, I don't mind if you sell this picture to somebody else other places in the world, but not in the Netherlands because that's where we're based, that's where this book will be distributed and that's what's most important to them. Alright, so aside from region, duration. How long is the license going to last? Will this be a worldwide exclusive forever license? Or are you going to limit the duration of the license? So you might, I might tell these people in the Netherlands you can have this picture for three years with exclusivity in the Netherlands but after three years is up, I can still sell that picture to anybody else that I want in the Netherlands. Just an example of how you would use duration to limit or expand your license. And then the medium. So maybe... I'm just gonna keep holding this book instead of putting it down. Maybe if this person came to me and they said, "I want to license this image, it's for this book, I need exclusivity in the Netherlands, but also on all book covers worldwide," then that would be exclusivity by medium and that's something that we have to think about. They might say you can still make prints of it, you can still, you know, sell to bands for album art, you can do movie posters, but just not books because they want the rights to the books. Something to think about. And then price is what you'll also organize into your spreadsheet. How much did you sell for? What are the terms and conditions? And I've already showed this to you a little bit and I just wanted to run through this one more time because I think it's very important that we're really clear about organization here with licensed images. This can be an extremely difficult thing to untangle if you haven't kept track of who you're selling your images to. So I've got here the title of the image, the licensee, the amount that I sold it for, if it's exclusive or not, what the terms are, terms and conditions, how they paid, what format it's in, digital versus print, the print run of it. So if they did sell it, how many copies are out there? Things that you might want to know. I tried to make these spreadsheets with every piece of information I can think of, even if I can't even see how it's relevant right now. If I just think one day down the road I'd really like to know how many copies of this book are out there, I'm just gonna ask right up front and figure out what their print run is. The other really good thing about doing that, about asking about their print run size, is that you know then, and let's say they can't afford a really expensive license, then you might say, "you know what, if your first print run is 5000 copies, then I'll sell it to you for this print run. But if you do another print run, you'll owe me 300 more dollars," let's just say. So it's good to know the print run. Invoice, medium, what is it on? So is it a book or is it a CD or is it a movie poster? The working title, and any notes. And so we've already gone over this so I'm gonna skip right past it, but just really emphasizing how important each of these categories are.
Class Description
Creating a great photo for a client is one thing - but turning your passion and ideas into a series that is shared, shown, and sold is a whole different business. If you do it right, you’ll be shooting what you love all the time. Learn how to choose which ideas to create, how to turn your concept into a production, and steps to getting your work seen and even sold in Fine Art Photography: A Complete Guide with Award-Winning Photographer, Brooke Shaden.
This is an all-inclusive workshop that provides the tools you need to run a successful and creative business as a fine art photographer. You’ll learn creative exercises to find and develop your ideas, how to create an original narrative, how to produce your own photo series, post production techniques and skills for compositing and retouching, how to write about your work, ways to pitch to galleries and agents, and how to print your pieces so they look like art.
This workshop will take you on location with Brooke as she creates a photo series from scratch. She’ll walk through every step for her photo shoots including set design and location scouting, she’ll cover techniques in the field for capturing your artistic vision, post-production and compositing techniques, as well as printing and framing essentials.
She’ll round out this experience by discussing all of the details that will help make your career a success like licensing, commissions, artists statements, social media plans, gallery prep, and pricing your work.
This comprehensive course is a powerful look into the world of fine art photography led by one of the world’s most talented photographers, Brooke Shaden. Included with purchase is exclusive access to bonus material that gives exercises and downloads for all of the lessons.
Lessons
1Class Introduction2Storytelling & Ideas
3Universal Symbols in Stories
4Create Interactive Characters
5The Story is in The Details
6Giving Your Audience Feelings
7Guided Daydream Exercise
8Elements of Imagery
9The Death Scenario
10Associations with Objects
11Three Writing Exercises
12Connection Through Art
13Break Through Imposter Syndrome
14Layering Inspiration
15Creating an Original Narrative
16Analyze an Image
17Translate Emotion into Images
18Finding Parts in Images
19Finding Your Target Audience
20Where Do You Want Your Images to Live?
