"market your work with the same creativity you used to create it" - Stephen Elliot

I initially tried making a website from scratch which just ended up with me running into so many roadblocks I crashed and burned. I was and still am struggling with how to translate my creative eye into creative marketing. However, after reading several chapters in The ASMP guide to new Markets in Photography, the first line I read was still ringing around at the front of my brain. Something about this quote just washed away the dread of marketing myself and replaced it with a fun challenge.

Avoid the "unreal", seek the "surreal"

Despite the over-saturation of photographic content today, I keep discovering photographic techniques that have been lost in time to digital technological advances such as Photoshop and point-and-shoot cameras. Being able to control how your camera absorbs an image is literally being able to control how you see the world around you. If done properly, you can produce a uniquely surreal scene that is based in reality and not just an unrealistic composite of digital images.

“Brand is how people percieve you, not how you tell them you are” — Colleen Wainwright, The ASMP guide to new Markets in Photography

There has been a lot of reading about branding this week. What intrigues me the most is this notion that you can create / control your brand. To me it seems like the only way to “create” your brand is not to focus about creating a brand, but to focus solely on what you enjoy or are passionate about. Others dictate what your brand is, you basically have no say in the matter other than choosing what to show them. So show them only the work you love