Back in college, I heard rumors about a JMU student winning College Photographer of the Year, and interning with National Geographic Magazine. I started following his blog and loved his willingness to give business advice, and his seemingly easygoing personality. Before long, and most of all, I truly began to admire his work. I first learned about an internship with Casey Templeton during a class lecture about branding yourself {2010 Promo}. I decided to apply because I would have just finished an 8-month intensive photography program with Boston University’s Center for the Digital Imaging Arts, and the “specs” for the internship seemed right up my ally.

I accepted the offer to come along side and learn from Casey and hopefully be able to contribute. I didn’t know what to expect because each photographer is different in the way they work. Would he be hard to get along with? Would I be getting coffee and stuffing envelopes? The internship proved to be nothing of the sort. My time proved to be extremely educational, fun, lots of work, and a great look into how he does business.

Photography: We had a wide range of work from a portrait shoot with Miss America, commercial shoots with Dominion Power, and a few wedding and family shoots. One thing I really appreciate about Casey’s work is that he doesn’t use lights solely for the purpose of using lights. He works with what he needs. All we need are light modifiers? Great. Pack the reflector. With lighting, one thing I learned was how to use speedlites on fully manual mode to achieve studio quality results on location. Apart from assisting Casey, I also worked on a personal project–recreating lighting from great photographs with a “bride and groom” twist.

Business: OH where to begin…interning with Casey was like taking a 4-year business degree and smushing it into a month. Here are some key words that I will ‘Post-It’ all around me: Set Goals. Network. Brand Yourself. Network. And Brand Yourself. It is most important that everything you create has a flow in color, look, feel, and name. And it is important that people see you and meet you and talk with you. You and your work are the best things that you can use to market yourself. Casey said, “Be as good of a business person as you are a photographer.” Do it. Live it. And family first. Some of the specifics that helped immediately was learning to utilize FTP {Photo Tip – Utilizing Your FTP}. If you are like me, who had NO idea what FTP even was, posted below is a great tutorial Casey put together. Using my website in order to send and show work is really a great tool to have. It is not only the easiest way to have clients view and download files, but  constantly directs people to your website!

After leaving, I feel super prepared to go out on my own. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but setting goals is really helping to spur me forward. From here on out, it is purely self-motivation. Sure, others will encourage me and give me advice, which is indispensable, but only I can take those steps of making it happen.

**Ali Black worked with me for the month of May after graduating from Boston University’s Center for the Digital Imaging Arts program. She wants to focus primarily on lifestyle wedding photography. The following is her recap of her time working with me and a few images she produced while working on a personal project. Take a look at some of Ali’s great work on her website: http://www.alisandraphoto.com/

A year in the making, I was excited to ship my official introduction to nearly 300 of the top creative folks in the photo industry last month. After a successful 2008 and beginning of 2009, I realized my commercial work came mostly through word of mouth and that I had made no marketing efforts. I knew in order to take my business to the next level, I needed to start marketing myself on a national level and more importantly, I had only one chance to make an awesome first impression.

“As an art buyer, I get a lot of little promotional pieces. I am spoiled. BUT, yours was so well put together and well done that I stopped everything I was doing and went to your website. NOT to my surprise your work is just as thoughtful, innovative and touching as your promotional piece. I officially have a work crush on you. Please come and see us so we can put you to work ASAP.:)”

This promo would be the first time the agencies and art buyers would hear about me so I wanted to fill it with items that told something about who I was. The challenge was how to fill a box with multiple items and not make it feel like a junk box. I worked closely with Suzanne Sease and Rob Jefferson to find items that were relevant to the audience of art buyers and creative directors and compiled my mailing list with Suzanne using Agency Access.  I needed every piece of this promo to have a wow-factor so I worked exclusively with the most talented Robb Major to design everything from the screen printing of the shipping box to the design on the matchboxes.  To tie it all together, I included my “to-do list” which is below.

“Cool promotional box! So much so in fact that I feel compelled to use you for our next photo shoot. I have a client in ————.  Are you available and interested? Wow, this just goes to prove the power of good advertising.”

“This is the most amazing promo I’ve ever received in my 12 years of art buying! I truly hope to work with you soon and I hope this gets you a ton of work! Its genius!”

“I just received your magic lunchbox and I gotta say it’s quite the spread. The San Cristobal just made my drive to NY tomorrow night that much better. If you’re ever in ——– for a job let me know and I’ll set you up with a portfolio review with my art producer colleagues so they can get to know you. Thank you and stay in touch.”

It took two snowy days and a dozen awesome friends to put all of these boxes together and shipped in early February. The response has been outstanding and I have received an amazing amount of free T-shirt cards back full of comments request for portfolios as well as phone calls. The big task now is follow through….. and thinking about a 2011 promo! Want a retro (empty, sorry) lunch tin of your own? Leave a convincing comment below and I may just feel compelled to mail you one.

I am excited to present my brand-spanking-new lifestyle book. With the help of Suzanne Sease I was able to condense and organize my library of lifestyle images into one portfolio book.  This was made possible by using Apple’s Aperture to easily comb through 100,000+ images and organize and pair them with other images in the book layout program.  Printed by Pushdot Studio and presented in a Lost-Luggage binding and cover, I wanted to keep the printed book consistent with my brand; clean, image-focused and organic. I chose a hardboard and extra thick matte paper to soak in the colors of the images. Additional portfolios are available so please contact me if your agency would like to have one shipped to their office or if you would like to request a meeting.