President
Delaware
*** Harry Markel
District of Columbia
*** Carly Glazierl Dorrie Pilot
George Singleton gsingleton@SEPPAonline.com
1st Vice-President
Kevin Jiminez kjiminez@SEPPAonline.com
2nd Vice-President
Mary Fisk-Taylor mfisktaylor@SEPPAonline.com
Secretary-Treasurer
Janet Boschker jboschker@SEPPAonline.com
Salon Exhibition Chair
Jamie Hayes jamie@jhayes.com
S out he r n E x p o su re
Souther n Exposure magazine is an online publication of SEPPA and is published monthly. Editor V ictoria Kelly vkelly@SEPPAonline.com 919.818.0726 Ad Sales & Business Manager Rick Gibbons ExecutiveDirector@SEPPAonline.com 336.687.1943
Florida
Georgia
Maryland
Mississippi/Alabama
North Carolina
*** Cindy Strickland Jackson Koontz
*** Danny Spears Wendy Lenox
*** Lidia Miller
*** Gil Brady Sue Elam
*** Rose Mary Cheek Loretta Byrd
South Carolina
*** David Junker Patty Hallman
Tennessee
*** Dorma Tabisz Barbara White
Article & Ad Submissions 5th of every month OnLine Publication 20th to 29th of each month SEPPA 3710 North Main Street High Point, NC 27265 336.687.1943 Acceptance o f a d v e r t i si n g d oe s n ot c a r r y wi th i t en dor se m e n t b y t h e p ub l i sh e r. Opi n i o ns expre sse d b y Sout h e r n Exp osure o r any o f i ts aut h or s d oe s n ot n e c e ssa r i l y refl ect t h e p osi t i on s of t h e Sou theaster n Pro fessi on a l P h ot ogr a p h e r s A ssoc ia t io n . Asso ci ati on f i n a n c i a l i n f or m a t i on avai l a b l e up on re q ue st .
Virginia
West Virginia
*** Stephanie Adams Robert Holman
*** Brent Kepner Will Price
*** state president SEPPA representative
Delaware
Mississippi/Alabama
District of Columbia
North Carolina
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Florida
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Georgia
Tennessee
www.gppa.com
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Maryland
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www.delawarephotographers.com
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SEPPA is a regional affiliate of the Professional Photographers of America and hosts an annual District Image Judging. To learn more about PPA, click HERE.
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cover image: Sharon Younce Artful Images Photography Powhatan, Virginia
2016 Lamarr School 4-Day Classes Registration Opens March 1, 2016 www.lamarrschool.com Contact John Herrel at (803) 420-3660 for more Info
Class Dates: September 18-22, 2016 Location: Columbia, SC
Register March 1st - April 30th - $499 Register May 1-August 31st - $599 Installment Payment Plans Available
Tim Kelly
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Creating and Marketing Today’s Fine Art Portraiture
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The Lamarr Williamson School of Photography is a PPA Affiliate School.
CALENDARING: WHY YOU NEED IT! Victoria Kelly
I teach a business class on Monday nights for emerging photographers on starting their own business. We cover all the basics: licenses, vendors, advertising…and I spend the most time on calendaring. As my students sit in stunned silence in the classroom, I reiterate that they MUST schedule everything. A blank calendar doesn’t mean that you’re free to do what you want during the week—it just means you haven’t included everything that is important to your business. If you’ve been in this industry for any length of time at all, this is not news. Nor is it rocket science…but if you are a newcomer, you’ll find yourself experiencing burnout very early and some “OMG” moments you’d rather not relive. So this month I’m going to talk about my calendar.
To get started, I know that I want to devote forty hours per week to the studio. My kids are adults now and are self-sufficient so I’m not having to pick them up at preschool or take a forgotten presentation to school. These are the items that I schedule every week: social media, consultations, sessions, retouching, receiving from the lab and finishing (which includes framing).
I like to devote about two hours to social media every week. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less, but it is always on the calendar. I know from past experience that consultations usually don’t happen. It might be a quick phone call or a quick visit to the studio, but I do not do a consultation for every client that comes through the door and that is okay with me, too. I also know that I am getting ready to start my HS senior season…theoretically, I can do six to eight seniors per day but I do like to have a life so I schedule no more than four or five. (I am really comfortable with four but I have an assistant who apparently cannot say “NO”.) I fill in retouching twice a week. Again, I know from past experience what my skill level is and how much retouching any given client will take. Babies take the least amount of time…it is usually one outfit and their skin is mostly flawless. Now, considering that I do retouching twice a week I receive work from the lab twice a week as well. So you can bet that goes on the calendar, too. I schedule framing for Friday afternoons…if there isn’t anything that needs to be assembled I can either take the afternoon off (YAY ME!) or start working on social media for the following week. By this time you know what your time constraints are…how much time you allocate for different types of sessions, your consultations, retouching and such. So your “empty” calendar is now looking fairly full and you’ve minimized your chance for those surprises.
CREATING WITH CONSISTENCY Christine Walsh-Newton, M. Photog., Cr., CPP, EA-ASP
A few months ago, I took a competition workshop. One of the instructors, PPA Affiliated Juror Jessica Vogel talked about her goals for competition; she said that hers was to go 4 for 4 and that any loans were just a bonus, icing on the cake, if you will. That makes sense to me. 4 for 4 is also one of my goals, although I also put some unrealistic goals on top of that regarding how many loans I would like to achieve. And I probably ought to stop doing that.
Let's discuss that 4 for 4 thing. It basically means that at some point in time, your case of four entries was deemed merit-worthy, either through a scoring or thumbs-up process. That's consistency. By the time you've gotten to IPC, you've put a number of images through some paces. More than likely, you've entered them at a local, state, or district, first. You've fine-tuned them and they are the best that they can be. More than likely they're the best you've done all year. But how much better are they than your every day work? One of the fabulous things about photographic competition is that each of us can utilize it to fit our own goals. It's a pretty versatile vehicle for skills enhancement and personal challenges. Each year I develop a specific goal or two for my case. Sometimes it has to do with subject matter, sometimes with media, sometimes with specific posing or post-processing; it just depends on what my skill-set needs are at that point in time. This way, photographic competition serves as an educational component in every way. The lessons I learn as I prepare for these challenges, as well as the lessons I learn throughout the judging of them most definitely impact the way I shoot from that day forward. But I've noticed that not everyone does things this way. Through the magic of social media I view a constant slideshow of images from a multitude of titled and award-winning photographers. And sometimes I'm downright shocked at the work that folks will put their watermark on. Trees regularly grow out of heads in my timeline and it seems obvious that the only time some photographers utilize clothing consults is when they're shooting specifically for competition. It does not seem that their every day work has benefited from competition. And I have to wonder about that difference. That inconsistency. I'm challenging you to evaluate your work. Do you shoot consistently? Across the board, not just for competition. If you don't, let's change that up. Let's be consistent. Let's honor those titles we are
awarded through competition by upholding the level of the quality of work that we create the rest of the year. Peace, love and merit scores, Christine
Christine is a portrait photographer and owner of Gallery C in Dover, Ohio. She is a co-author of “The Daily Book of Photography” and authors “Wootness: The Big Girl and Guy’s Guide to Starting a Photography Business.” Visit her blog at www.wootness.net
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