New Video Series Explores Artists’ Creative Processes

Pixels, a leading online art marketplace and print-on-demand technology company, is producing a series of videos called “Art / My Way.” The inspiring series tells the stories of modern American visual artists and how they established themselves creatively.

Each three-minute video provides an intimate look insides the minds of working artists and answers questions such as “What drives artists to do what they do?” and “How do their lives and their work inform one another?” The series speaks to overcoming the fear and adversity that get in the ways of lifelong dreams and illustrates how basic needs can drive innovation and entrepreneurship.

Beautifully shot by documentary filmmaker Jeff Bloom, the videos feature some of the most interesting artists who use Pixels to showcase and sell their work online.

The first two “pilot” episodes profile South African-born painter Jabu and landscape photographer Nicki Frates, who lives in Los Angeles.

Jabu

Jabu was born in the Alexander Township of Johannesburg, South Africa during apartheid and views Nelson Mandela as his hero. Jabu sees himself as an activist artist (“artivist”). As a youth, he was imprisoned for a year for making Mandela T-shirts. The video delves into Jabu’s artistic methods, some of his most prominent works, and what pop star he believes is as much of a leader as Martin Luther King Jr.

Nicki Frates

Daughter of renowned commercial photographer Dennis Frates, Nicki Frates grew up accompanying her dad on shoots. Initially, she pursued fashion as her creative outlet, but photography wouldn’t let her go. Now, she is an award-winning landscape photographer who braves extreme weather to shoot in beautiful, but challenging locations.

 

Pixels is producing the series to give art buyers a unique perspective into the artists whose work is featured on the Pixels.com website. The series is also designed to provide artists with ideas and motivation for building their own careers around their work.

According to Pixels CEO Sean Broihier, “Many of our artists have built their careers the same way we built our business — by creatively bootstrapping and not being anointed by a venture-capital firm or an art gallery. We are thrilled to give them a platform to explain how they do their art, their way.”

About Pixels

The Pixels online art marketplace showcases the works of hundreds of thousands of artists, photographers, graphic designers, illustrators, and iconic brands. The company has been helping artists sell wall art, home decor, apparel, and other products since 2006.

With just a few clicks, artists and photographers can upload their images to Pixels.com, set their prices for hundreds of different print-on-demand products, and then instantly sell those products to a global audience of online, mobile, and real-world buyers.

Pixels fulfills each order on behalf of the artists. They take care of the printing, framing, matting, packaging, shipping, collecting payments from the buyers, and sending profits to the artists. Each product is manufactured at one of 14 global production facilities and delivered “ready-to-hang” with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Guide Explains How to Create a Photography Portfolio

PSCreatingaProfessionalPortfolioPHOTOGRAPHERS. Creating an online portfolio that knocks the socks off prospective clients is an art form. That’s the premise of PhotoShelter’s new educational guide, Creating a Successful Photography Portfolio. Your portfolio not only showcases your work, but also your work ethic, commitment to photography, and ability to deliver the type of work your dream clients want.

To start choosing images for your online portfolio, the guide suggests asking yourself three questions:

  • What is your best work?
  • Will these images get me the type of jobs I want?
  • How many great images do I have?

Answering these questions isn’t easy, because it’s hard to be objective about your own work. Getting reliable feedback is important.

Throughout the guide, seasoned photography consultants and photographers suggest how to build an online photography portfolio that helps attract potential clients and win jobs.

This guide includes:

  • Eleven secrets for creating a successful photography portfolio website
  • Tips for setting the right tone for attracting dream clients
  • Ideas for showcasing personal projects to help win jobs
  • Five common myths about portfolio reviews.

Photo consultants interviewed in the guide include Neil Binkley, Jasmine DeFoore, Stella Kramer and Amanda Sosa Stone. They share tips on preparing portfolios for client meetings, following up with clients, and locking job after presenting your portfolio.

Win a Website Image Edit

Photographers who download the guide before May 1 will be entered to win a Website Image Edit with top photography consultant Amanda Sosa Stone, courtesy of the photographer-marketing firm Agency Access . The winner will be announced on Wednesday, May 1, 2013.

“Creating a Successful Photography Portfolio” is the latest in PhotoShelter’s ongoing series of free business guides for photographers and marketing professionals. PhotoShelter’s e-book library includes 25+ educational guides including topics such as social media, email marketing, and starting a photography business.

