Please give me some input

Hi this is Jon. I do a lot of underwater work with big gamefish like marlin and sailfish, but I also do a lot of non-fish related work. I am in the midst of rebranding myself so that I don't just get labeled as the "fishing" guy. I have gotten two custom website home page mockups done, and I am seeing any and all input on them.The trick will be to convey the notion that I have a diverse portfolio, and I am thinking that a slide show would do it. The question is, what other surrounding graphics and themes do I go with?

When I go to a location, I want them to know just by quickly looking at my homepage that not only can I capture all of their water-sports images, but that I can also take care of their scenic work.

Here are some examples, a fish, and then some travel images from Cabo.

If you have any interest in helping me choose between two of the choices for new homepages I have, I would be really stoked on your input. It'll help me a lot because once I commit to it I won't be able to afford another site redesign for a long time.

Here are the choices

Thanks very much for reading this, and if you can gimme some advice, that'd be great!

Jon Schwartz

Hey John,

I prefer the one with the "wooden" background. Actually I prefer it by a rather large margin - I think the other one is a little too busy and the bright background is distracting. I like the subtlety of the wood "paneling."

Just fwiw.

-b

Thoughts:

1-If you are known as a big fish photographer ther is no need to splash it on the first page.

2-People who PAY want what they own showcased.

3-It is importent to identify who your customer is.

4-It is unlikely that anyone here is your customer.

I have an artist friend who decided to make money from her work. All the artist people who were shown her work absolutely loved it. She hasn't sold a d@mn thing. I asked "Who is your customer?" She did not have an answer. So I ask WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER? Answre that and I can help.

Tom

Seacuke, Thanks for the input. That's the one that seems to be the most popular, and is my favorite.

Tom, good question (who is my market, what are my goals with this site). At the risk of boring you (and also as a way of avoiding an assignment for a Master's in Education program that I am currently involved with), here is the long version.

What I mainly am trying to do with my site is have it be an online magazine that gets traffic through my interesting ocean/fishing/travel/photography related content for anglers and laypeople. I don't really do much retail photography, although I may in the future. Then I would leverage traffic to ads, and I can increase the demand for my visits to locations that offer marine-related activities, from Panama to Hawaii, for example.

I mostly sell images and articles to mags and the fishing ones all know who I am. I'd like to start writing/shooting for more mainstream travel mags and appeal to people who are not hardcore anglers, hence the desire for a less "fishy" homepage- although I still think I need to cover that with some solid fishing shots in the slideshow that I want.

I would like to increase my rep as a photographer and writer that can go to a region, and have it be known that I can not only write about the location from a fisherman and layman's perspective, but also cover the above and below the water ( and off the water) action and scenery.That way I will have to less self promotion because when a regional tourism board or resort owner comes to my site, they will see I can do a lot of different stuff that would make it worth their while to get me out there.

Currently I can get those gigs but I have to do a lot of detailed emails to the contact people showing them my diverse work and making the case for my value, when it would be much easier if I had a site that made the case in much fewer words- and the homepage would have to be the first key to delivering this message. At the same time I don't want my site to look like it is marketing to PR agents and resorts who might hire me. I want a magazine feel, and I want places I'd like to visit to contact me and invite me because they want to be included in the covereage. I can get these gigs now but it takes a lot of work and I'd rather build up a big enough rep that they'd come to me.

I aim to have a lot of interesting fishing and adventure content for hardcore anglers and couch surfers, a gamefish database, a how-to photography section, fishing with kids section, and a travel section that tells people about the places I have been to, and what's exciting to do there. Technically I am not a superior writer or photographer, my talent is spinning an engaging yarn with quality prose and images and working my tail off to get the maximum exposure out of the articles and images I do get.

So for example, the site would have here's who to fish with in ( insert fantastic tropical location), and if you won't be fishing, here's the restaurants I enjoy, here are the neat places to visit and experience, here are some detailed personal interest stories of the people and scenes there, here are some great u/w shots, scenic shots, and here are some entertaining stories about my own adventures I have had there- and then I'd repeat that with all my other places I have been to.

