Even monks need to be in contact.
A few days ago, Brian Hirschy tweeted about photographers who make it hard for people to contact them. It brought a few things to mind that are worth mentioning because a surprisingly large number of photographers make it impossible, or at least very difficult, for people to find them. I’ve no idea why they do that but do it they do. It’s a bit self-defeating – if a potential client sees a photograph of yours and wants to license it for thousands of dollars, you may well miss out if it’s too hard for them to find you.
At the most basic is easy to find contact information on your website or blog. There is nothing more frustrating than having to search and search to find an email link somewhere. In this day and age, it is professional suicide not to make it easy. An email and contact phone number should be the minimum displayed contact options. Having information listing Facebook, Twitter and any other social networking avenues is even better. If you look at this page, there’s an easy to use menu item titled “contact” at the top with my contact number and email in it. Additionally, in the footer there’s my phone number, email and links to social networks.
That covers the basics on your website, but what about the photographs themselves? What happens if someone comes across an unidentified photograph somewhere and want to know who created it? Despite all we do to protect our images, a lot of people still believe that it’s okay to take any photo they see on the internet and use it elsewhere. Most of the time, that usage is more due to ignorance than maliciousness but what will happen when a big, rich art collector sees your uncredited photo on a website and wants to buy a print?
In this case, the best you can do is hope that the metadata hasn’t been stripped out of the photo. In situations where the photo has been posted by someone else out of ignorance, they probably won’t have taken the trouble to strip the metadata (or even know there is metadata), in which case the collector can easily find you as long as you have contact information embedded in the photo. I’ve discussed the setup of metadata templates in the past so I’ll refer you there for all the details but the screenshot below will give you some idea of what it looks like. It’s found in the metadata panel of Lightroom.
It all boils down to ease for people who want to reach you. Make it easy for them to get in touch with you and you’ll increase the likelihood of image licensing, print sales and collaboration projects with other photographers.
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