Writing introduction letters to potential editors or other vendors that you want to work with is a bit like asking someone out on a date the moment you meet them. It is a bit harder to be charming when all you have to look at is your own computer screen and self doubt. So, I hit the internet looking for ideas to help me write first contact emails.

The art of email seduction, no?

I tried to spice up the intro sentences beyond the boring “my name is” bit. And, I’m keeping the emails short and to the point so as not to bore anyone. I talked about them and what I could do for them or bring to their team – never getting cute or making any jokes. In the end, I asked them to email me back so that I could mail them some information.

I want to work with all of the editors that I emailed, and Alison and I both want to work with all of the wedding vendors whom we crafted emails for together. All of the people are hand picked by us, but somehow that makes the possibility of rejection all the more daunting. Still, we press on because the few people who do reply are ones we hope will work with us for years to come.

It does feel a lot like asking someone out on a date, but somehow people have been getting together since the dawn of our species. Right?

When a rooster crows, it sounds like the cross between a broken old car horn and a hoarse man yelling, “Happy New Year!” Now, multiply that by 32 roosters and you have quite a ruckus. Add to that being attacked repeatedly by a rooster named Charlie and you have the day I spent photographing chickens at my parents’ house in the mountains.

This is Charlie trying to attack me.

When we give all we’ve got to get great images, we want that to be worth something, right? When we go out there and are attacked by roosters, we want it be worth something. I know that I do. The more fun I have when I am making pictures, the more I want people to see the images that I make. By using “ALT” text when we post these images to our blog, we’re making our blogs more SEO friendly so that more people view them.

ALT text is text that is intended to be displayed if the image is not available, but it is also used by Google to rank and sort images posted on the internet. I just realized what a benefit this can be when I was reading a blog over at Photographers SEO Community. The idea is that when Google crawls your site looking for key words and comes upon your images, they will include your images into a bunch of new search results based on the ALT text you provide.

The red text is the ALT text code that goes in the IMG tag.

All you have to do is use the captions that most photojournalists already write for all of their photographs. Remember to use key words like the ones that you create for your meta tags. Wedding photographers don’t forget to mention the venue. Just be careful not to use the same phrases or generic captions repeatedly because most search engines view that as spam and will choose not to rank your site.

Just think, next time you are battling chickens for the perfect picture, remember that ALT text will help you get those pictures to the people who are searching for them. ALT text by itself may not put you on the top of a Google search page, but it will get your images in front of the people who want to see them

If you look in my closet you will see stacks of blue jeans and black t-shirts. I am pretty simple when it comes to fashion: I like things clean and subdued. I have never spent much thought as to what I should wear while shooting or what I shouldn’t, unless, of course there was a weather or safety concern. It has come to my attention from photographing weddings and general life experience that if I want to make a run at marketing my business, then I need to market myself.

The new me. Photo by Alison Yin

Makeover! I am not kidding. I’m making changes to the way I present myself. I have upgraded from white shirts and dockers when photographing weddings to coordinated suits and ties. I now have a hair stylist, and am no longer cutting my hair myself or going to a cheap barber. I have even whitened my teeth.

It is hard to get work now as the newspaper industry is changing and the economy is struggling. I want any edge I can get, and that is why I am focusing so much of my attention on marketing this year. In 2006, the National Association of Colleges and Employers did a study about what physical attributes employers paid attention to when deciding to hire someone or not. The attribute that affected a hiring decision the most was grooming; 70% of the people polled said it influenced them strongly, and the second most influential attribute was clothing as 49% of the people polled said it influenced them strongly.

I have decided to look at what I consider to be more professional. Still, this only goes so far. I have tattoos on the inside of my forearms, and the button up shirts I wear when shooting for newspapers are actually snaps. I still want to be me, but I also don’t want to put off people who could potentially hire me.

