TAMPA PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG

Your inside look at the Tampa photography services industry by Tampa photographer C. A. Passinault

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Words and pictures by Tampa photographer C. A. Passinault, lead photographer for Aurora PhotoArts Tampa photography and design

Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design - Headshots - Model Testing - Modeling Photography - Modeling Portfolios - Swimsuit Photography - Composite Cards - Model Search - Portrait Photography - Fashion Photography - Commercial Photography - Wedding Photography - Photography Blog - Photographer Blog - Designer Blog - Photography Society

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 - 09:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Blog Content Back Online. Venus 3 Deployment Imminent.

Take every post here on the Tampa Photography Blog that I’ve done and add one to two years to any timetable that was predicted.
I’ve been sidetracked, but I’m now fully engaged with my plans. It was never a question of “if”, but rather “when”.
Some people out there are going to become very unhappy with me in the coming months. What did you expect? Did you expect me to ignore what’s been going on? My official response, which will take at least one month to initiate, and another to gather momentum, begins now.
As of now, the long-awaited Venus 3 prototype, an all-new version of the Venus Class site design which I’ve been writing about for about a year now, and a direct answer to the SEO 2008 issue, is done. I just finished going over the content on this blog, and, after removing four posts, am now ready to finish the image editing for the new site design class (the image of the Venus 3 prototype on this post has test thumbnail images which are all of the same picture. This is only because the image files are incomplete at the moment, and it will change after image editing is completed this week). After that, of course, and the new Venus 3 site is ready for mass production and deployment.
Starting next week, I’ll be building and deploying 3 to 4 of these Venus 3 sites a week, spending at least 10 hours of work on each site (and I will be doing all of this while operating my company and doing shoots. My social life will be on hold, and I will only have time left to eat and sleep). At the end of March, there will be 11 online in a massive network, each with ten pages of content. April will be used to add another 30 pages of content, each, for 9 of those sites, as the blogs don’t need a whole lot of new content (it’s going to take me at least two days to organize the content on the blogs). This means that, at minimum, all 11 Aurora PhotoArts Venus 3 marketing and support sites will have 40 pages of content each by May (Photographers, don’t even try to compete with me in creating content. You will not be able to keep up; I can write 10 pages a day indefinitely. Also, I have 58 web sites, which I invested 10 years into, supporting all of this, and many of those are tops in their fields. Might I suggest that you either pay for ads, or that you win the lottery to afford a staff of writers and web developers, and then give it three to four years to even approach what I’m doing? People make a lot of money doing what I can do, and that amount is much more than we make as photographers). That’s a total of 440 pages of content online by the beginning of May, and does not include the 57 pages of content already online on the Tampa Photography Blog, and the 67 pages of content on the Tampa Photographer Blog (which, until now, have not been that effective only because the content was not organized. This changes now, and from now on, all added content will be organized as it is added).
The new Venus 3 sites scheduled for fabrication and deployment in March are Tampa Photography Design (main Aurora Arts site), Tampa Looks (main marketing and directory site), Tampa Composite Cards (I don’t have a single sentence of content for this new site at the moment), Tampa Photographer Blog, Tampa Photography Blog, Tampa Model Testing, Tampa Modeling Portfolios, Tampa Modeling Photography, Tampa Model Search, Tampa Headshots, and Tampa Photography Society. These sites will be built and deployed in that order, and the sites may launch three at a time. Of those initial 11 Venus 3 sites, 7 of them will have dedicated online portfolios of photography work. The thumbnail arrays of the Tampa Photographer Blog, Tampa Photography Blog, and the Tampa Photography Society sites will link to the massive online portfolio on the main Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography Design site. The thumbnail arrays of Tampa Model Search, on the other hand, will lead to the online portfolio on Tampa Model Testing.
In May, I will be building, and launching, an additional 5 Venus 3 marketing sites, which will be added to the network of other Venus 3 sites, making 16 by summer (keep in mind that none of these sites are duplicate sites, or doorway sites! They all share the same design, and are all interconnected, but they are all stand-alone web sites with unique content! All of the sites will be different under the hood, too......).
Although the bulk of these sites will be online, and at operational speed by the end of the month, after the marathon of content publication, there will be regular updates to all of the Aurora PhotoArts sites. With regular updates, it will take at least 6 months to completely address the SEO 2008 issue.
Of course, this is serious business for me. Expect about 90% of all of my web work for the next six months to concentrate on Aurora PhotoArts. The other sites will have to wait. After that six month marathon, all of these sites will see regular updates. With regular content updates, there will be over 2,500 pages of content between the 16 sites in 2012, and over 5,000 by 2013.