Interestingly I know Steve Douglas. I met him by chance when I was looking for a videographer to document some kayakfishing for marlin that I was doing in Cabo about 4 years ago. We spent only about an hour together talking about the trip prior to leaving, then a couple of emails, and then took off to Cabo for a couple of days. The footage we got made the basis for an appearance on a segment of Nat Geo TV. Had I known the calibre of u/w shooter he was, I would have maybe asked him if he wanted to do some u/w work there as well, but the trip was so hastily arranged it was lucky we got what we did. Here is some of the video:

Kayak Marlin Fishing Footage

Below is a still from the vid Steve took.

At the time i was just starting to write and I hadn't done much photography then. Since then I have put down the rods and pretty much only do photojournalism now, when I am not herding around my 4/5 grade class.

In any case thanks for the question, hope I didn't carry on too long. Any input is appreciated.

Jon Schwartz

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I aim to have a lot of interesting fishing and adventure content for hardcore anglers and couch surfers, a gamefish database, a how-to photography section, fishing with kids section, and a travel section that tells people about the places I have been to, and what's exciting to do there. Technically I am not a superior writer or photographer, my talent is spinning an engaging yarn with quality prose and images and working my tail off to get the maximum exposure out of the articles and images I do get.

..................

From a brief skim through, it sounds like you have insider knowledge in the fishing world. My question is thus; If you give away said knowledge for free, who will consider it worthy of paying for?

All knowledge has value. It takes time and more often that not money to accrue, to learn, to gain knowledge. The value of knowledge goes up and down, just like any commodity. The difference with knowledge when compared to other more tangible assets such as steel, glass, copper is that the creators - those with the pictures, text and insight - often consider it worthless.

Example; Ask any Harvard graduate (are there any here?) how much it costs to attend......and then see what kind of salaries some command thereafter. Students attend and pay knowing that Harvard is an investment, one that will pay off in the future with lifelong returns of higher salaries compared to their peers without Ivy League (We call it Oxbridge on this side of the pond) backing.

Based on the outlay involved, I often wonder how many of this elite group would give away their skills and knowledge for free. Not many I suspect, as it has directly attributable costs and they have a known market value.

So where is this ramble going? You have invested time in gaining insight & knowledge, but then propose to give it away for free on a website. Your prospective clients may well wonder if its worth paying for your content to reproduce in their magazine, or on their own paywall website. Why? The world can read it for nothing, you are giving it away. There is no incentive for their readers to pay for the privilege.

The alternative, as you suggest, is to use paid-for advertising. This may work, I don't use it so can't comment directly, but I feel that trying to mix the two business models may be challenging indeed.

So, all knowledge has value. It might help to apply some rules I use:

a) The owner of the knowledge has to value it above zero to see a return on investment and

b) finding those who pay $$$ for that knowledge is where the real skill lies and

c) those who will pay generally won't approach you as they are too busy dealing with what your competitors are supplying to meet their current needs.

Good points, decosnapper.

The reality in the niche I work in is that if there were enough mags left that paid decently, I would be too busy doing mag work to even have a website, but many went kaput since 2007 as the fishing industry is one of those leisure things that was the first to go. What I am trying to do is establish a brand, show off some of my work- not the best- but enough to increase my name and have that morph into other business ops, rather than get a lot of money through paid mag work, because there simply isn't a lot left of it to do in the fishing world.

The mags cut back drastically on the pages and the content they want is usually stuff that's very hard to get. So I might spend 4000 getting the content for an article and photo that doesn't pay more than half that.

The stuff I put online is never my best work, I save that-especially my best images- for paid gigs.

My very best images never end up on my site till they have been published at least once and earned money, and even then I mark them up with watermarks.

For example, I have these super rare u/w spearfish shots. Spearfish are the world's rarest billfish. I put some of my lower qual ones on to talk about it so that I have some content that gets recognized in search engines so when people query spearfish, I might come up, but these cherry images have never been shown to anyone but editors, and I am saving them for covers only.

The better images that I do put on my website are always branded thoroughly with urls, my name, watermarks- stuff that shows my work but allows me to keep the value of it. That way, if a publishing company wants to do a fishing calendar, or has an outdoors company they need images for, and they are googling potential shooters/images, they come to my site, which, due to my traffic gained through some cool content, has a higher PR rank, and they see a taste of what they can get.