As another part of the relief effort for Japan, we are participating in a charity benefit next Tuesday, April 26, at Blu Bungalow in San Francisco.  There are tons of wedding professionals who are donating services and goodies for a silent auction where all proceeds will go to Shelterbox for the relief effort.  If you’re in the area, please RSVP (it’s free!) and come bid on some super cool stuff!  Some of the awesome bidding items include a make-up lesson by Jane Kim (for regular blog readers she prettied up all the girls in Erika and Colin’s wedding last year), a couple of flower garlands by Ashley Meaders (this girl is a creative genius! and we hope to photograph a wedding she’s touched one of these days), and prints by uber fabulous L.A. photographer Max Wanger.  We are donating two matted, framed and signed travel prints taken by Alison Yin.  Check them out below:

Hounds in the Loire Valley in France.

Llamas in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

We look forward to seeing you there. Here’s where you can RSVP and see more info about the event:  http://www.forjapanwithlove.com/sfbenefit.html

I may not be the standing in the bushes type of stalker, but I am feeling a little bit creepy lately. I am sitting on my couch with my laptop on my lap surrounded by my cryptic notebooks and bridal magazines. Not odd enough for you. I am “researching,” down to the last detail, wedding coordinators and planners that I think Alison Yin Wedding Photography should get to know. This means reading their bios, checking out their Facebook pages and reading as much press on them as I can find. Yes, this is a little bit odd for a thirty year old man to be spending his day doing, but if I wasn’t a little bit off then I wouldn’t be me.

One of my product shots of our new pricing guide.

Alison and I have created a plan to expand our marketing to include planners and coordinators. As part of that I have been researching who to send our marketing packets to. So, here is the plan:

1. We started by rebranding and creating all new collateral. This was our jump to creating an overall identity. You can read about that here, here and here.
2. We are researching wedding coordinators to find those who might fit with us in style and aesthetic, personality, or overall world view. We want to work with people that we feel we will have a good rapport with.
3. We will send each wedding planner an envelope with our business card and a pricing guide. You can check out the pricing guide here. We are sending these out so that the planner has something that they can show prospective clients.
4. Finally, Alison is writing each planner a personal letter telling him/her why we think that it would be a good fit for us to work together.

I guess maybe it takes a little creepy OCDness to give personal touches to your marketing. Whatever the answer, I feel great about the work that Alison and I are doing to try to get to know wedding planners and expand the avenues through which we receive wedding inquiries.

Marketing is better when it is a bicycle built for two. That may sound silly but it is true. When you work with other vendors to market one another you don’t have to do all of the pedaling uphill on your own.

The flowers were drawn Emma Robertson

This week, one of the vendors that we use at Alison Yin Wedding Photography called Jewelboxing blogged about us. We had posted a blog about our new case design featuring their DVD cases and linked to them in the post. They returned the favor and said all kinds of wonderful things about Alison and her photography.

Please, check it out here.
Or our original blog at Alison Yin’s Wedding blog here.

On a Friday night, you probably won’t find Alison and I out on the town because we work weekends as do many wedding and professional sports photographers. You will find us curled up on our couch with hot fudge covered ice cream catching up on the gossip from the women of Wisteria Lane. That’s right. We cannot get enough “Desperate House Wives.” Who’s cheating on who, Who’s fallen off the wagon, and my personal favorite: who’s husband is a killer and when are we going to find out?

A photo from a personal blog post about Alison and I on vacation. Photo by Marcos our Polo Instructor

Don’t tell me you don’t like gossip. We are photojournalists, photographers, storytellers. We insert ourselves into peoples’ lives and share them with the world. Our best images let our viewers connect with our subjects. The very goal of what we do is about peeling back those layers to what lies underneath.

Our curiosity drives us to get to the truth behind the gossip and that brings people in. We can do just that through process blogs and personal blogs.

Process Blogs

A process blog reveals your intellectual process in regards to your work. These are blogs about what you think about while making images, or your thoughts on issues with your area of photography. These are not “How to” blogs. This is about what goes on inside you head. An Example on my process would be: I think the best place to begin when choosing your style for photographing a wedding is by watching the interactions between guests family, bride and groom, and not on the colors, flowers and decor. If you can find a style that captures the essence of the interactions the rest will fall into place.

Personal Blogs

A Personal Blog is a blog that reveals something about you that is personal in nature and sometimes private. This type of blog is much harder to do well. Jasmine Star is a photographer who has created one of the best personal blogs. I think that the best way to understand what a good personal blog is would be to look at one of her posts here.

