The Photography Storytelling Workshop

A five-step guide to creating unforgettable photographs

Finn Beales

• Publisher: White Lion Publishing
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780711254718
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photography Techniques

Ifyou want to make it beyond Instagram as a photographer you have to give a solid listen to the ideas, tips and overall mindset that Finn shares in this workshop. @alexstrohl Don't just take a picture, make photos that move people. Storytelling is a gift to photographers, letting you weave together characters, events, locations and subjects into a work of beauty greater than the sum of its parts. There are as many stories to tell as pictures to take, but there are also tried-and-tested methods you can adopt to help improve your photography and streamline your workflow. In this beginner-to-pro workshop, award-winning photographer and influencer Finn Beales teaches enthusiasts and aspiring professionals how to master every element of the photographer's process. By following his five-step course – Pitch, Prepare, Shoot, Edit and Deliver – you will develop the same successful, reliable working methods that earn influence and delight audiences, regardless of what genre you're working in. Create intrigue, pull in your audience and tell richer, more rounded stories using your DSLR camera. Want to craft a shoot from start to finish? All the essentials are covered, from building a story into your creative, shoot preparation, the necessary gear and props, working with mood-boards and call sheets, compositional balance, and directing models, right through to post production, editing and file delivery. Discover within:

• What equipmentyou'll need, when and why;
• The secret to key shots and essential techniques;
• Plot devices to help you craft your narrative;
• Step-by-step DSLR projects to perfect your skills;
• Effortlessly capture events, landscapes, portraits, interiorsand experiences;
• How to edit better and be different;
• Extra exercises to improve your smartphone photography.

Compose for impact. Stand out through story.

Step 1: Pitch

A strong online presence is an essential part of any photographer’s business and it’s necessary to present a polished and professional shop front. However, it’s just as important to deliver a sense of your own personality to prospective clients. Let’s face it, everyone wants to be a photographer these days! You can’t rely on your image-making capabilities alone to win contracts; you’ve got to show you’re cool to work with too!

In this chapter, we’ll run through building websites, curating an Instagram feed, the art of negotiation and how to handle yourself on client calls – essentially, everything you need to start landing work and getting paid for the images you make.

WEBSITE

You might think Instagram has removed the need for a photographer to bother with a website, but a solid portfolio site is still a vital marketing tool. Instagram is hard to beat when it comes to maintaining a personal connection with audiences, but the lifespan of an image on that platform is short and a website gives you a platform to curate and display a collection of your best work, as well as legacy personal projects.

Maybe you’re starting from scratch or perhaps you have a website already and you’re thinking of reworking it. Either way, ask yourself the following questions before you begin:

WHO ARE YOU?

What type of work do you want to make? When starting out, photographers experiment and shoot all sorts of subject matter. In fact, I highly recommend it in order to find your niche and style, but a mish-mash of subjects can lead to a jumbled body of work when viewed together. Hone your website so that you’re only displaying the type of work you want to be employed to shoot.

Perhaps you are shooting weddings at the weekend to pay bills, but really you have a hankering to shoot automotive work. It’s a common scenario, as we don’t all land dream assignments from the get-go. In this case, consider creating two sites – one for your bread-and-butter wedding clients and a second to showcase the very best of your auto work to potential editors. The way you present your work demonstrates where your focus lies, and a confused portfolio gives the impression that you don’t know who you are.

WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?

This is not your mum, dad, friend or colleague… I’m talking potential clients looking to commission you as a photographer: art buyers, magazine editors, social media managers and so on. These people are busy and review a ton of pictures each day! It’s imperative to capture and maintain their attention from the outset.

As before, a tightly edited selection of images is the only way to go. A website showcasing 20 killer pics in a consistent and coherent style will always win more work than a wide-ranging jumbled body of work.

IS IT EASY TO USE?

Remember, you are advertising your skills as a photographer not a web designer. Keep it simple and let your pictures do the talking. Look at template platforms like Squarespace, Format and Cargo Collective. They offer well-designed, hosted portfolios that work on multiple devices and are easy to navigate. Make life easy for your audience: no one has an abundance of time today and the longer it takes for a potential client to access what they’re looking for, the more likely they are to hit close and move on to the next name on their list.

IS YOUR BRANDING COHESIVE?

Does your domain name match your email address or does it read [email protected]

I see this a lot and still don’t understand why. Gmail email addresses work just fine for emailing your friends and family, but when dealing with clients it pays to look professional. Hosted platforms like Squarespace and Gmail itself make it super easy to create an email that matches your domain name, so there’s no excuse.

INSTAGRAM

Instagram now has over one billion active users. Although that might seem like an overwhelming level of competition, there are sti...