For example, I have some rare images that I took from a helicopter of a marlin jumping behind a boat. I can talk about it on my site but still protect the image, so that potential clients see it but no one really gets to use it. Editors have passed on the image so I decided to talk about it on my site, and I wouldn't be surprised if I get an email from a buyer or a publisher that might be interested in it, now that I have shown it off. If I didn't spread the word about it, then no one except the editors would know I have it, but posting it on my blog or site in this way might whet a potential customer's appetite.

Like this:

So I get clients by having a website that shows off my capabilities w/o giving away the whole store.

I honestly feel that both examples of your cover page are just too busy looking. There is little sophistication there. I would suggest that you look at the home pages of other noted photographers to get a feel for something that may be a bit more classy.

Went to your youtube of the Marlin fishing and it appears that it was not uploaded in the correct aspect ratio, a shame.

Steve

Hey Jon

I just had a quick look at your two examples and from my point of view the one with the wooden back does give you a bit more of a professional photographer who is comfortable with different situations. Not only is the background a bit more "quiet" but it also gives you a more serious look&feel compared to beach and airplanes on the first example you give.

The same thing I had to figure out more or less for me and I decided to not give one or the other more space on the main page. You find my page here. If you take a closer look it does not say whether I do only underwater photography or also do other photography. If people are curious enough they find out rather quickly that I do landscape- and animal-photography both underwater and on land.

What you could do considering useability and if you want people recognise that you are not only a big fish photographer: Mention the other things like nature- or building-photography which you do as well higher up in the navigation or put more links on these sites than on the big fish site... since people who already know you for fish photography will find their way to the pics anyway ;-)

By the way: Nice Nikon you got there. Which model is it?

Thomas

All knowledge has value...

 

... ask any Harvard graduate (are there any here?) how much it costs to attend......and then see what kind of salaries some command thereafter. Students attend and pay knowing that Harvard is an investment, one that will pay off in the future with lifelong returns of higher salaries compared to their peers without Ivy League (We call it Oxbridge on this side of the pond) backing...

I'm going to disagree with decosnapper, again.

I'm very Oxbridge (not to mention a couple of other institutions): imagine attending Harvard, then somewhere a bit smaller but still respected, then MIT! I take my photographs for fun, as relief from spending my expertise, time and skill in public service.

Some things can be difficult to measure financially; some worth is lost when it's expressed in monetary terms. There's a balance between being part of a co-operative community, being respected and being saleable. Keeping everything held tightly behind paywalls is not the only way!

Tim

Some things can be difficult to measure financially; some worth is lost when it's expressed in monetary terms. There's a balance between being part of a co-operative community, being respected and being saleable. Keeping everything held tightly behind paywalls is not the only way!

To be honest Tim, I thought this was the first time you disagreed, but that may say more about my thick skin than anything else.

Paywalls are one way of generating revenue, but there are others and this is indeed a very good thing.

The OP is intending to derive revenue from their work, so the question of monetary value takes precedence, otherwise how could the creator continue to create and do what they wanted to do? Could anyone continue to follow UW photography - regardless of trade, job, career, method, skills or means - with no means of financial support/income? I wager not.....the housing suppliers and camera makers are not in the business of free, and the consumers of content - magazines et al - are intending to charge for the next issue, so is the printer and paper supplier. Why does the art of photography seem to be on a higher, less financially driven sphere? I ponder this question many times, and I have yet to find a compelling argument or reason to support a free model in anything but the extreme short term.

A co-operative community is indeed a great idea, except the supermarket security seemed to get a bit shirty when I offered a credit/byline in exchange for my food....... Communities have established cash as an acceptable means of trade, and I don't see any end soon to that model of reward. Until then, ideas, thoughts and the very expression of information by the means of images, sculpture, paintings, computer software, dance, film et al - the very things that can be difficult to be measured financially - are paid for in cash, right down to the license to use the browser I'm using right now to fill in the reply, even if we as consumers are blissfully unaware of it.

In my view, absolutely nothing is lost when value is expressed in pure monetary terms. Quite the opposite; My bank account for a gains a + sign when I charge and this is a very good thing indeed as it means I can continue to do what I enjoy doing. Art for art sake is all very well and great for the community, but most of society doesn't give a toss when it comes to my own financial stability - and quite rightly so. Its down to me to earn and support myself and my family by whatever means, including deriving income from the licensing of intellectual property, such as images, and the knowledge/insight contained within.

The work of all underwater photographers efforts and endeavours - yours included - is valued far higher than zero in my (balanced cashflow) book.