I hope that we all understand the value of connecting with people when marketing. Please excuse the “Desperate House Wives” references, but I wanted to make a point. This TV show uses the voicing of inner thoughts and the unveiling of peoples’ private and personal lives to connect with their viewers for more than seven seasons. You can do the same thing to get potential clients to connect with you through creating process blogs and personal blogs.

Once upon a time an under-aged Adm was drinking in a bar and complaining about how none of the pretty women in the bar were talking to him. A friend of mine turned to me, laughed, and said, “You have to go where the girls are.” He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me across the room to a table full of young women and introduced us. Problem solved!

You’re a photojournalist, you need a website. You need to be where people can find you and your work. The communication era is not slowing down so that you can catch up. I know, I know, you don’t have any money because you are a journalist. Boom! Facebook, problem solved. Now you can create a “journalist page” on Facebook, for free.

Facebook is not about to pay for advertising so you know they’re not paying me to say this. Think about that: they don’t have to pay for advertising. They are the medium through which everyone is communicating. You need to put yourself where the people are, and they are on Facebook.

Check out Facebook for Journalists here.

If you want to see the page I just started go here.

PLEASE READ: Be careful with what you post Facebook may steal you copyright. You can read about it here.To avoid problems link to your work.

By the time I got in my car to go home after the San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographers Association Awards Banquet dinner, I was exhausted. Late work nights for two days running, an early morning, re-acquainting with old friends and then all of the awards had worn me out. I wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep. I tossed my camera in the passenger seat, put my keys in the ignition and turned. One futile attempt after the other… my car’s starter was dead.

Jana Asenbrennerova, SF State, accepts SFBAPPA's College Photographer of the Year, the Greg Robinson Memorial Award, from Paul Sakuma. Photo by Kimihiro Hoshino

SFBAPPA Awards banquet and a broken starter? Yes, this is going somewhere. But first, I choose the photo above because I am very proud of my friend, Jana Asenbrennerova. She is a very talented photojournalist, and now SFBAPPA’s College Photographer of the Year. Now, back to the story.

I sat at the table marked San Francisco State Photojournalism Dept., my alma mater. It was a table full of talented students in a room full of Bay Area photo directors, editors, and even a Pulitzer Prize winner. Despite this amazing opportunity afforded to SF State’s best and brightest to meet and mingle with the photojournalism community they are hoping to join, they stayed planted at their table.

This is where we start. If you can take a minute to meet an editor of a paper that you want to work for and tell them your name, then when they see your application you won’t just be a piece of paper. You will be a person who they know. They might even like you.

People like to work with people they know and enjoy being around. Maybe you have the “talent” and your phone never stops ringing, but most of us don’t have that luxury. I have to meet people, let them know who I am, what I am about, and then get them to look at my work just in the hopes that they might give me a job or a lead to another job someday.

Remember, if nothing else, just introduce yourself because the worst thing that can happen is that they meet you and move on to another person. They will have heard your name and that is better than not. Fail to start and you will be standing by yourself next to a parking garage at a quarter to one in the morning wondering why every other freelancer you know has work and you don’t.

I spent a good part of yesterday emailing people for whom I have worked to see how they are doing and ask if they have more work for me. It is a weird email to write because I am asking people who I care about how they are doing and then immediately hitting them up for work. It doesn’t feel good, but at the same time I think that it is important to let people know that I am available for work.

It could always be worse.

I think that all of the awkwardness might just be in my head, but I can’t be sure and I would never directly ask anyone. It is easy to talk about here because there is no direct link between this blog and the editors, photographers, art directors, and design firms I get work from. It is a weird little storm in my head rocking me back and forth between questions of “why hasn’t this paper hired me for another job?” and “is there any money in anybody’s budget?”

I also emailed a picture editor at large this week to ask for help editing two of my portfolios for my website and my Eddie Adams Workshop application. It is quite a humbling and awkward experience telling an editor that I have a hard time evaluating my own work.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I feel like I have been flailing in the dark trying to find something tangible to hold on to and coming up empty. It is too late to stop reaching. I have to keep plugging away at building a client base.