21Create a Series That Targets Your Audience
22Formatting Your Work
23Additional Materials to Attract Clients
24Which Social Media Platforms Will be Useful?
25How to Make Money from Your Target Audience
26Circle of Focus
27The Pillars of Branding
28Planning Your Photoshoot
29Choose Every Element for The Series
30Write a Descriptive Paragraph
31Sketch Your Ideas
32Choose Your Gear
33How to Utilize Costumes, Props & Locations
34What Tells a Story in a Series?
35Set Design Overview
36Color Theory
37Lighting for the Scene
38Props, Wardrobe & Time Period for Set Design
39Locations
40Subject Within the Scene
41Set Design Arrangement
42Fine Art Compositing
43Plan The Composite Before Shooting
44Checklist for Composite Shooting
45Analyze Composite Mistakes
46Shoot: Black Backdrop for White Clothing
47Shoot: Black Backdrop for Color Clothing
48Shoot: Black Backdrop for Accessories
49Shoot: Miniature Scene
50Editing Workflow Overview
51Add Fabric to Make a Big Dress
52Edit Details of Images
53Add Smoke & Texture
54Blend Multiple Images Into One Composite
55Put Subject Into a Miniature Scenario
56Location Scouting & Test Photoshoot
57Self Portrait Test Shoots
58Shoot for Edit
59Shoot Extra Stock Images
60Practice the Shoot
61Introduction to Shooting Photo Series
62Shoot: Vine Image
63Shoot: Sand Image
64Shoot: End Table Image
65Shoot: Bed Image
66Shoot: Wall Paper Image
67Shoot: Chair Image
68Shoot: Mirror Image
69Shoot: Moss Image
70Shoot: Tree Image
71Shoot: Fish Tank Image
72Shoot: Feather Image
73View Photo Series for Cohesion & Advanced Compositing
74Edit Multiple Images to Show Cohesion
75Edit Images with Advanced Compositing
76Decide How to Start the Composite
77Organize Final Images
78Choosing Images for Your Portfolio
79Order the Images in Your Portfolio
80Why do Some Images Sell More Than Others?
81Analyze Student Portfolio Image Order
82Framing, Sizing, Editioning & Pricing
83Determine Sizes for Prints
84How to Choose Paper
85How to Choose Editions
86Pricing Strategies
87How to Present Your Images
88Example Pricing Exercise
89Print Examples
90Licensing, Commissions & Contracts
91How to Keep Licensing Organized
92How to Prepare Files for Licensing
93Pricing Your Licensed Images
94Contract Terms for Licensing
95Where to Sell Images
96Commission Pricing Structure
97Contract for Commissions
98Questions for a Commission Shoot
99Working with Galleries
100Benefits of Galleries
101Contracts for Galleries
102How to Find Galleries
103Choose Images to Show
104Hanging the Images
105Importance of Proofing Prints
106Interview with Soren Christensen Gallery
107Press Package Overview
108Artist Statement for Your Series
109Write Your 'About Me' Page
110Importance of Your Headshot
111Create a Leave Behind & Elevator Pitch
112Writing For Fine Art
113Define Your Writing Style
114Find Your Genre
115What Sets You Apart?
116Write to Different Audiences
117Write for Blogging
118Speak About Your Work
119Branding for Video
120Clearly Define Video Talking Points
121Types of Video Content
122Interview Practice
123Diversifying Social Media Content
124Create an Intentional Social Media Persona
125Monetize Your Social Media Presence
126Social Media Posting Plan
127Choose Networks to Use & Invest
128Presentation of Final Images
129Printing Your Series
130How to Work With a Print Lab
131Proofing Your Prints
132Bad Vs. Good Prints
133Find Confidence to Print
134Why Critique?
135Critiquing Your Own Portfolio
136Critique of Brooke's Series
137Critique of Student Series
138Yours is a Story Worth Telling