As you can see, the priority for 2011 will be booking a record number of photography shoots, as well as addressing our online marketing with everything that we can throw at it. I’ve, literally, put everything else in my web design work on hold to take care of this. Thus, I really am throwing everything that I have at this.
While preparing for this work (which I’ve been doing since 2008), I did some research and discovered that some Tampa photographers have been keeping tabs on what I’ve been working on. They figured out some prime domain names which I would have obtained, and are now using them. Im glad that some of you are learning how to work this from me.
I’m now calling this new issue “Domaingate 2009", as a lot of this activity was done in June of 2009. Although I tip my hat to these photographers for taking the initiative, and attempting to block my obvious future acquisitions, they are about to find out that I have already figured out a way around this. Seriously, did you think that I’d be using all of my domain names to market with? There are only two that I’ll be using in marketing, and those are TampaLooks.Com and AuroraPhotoArts.Com. Tampa Looks will become a stand-alone services directory web site, and Aurora PhotoArts.Com fowards to the TampaPhotographyDesign.Com operating domain name, and where the main core Aurora PhotoArts site resides. The rest are operating domain names, and while some are the best domain names possible, and could double for marketing domain names if needed, those will only be used as operating domain names.
You don’t really think that I’ll ever advertise my headshot services with Tampa-Headshots.Com now, would you? Get serious. I don’t want a single potential client accidently going to that other web site, especially after my efforts to market to them. I’m not in business to drive business to competitors.
Come now. We can’t have clients getting confused and accidently going to a competitors web site, now, can we? Many businesses make this mistake, and accidently drive business to competitors because they don’t know what they are doing when they obtain domain names to market with. I see businesses with a hyphen in their domain name all of the time, and wonder who owns the domain name without the hyphen, which is what most people will type in.
At any rate, there are far better ways that they could have blocked me, and made things more difficult for me, but they didn’t do that. I’m not going to go into it here, either. I’m certain that the only reason that they didn’t do those things is because they don’t know how to.
So, photographers spamming search engines, and buying domain names, in an effort to compete with my web sites is going to fail. Miserably. They’ve had free reign on the Internet since 2008, but it’s coming to an end. This year, in the coming months, everything changes.
There are at least a half dozen other things that I am doing about this, too, in addition to marketing and support web sites and meta-sites, but I will not go into it here, again. Figure it out. I’m sure that you’re a smart bunch. Well, a few of you, at least. Remember my old Vanguard Class online marketing ads (Craig loves them! I made some for him, and they were very effective for him.)? Well, I developed an entirely new concept over a year ago which blows those away in every way. There is nothing like them being used, by any photographer or photography company, on the Internet. They are a new way of marketing services online. I expect to be copied when I start using them, however. Well, at least other photographers will try!
This will be the final blog post on the old Tampa Photography Blog site. The next post will be on the new Venus 3 Class site for this blog. The format of this blog, as well as the organization of files, will change with the launch of the new site.
Oh, and on the subject of the new Venus 3 sites, we made some changes when we were assembling and testing the prototype last week. Because the embedded content only aligns properly with a left aligned site, and we are centering the new design, the content will begin in a fixed content field, and then continue below the header section. It works well, and it is even more effective than the original format specifications. There is only one Venus 3 design now, and there will not be an X-View variant. All of the photo and content-centric sites will be able to use the same format.
Also, revealed today, development of the Venus 4 Venus Class marketing and support site has been announced. The Venus 4 is an all-new, advanced, true 4th generation web site which will be entirely PHP based, and will include all flash files for the site itself. There is no estimate on when this new site design will be completed, although the general layout and look will be a lot like the other Venus Class sites! The Venus 4 sites will be a front line site, right up there with the upcoming 4th generation Mosaic and Grail sites, as well as others. The next generation of web sites will not begin deployment until 2012. The new Venus 3's, which begin deployment immediately, are upgradable to 4th generation specifications, and are planned to be the standard, front-line Aurora PhotoArts marketing and support sites for at least five years. With those sites possibly being retired in 2016, they would probably be replaced by the Venus 4 at that time. This is speculation, however, as we cannot predict what will happen then.
I have some cool projects coming up, too. Because we will be obtaining new equipment in 2011, I will working with new types of photography and imaging technologies this year. Two projects which I am excited to be working on are 3D photography, and new forms of digital gallery presentations. No one in the world will be doing these things like I will. Because both projects will require gallery displays for the most effective presentation, I will be including a photographic art gallery in the upcoming JPS, or Joint Photography Studio.
And, with that, I need to fix the meta tags on the Tampa Photography Blog and the Tampa Photographer Blog. Ciao for now, and good day!

