Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson

Humble Arts Foundation is currently accepting proposals for its Spring 2008 Grant for Emerging Photographers

Humble Arts Foundation established the Grant for Emerging Photographers (GEP) in 2007 to support fine art photography projects in the U.S. and abroad.

How the GEP Works:
Given twice annually, the GEP is a $1,000 grant award that recognizes the strongest new proposal in fine art photography as submitted to Humble Arts Foundation.

Deadline: 11:59 pm, Monday, March 3, 2008

Notification
Applicants will be notified via e-mail starting the first week of April as to the status of their proposal.

Applicant Eligibility
Applications will be accepted from photographers who are at least 18 years old and do not have gallery representation.

Project Eligibility
We will fund projects that are new or ongoing.

Applicants should submit no more than one (1) proposal requesting support for one (1) project.

Review Process
Humble Arts Foundation’s senior curatorial staff will review projects for visual strength and clarity of proposal.

Submission Guidelines
You may submit up to five images. Each image must be:

Jpeg format, 72dpi, 550 pixels wide only

In addition, rename each photo with your first and last name (ex. john_doe1.jpg, john_doe2.jpg, etc). We will not consider applications with .zips files or links to your work/website.

Application Process
Your application is complete after you have completed the online application and submitted up to five images. We will not consider incomplete applications.

For questions, please send an e-mail to: grant@hafny.org or visit http://humbleartsfoundation.org/gep/index.html.

–
amani olu
founder / director

humble arts foundation, inc.
po box 1157
old chelsea station
new york, new york 10113

w: http://humbleartsfoundation.org
p: (646) 330 1039

Wednesday’s NYT carried an insert which included the full roster of the event offerings for the coming week’s launch of the NYT’s “Arts and Leisure Week. This annual celebration of the arts offers affordable access to the arts in the Greater NY area and far beyond; participating institutions and organizations offer two-for-one admission, and in some cases discounts in their gift/book stores during this coming week and beyond. In addition to discounted tickets to events in NYC, note the riches outside the boundaries of NYC: from theaters, performing arts centers and museums to attractions such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taleisin West, the Northwest Film Forum (NEFF) in Seattle, to the Harvard Museum of Natural History now showing Henry Horenstein’s “Looking At Animals.”

I urge all of you explore the lists of partipating venues and celebrate the cultural richs we can enjoy and appeciate. Lastly be sure to take note of the many an diverse offerings in all four corners of the USA.

To take part in this celebration, visit the website and follow the guidelines toward no only the great work you see but also the participating sponsors who have helpe d to bring this program nation-wide. and flow instructions to a “T” to ensure your ticket arangements are in order!

Be sure to give the gift of culture and live performance this season, and celebrate those companies who make this important events happen.

There are a limited number of the Fall 2006 edition of my MARKETING GUIDEBOOK for PHOTOGRAPHERS that as of today and until they are gone are discounted to $25.00 plus $4.05 shipping and handling (USPS Priority Mail). I will be releasing the 2007 edition sometime in January, and am happy to discount the price for the few copies we have left in stock at the office in Tucson and NYC. Check out the chapter heading and content summaries on my website through the above link. Happy December!

November 2006 issue of Fast Company . Interesting cover story on Gordon Bell, a computer scientist at Microsoft who has for the past 7 years embarked on a project to save everything – every email, a digital and audio recording of every conversation, family histories, EVERYTHING – his goal is to never forget anything, and have it at his fingertips, searchable through his “MyLifeBits” software. He states: “We’ve come to a time when machine memory creates ideas we’ve never considered.” A daunting but awesome concept. Another story on viral market is also fascinating. Fact within: Total ad revenue, 2005: PRINT, $47.4 billion (+1.5 % since 2004), ONLINE, $2 billion (+31% since 2004). Also read a report on the annual conference POP!TECH which just wrapped it’s tenth annual event with an enviable roster of presenters from artists to entrepreneurs to self-described “brainiacs.” Lastly, the article laying out the mechanics of Rumblefish, a portal for licensing independent music, makes me think it is very, very similar to the model that the image licensing industry has been utilizing for decades now, except that in the music licensing model, the creator has a 50%/50% split with the agent. Those were the days, eh? That pay structure is now, sadly, ancient history for image licensing fees as market pressure has forced agencies to seek (or require) multiple distributors, each getting a slice of the pie . Here’s hoping the musicians can keep their 50%, as the market for music as an essential element within multimedia programming grows.

DECEMBER 4th: CRITICAL MASS, 10 images digitally submitted, which will be circulated to 200 judges who will vote for the work they feel most deserves publication. On their website you will see the work of last year’s winners, all of whom had solid bodies of work and will be duly rewarded with forthcoming publications:
HIROSHI WATANABE
JULIE BLACKMON
LOUIE PALU
I will again be serving as a Judge and look forward to seeing your work. My best advice is to submit 10 images that are from the same project or body of work, rather than trying to show the judges how versatile you are… And, “less is more” when it comes to your accompanying artist statement. Short and to the point. Remember we may have hundreds of statements to read; make yours an effective introduction to seeing your work, as if it were an introductory wall panel at an exhibition venue, or on your website.

MARKETING PHOTOS with Mary Virginia Swanson

I passed a billboard in an airport last week that claimed 1,200,000 was the number of people who posted to blogs every day. Amazing. So today I inaugurate my blog, MARKETING PHOTOS with Mary Virginia Swanson, which I intend to use as a space to share thoughts about great work I’ve seen (”MVS Photo Favorites”), articles not to be missed (”Reading Matters”), competitions to enter (”Upcoming Deadlines”) and “Market Musings.” NYC and internet-based gallerist Jen Bekman, whom I met at the recent PhotoPlus Expo, shared with me that a daily writing routine has been essential for her as an influential blogger, and I shall aspire to do the same. I travel frequently and trust that my observations will likely reference a broad range of material pertinent to many of my readers. Visit often to stay current.