Marketing yourself and the Best Use for Promo Cards + Contest Below!

Most photographers have a promo card. A promo card is a card that you leave behind with a client or give to potential clients that you meet that shows a few shots of your work and has your contact info on it. It’s like a large, fancy business card. Your promo card can be as different and individual as you and your work is! Some photographers have very unusual cards, varying in size and texture. Some photographers stick to more standard sizes of postcard size ( 4″ x 6″ ), 6″ x 8″ or 8″ x 10″ sizes and do the normal glossy or matte finished textures.

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When my husband presented me with the idea of The Shot of the Week, I thought it was a great idea. First of all, it would be a way for my readers to get seen, a platform to show their work and have a link to their website up. I just had no idea how many submissions we would get this first week that we’ve ran it. And the talent that has poured in! I must admit, I have some very strong shooters reading my blog! I was really blown away at how many great shots came in this week for The Shot of the Week. So congratulate yourselves! And keep it up!

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Breaking down the digital voodoo wall

Recently I was asked by Brandon Oelling if he could profile me on his x= blog. I checked out his blog and was immediately 100% supportive of what he offers as far as expertise in this ever evolving and ever confusing world of digital workflow and technology. For myself, making the leap from film to digital in the late ’90′s wasn’t easy. I have to admit I went kicking and screaming. Imagine having twenty years of knowledge on how to expose and develop film and then print from negatives just for that knowledge to be pushed aside in order to learn and embrace the digital medium…..I was a little teed off, to say the least! But for photographers like myself, having someone like Brandon available to us is like striking gold! For more than 10 years Brandon Oelling has been at the helm of x=photography+consulting, working with photographers both new and old to demystify technology and break down the voodoo that surrounds technology and digital workflow. Leveraging his engineering background and fine arts training, Brandon has played a pivotal role in helping numerous clients and studios ramp up their operations to include an all-digital workflow and archiving process. Brandon’s expertise in best practices, planning, and execution strategy for digital workflow (RAW, Adobe DNG, JPEG, TIFF, etc.) and digital asset management (DAM) systems allows him to specifically target a solution for each and every client.

First of all, I want you to check out the interview I did for his blog! His blog is designed beautifully, and kudos to Brandon for the aesthetically gorgeous and yet user-friendliness of it:

Melissa Rodwell Interview on X= blog!

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I was asked to shoot an editorial for the Los Angeles Fashion Magazine, Genlux. Genlux Magazine uses me on a regular basis to shoot for them and they are one of my favorite clients because of their extreme trust in my vision. In other words, they give me a lot of freedom to shoot what I want to shoot, which makes them a dream client! I’m going to take you step by step through the process of this shoot, giving you my technical info and the background details on how I planned and set up this shoot. You can click the link above to watch the video first, or you can Read on!

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“How I Stay Sane in a Critical World”

Photo by: Steven Meisel

____You talk to them on the phone. You deal with them on shoots. You meet them at parties. You read their blogs. You visit their sites. You see them on TV interviews. They are the critical fashionistas who you will see pointing to some poor girls new skirt while exclaiming: “Ohhhh, that’s just so last season’s hemline!!!” as they roll their eyes and cluck their tongues. You want to despise them but you find yourself sounding just like them in no short time! Why?? Because we’re in the fashion industry, kids, and that’s what we are exposed to on a daily basis!
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