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Saturday, February 19, 2011 - 10:00 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Reboot Coming In Days. Tampa Photography Blog Content Is Being Evaluated.

As of today, the Tampa Photography Blog has been taken completely offline, pending a relaunch, and a reboot, of the site as a new second generation online blog. All content has been archived offline, pending a review. Although we are focusing on new blog posts once the Tampa Photography Blog relaunches, older content, once it has been edited and approved, may be republished and integrated into the content of the new blog.
Tampa photographer C. A. Passinault launched a series of blogs, including the Tampa Photography Blog, in 2008. These were first generation blogs, and were experimental. All of those blogs, with the exception of one which has already been redone and relaunched (and even this one will have its content reviewed, in time), have been taken offline, and will relaunch in the next year as fully operational second generation blogs.
Both the Tampa Photography Blog and its sister blog, the Tampa Photographer Blog, have been taken offline, with all content removed for review. Since there are hundreds of pages of content for each blog, this review process will take months, although that will not be an issue since new blog posts will be published on the blogs once they are back online (some of the content which is not republished on the blogs may be added to a private historical database, referenced in some work, or used in a number of book projects that C. A. Passinault is working on). Both blogs will relaunch using brand new Venus 3 Venus Class sites, and will be integrated into other Aurora PhotoArts marketing and support sites. The Venus 3 variants of the successful, six year old Venus Class site design are a new breed of marketing web sites. They may look a lot like the old Venus Class sites, but they are entirely new, from the code under the hood to the design elements of the site itself. Nothing from the original Venus Class sites was used, so, other than the layout and some of the aesthetics, these are brand new, 2011 coded sites which are late third generation designs, with the full capability to be upgraded to fourth generation sites in the coming years. These new sites are long-term marketing sites with a life span, and a comprehensive plan, which will last years. These Venus 3 sites are not stop gaps or band aids in the marketing agenda of Aurora PhotoArts; they are front line sites with the latest technologies, so, while they were made in the image of the original Venus Class design, these are not old sites, and they are far more advanced than any Venus 1 or Venus 2 Venus Class site. These are entirely new animals, designed and built with ideas from other advanced Eos sites, as well as the lessons learned from the original Venus Class sites.
A total of 11 Aurora PhotoArts Venus 3 marketing sites will begin deployment next week. They should all be online, and fully operational, by April 2011. 5 more, and possibly more, are planned to be developed, and deployed, in the next two years. All of these sites will form a massive meta site, with each site servicing a particular market channel. The Venus 3 design, unlike the original Venus Class sites, are designed to be highly interconnecting, and are balanced for up to 24 Venus 3 marketing and support web sites (dimensions of actual site design elements were adjusted to accommodate a large link array, which will connect each individual site comprising the collective meta site, which will be massive in total size). There are other big differences in the design of these sites, the technology, and the overall philosophy of the new Venus 3's, too, which makes comparing them to the original Venus Class site like night and day.
Since there is no way to separate the photography blogs from the photography marketing sites (which explains the weird disclaimers that were recently added to the blog sites), opinions on the blogs will be more factual than actual opinions, from now on, supporting the overall marketing agenda of Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design (the story is that a lot more than these blogs are being rebooted now. Everything is being redone).
The purpose of the Tampa Photography Blog is a bit different from the more anecdotal purpose of the Tampa Photographer Blog. This blog, also by Tampa photographer C. A. Passinault, will focus more on the business end of photography.
Of course, the opinions expressed on the Tampa Photography Blog are those of C. A. Passinault, and are not necessarily those of Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design, or any other party. Also, just like over at our sister Tampa Photographer Blog, anecdotes involving any other people will not be published without their express written permission, and approval.
This has been in the works for a long time now, and began in late 2008. There is a lot more to come, but, at this time, the information is classified, and cannot be posted here on this blog. We are looking forward to the new era of the Tampa Photography Blog, as well as the new directions that the other blogs are taking.
It is time to begin.

