Inspired by WPPI

Photography by Whitney and David Scott

Today I am flying home from Las Vegas where I have spent the last four
days in the Black River Imaging booth at the WPPI Wedding and Portrait
Photographers Conference and Expo. Over 16,000 professional and
aspiring professionals attend this conference every year to improve
their skills and network with their peers.

The thing that impresses me most about WPPI is the energy level. The
people who attend the WPPI convention are passionate about photography
and eager to learn more. Those who have been in the industry for years
are enthusiastic about sharing their experiences and excited to learn
more. The event is particularly supportive to those just getting
started in the industry.

Photography by Corrine Alavekios

I have been attending WPPI since the early 1990's when the show was
tightly focused on wedding photography. It has been exciting to watch
it grow and expand to cover birth, preschool, sports and fashion
photography as well as wedding and family portraits.  The classes
cover everything from lighting and posing to business planning and
law.

Black River Imaging has changed a lot since the 1990s too. In those
days the images were all captured on film which was processed on giant
dip and dunk Refrema machines. We used Lucht V7 printers to make any
print size you wanted. Today the book and album binding areas are
bigger than the print room and our fastest growing product lines are
luxury stationery and wall decor printed on metal.

Photography by Amanda Reed

I really enjoy meeting with our customers during the trade show. It's
a perfect venue to learn what we're doing well, where we need to
improve and what kind of new products people want. We introduce new
products continuously, and the conversations we have during the show
influence every product development meeting.

The Black River imaging booth is divided into two sections. Half the
booth is used to display products including the new lay flat picture
books and the LOFT line of luxurious cards and stationery. The
products that draw the most attention are usually those that have rich
textures and unique shapes.

Photography by Dawn Shields

The other half of the booth is dedicated to education. The Black River
Imaging featured artists, whose images accompany this post, teach a
series of classes about photography and the business of photography.

I always leave WPPI inspired, invigorated and looking forward to
coming back next year.

Photography by Dixie Dixon

Photography by Elise Ellis

Photography by Martha Dameron

Photography by Spencer Beorup

Photography by Vanessa Joy

You might also be interested in:

Five Trends in Professional Portraits

Trends in Professional Portraits at Imaging USA

Sincerely Social


The Creativity Paradox will be taking a break from publishing for the next two weeks.  Please look for our next post on April 4th.

3 Marketing Mistakes Photographers Make

Eastman Camera by The Javalina on Flickr

Next week the Wedding and Portrait Photographers Association will be holding their 2012 conference and trade show at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Each WPPI event draws thousands of professional photographers looking for ways to improve their photography skills and their business skills. Most of them are making the following three mistakes on their web sites which limit their search engine results and their web traffic.

1.  Building the site in Flash - Adobe Flash is a powerful tool and the websites that utilize it are dazzling for those who visit the sites from full sized computers. But the world is going mobile with 7% of all web traffic coming from smart phones and iPads. Most of those devices are not able to view your website.  

2. Blocking image copying - Many photographers block the ability to right click an image or copy an image which protects their copyrighted work from misuse. By doing so, you also prevent your fans from sharing your work and spreading the news about your talent. If you were to watermark low resolution images and allow people to link to them, your work could be shared on Pinterest, Facebook and other sites where potential clients would see your images and studio name. Those links bring people to your website and improve your search engine rankings.

3.  Image only sites - Many photography sites feature images so strongly that they neglect any captions or text explanations. People love stories and a short caption can put an image into context and give it more meaning. It also helps the search engines know how to classify the images. When you are adding an image to your site, consider adding a caption and be certain to name the image and include your copyright information in the alt text field that the search engines read.

Are you making any of these mistakes on your site?