PhotoShelter offers reliable and innovative online tools to build and grow a successful photography business. Over 77,000 photographers use PhotoShelter’s websites, social and SEO tools to show their work and attract new clients. PhotoShelter’s online image archives can help you stay organized and access images on the fly. Their image delivery and e-commerce tools can help you sell work easily and securely. Free 14-day trials are available.

LINKS

Creating a Successful Photography Portfolio

PhotoShelter

PhotoShelter E-Book Library

Creating a Successful Photography Portfolio

Guide Shows How To Sell Fine Art Photography Online

To learn how PhotoShelter’s website and back-end tools can be used to improve online sales of your fine art photography, check out their new guide “The Fine Art Photographer’s Tour of Photoshelter.”

PhotoShelterFineArtPhotographersGuideThe 16-page guide talks about how to build an audience, attract new clients, and make the online buying process totally seamless.

The first section shows how PhotoShelter can help your brand remain front and center throughout the entire ordering process. The authors note that “Your brand’s overall look and feel are especially important because you are asking potential clients to see premium value in your work—and pay a price in accordance with that value.”

The second section highlights PhotoShelter themes that let your images speak for themselves: “We hear from art buyers again and again that the number-one thing they want when viewing a photographer’s work online is an easy-to-navigate site with all of the contact and purchasing information readily accessible. Fine art photographers should think of their website like a gallery show—you want it to be clean and free of clutter, and to showcase your images in a well laid out and thoughtful way.”

In the section on building an audience, PhotoShelter emphasizes the fact that their websites are optimized for SEO (search engine optimization): “If you appear at the top of search results, then you’ll get more visitors to your website and thus more potential clients. This means no Flash-based sites (Google and other search engines can’t ‘crawl’ these site) and a focus on page factors that affect your SEO ranking (page title, image captions, meta descriptions, etc.)

The guide emphasizes that fine-art photographers should be keywording and captioning all of their images and galleries with relevant terms that buyers might be searching for: “Gallery owners and artist reps tell us that their clients are using search engines more and more—for example, to purchase photos that commemorate a trip or event.”

The final section of the guide talks about some of the options for having your images printed and delivered to your clients. For example, you can use one of PhotoShelter’s four integrated print vendors or browse the PhotoShelter Print Vendor Network. Through this network of 220+ print vendors worldwide, you can link up with any vendor that matches your specific needs—whether it’s a lab in your neighborhood or closer to client overseas.  You can reduce shipping costs by having a fine-art print created and shipped from a lab that is closer to your where your customer lives.

Although PhotoShelter can totally automate the process of accepting and processing orders for fine-art photo prints, you can choose to handle some parts of the process yourself. For example, if you want to sell signed, limited edition, or framed prints, you can make your own prints or work with the vendor you have been using for years.  Or, you can simply use the website as a “window into your business” and communicate with clients before they make a purchase. Even if you print and ship the order yourself, you can collect the payment online through PhotoShelter’s shopping cart.

LINKS

The Fine Art Photographer’s Tour of PhotoShelter

About PhotoShelter

 

Sell Your Instagram Photos through Instacanvas

Instacanvas is a new online marketplace for buying and selling Instagram photos as ready-to-hang canvas art pieces. Now, anyone with a smartphone can create art online, build a fan base worldwide, and sell physical versions of their work online.

During the site’s private beta period, 25,000 photographers and artists from 30 countries set up Instacanvas galleries. Traffic to the site has grown to 1.1 million unique visitors per month.

Fans of an artist’s work can order prints in three sizes: 12 x 12, 16 x 16, or 20 x 20 inches. The photographer or artist earns 20% of every print sold from their galleries. Instacanvas handles all of the printing, canvas stretching, and shipping costs.

“The rapidly growing Instagram community has millions of amazing artists, many with hundreds of thousands of existing followers,” said Matt Munson, founder and CEO of Instacanvas. “We’re building perhaps the first amateur design marketplace where the artists bring with them tremendous followings of people who already love their work as well as a powerful distribution channel for reaching those fans.”

“Today, 23,000 people will visit the Louvre Museum in Paris while 40,000 people will visit our galleries on Instacanvas,” said William Hsu of MuckerLab, the start-up accelerator that has supported Instacanvas. “Instacanvas is leveraging the power and passion of the Instagram community and helping to prove the value and staying power of Instagram as a platform.”

LINKS

Instacanvas

How to Set Up Your Gallery