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Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - 09:05 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

2011 Services And Agenda Outlined. SEO 2008 Issue To Be Resolved Shortly.

It’s been a busy time for Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design, as far as prepping goes. We’ve been working on the official service agreements for 2011, as well as our short term, and long term, business agenda.
In 2011, we will focus on our primary markets of modeling portfolio photography and actor talent headshots in the Tampa Bay area, but please note that we will also be expanding into fields of photography that we have seldom, or never, worked in before. That won’t be an issue, however, as our long history of doing some of the best talent and portrait photography in Tampa Bay will actually give us an advantage in the other areas, especially when photographing people is generally the name of the game.
We will be expanding into swimsuit modeling photography, boudoir photography, glamour photography, consumer portrait photography, wedding photography, trash the dress wedding photography, and, of course, commercial photography. With the addition of entirely new equipment and cameras (our current gear will be completely replaced in the coming year), expect art direction, and fashion photography, to figure prominently in all of our work.
In regards to high risk photography work such as glamour, boudoir, and nude photography, which we have resisted for years, we will be working those markets primarily to provide an ethical, and a professional, alternative to what is available now. There is a market for that work, and we need to be able to provide a new standard in quality and integrity for services that are traditionally risky. Obviously, such photography services will be reliant on studio settings, and it will have to be worked separately from our other service lines; we may even spin off a separate photography company for this work.
2011 will be our busiest year in our history, with business exceeding all of our previous years, combined.
2011 will be the year of our Tampa photography association, too. The Tampa Photography Society will go into action, networking with a wide variety of professional photographers. It can be said that solutions that we came up with through Tampa Bay Film for Tampa indie film, and Tampa filmmakers, will also work in both the modeling and the photography industries.
There is more, too. Our joint photography studio, which has been in the works for years, is also taking form. We are now working on branding and guidelines, and the studio could be commissioned as early as 2012. The Joint Photography Studio, or JPS, will be a venue platform and studio space for the Tampa Photography Society, our business interests, and a variety of different events, including film festivals. Aurora PhotoArts, Eventi Events, Eventi, Stage, Dream Nine Studios, Eos MediaArts, and other Passinault.Com companies will also operate from the JPS location, in a secure part of the facility. The JPS is a technical name, also, so expect an effective, and catchy, marketing and branding name to be unveiled soon, as well as a stand-alone web site for the studio.
Where will the Joint Photography Studio be located? We can only say that it will be in the Tampa Bay area at this time, and that’s about all that we can reveal, although we can officially confirm that it will NOT be in Ybor city, Seminole Heights, or in any other high crime / high trash areas of the Tampa Bay market. We want our visitors, and our partners, to be safe, as well as avoid any issues with parking (parking, accessability, overall value, and licensing will all weigh in heavily in our decision). Expect either somewhere in Tampa, or in the area of Brandon (Riverview / Fishhawk may be a consideration, as well, with their close proximity to I-75). Also, expect it to be somewhere in unincorporated Hillsborough county.
Going back to the Tampa Photography Society, this professional photographer association for the Tampa Bay photography services market is very important for our overall business agenda (some details are classified, and they will continue to be for a long time to come, even after the photography association and the studio are well underway). In many aspects of our business, there will be full Tampa Photography Society association integration. With only one professional photography association in the Tampa Bay market at this time, we feel that there is not only room for two competing photography associations, but that the market requires it. Again, solutions that Tampa Bay Film has come up with to address the Tampa indie film market, and the upcoming Tampa film community, will work well here with our Tampa photography association. Tampa Bay Film, much like Tampa Bay Modeling, is a talent resource site owned and affiliated with us, and other Passinault.Com companies.
Aurora PhotoArts will be working closely with our talent resource sites, too. Expect a lot of work with Tampa Bay Modeling, Florida Modeling Career, Advanced Model, Independent Modeling, Model Dominion, (a secret modeling site, TBA), Tampa Bay Acting, Tampa Bay Talent, Tampa Bay Photographers (our professional photographer resource site, which has yet to launch, will serve as a lead-in for our Tampa Photography Society professional photography association, which in turn will tie in with Aurora PhotoArts), Independent Acting, Independent Talent Resource, and some other sites that we own and are affiliated with.
The talent resource sites will be worked in other ways, too. We will actually be taking the time to contact the sources of talent jobs so that they can put their job posts on our free talent resource web site job boards, as well as having those jobs consider the featured talent on those sites before they post their job offer. Keep in mind, too, that this free service will be kept separate from our photography business; we will not be unethical and use job offers to market services. If anyone uses jobs to sell services, they are a scam, and those businesses should be avoided at all costs (which is why models and talent should never respond to any ads for modeling jobs if the poster has to pay normal advertisement rates. If they need models that badly, it is far cheaper to go through an agency. Consider how they will make that money back, as every modeling job advertisement that we have checked out have turned out to be scams selling services to the models who respond. We’ve never seen a legitimate modeling job ad in the paper, on the radio, or on TV).
Regarding the SEO 2008 issue, it is about to be rendered a thing of the past. In the coming weeks, Aurora PhotoArts will be deploying a total of 9 photography and support marketing sites. These new marketing web sites will be state of the art Venus 3 sites, the latest version of the effective Venus Class web site format. All of the Venus 3 sites will be upgradable to the next generation web site standards, too, which will employ flash and databasing technologies.
Of those 9 new sites, 3 of them will be X-View variants, which are optimized for content over pictures. The 3 X-View Venus 3 sites will be for the Tampa Photography Society web site, the Tampa Photographer Blog web site, and this Tampa Photography Blog web site. With our content-rich blogs, the content will also be properly organized, making both blogs an effective turbocharger for the SEO efforts of the other Aurora PhotoArts marketing sites, as all of the Aurora PhotoArts Venus 3 marketing sites will be interconnected (this strategy takes a page from a solution that was utilized with Tampa Bay Film, which is now a network of 8 interconnected web sites, and will soon be 12).
In addition to the 9 Venus 3 web sites, we are expecting to develop, and deploy, at least 3 more Venus 3 photography marketing web sites in 2011, which will bring us to around 12 within a year (the meta site concept will help us dominate SEO in Tampa photography, modeling, and indie film, which are the three fronts in an ongoing agenda, or war, to bring professional standards and change to each market; see Frontier Pop’s “Three Front War” issue for more. It is possible that each front will have a network of between 12 to 16 interconnected web sites addressing it). There will not be a photographer, photography company, modeling business, or modeling agency in Florida which will be able to come close to us in SEO by the summer of 2011, and it’s as it should be.
All of this work takes time, and the months of hard work are about to pay off.

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Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - 08:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Business Is War

Well, it took me long enough.
I restored the content on both the Tampa Photography Blog and the Tampa Photographer Blog today, in an effort to prime the new SEO efforts that will, finally, resolve the SEO 2008 issue, and then some.
Over the past eight years, I’ve been experimenting, and testing, everything, in a business sandbox, of sorts. I’m at the point now that Aurora PhotoArts deserves a full business rollout, and it’s time. It’s time to finally start making some money, completely dominate the Tampa photography and design services market, and to continue to increase our lead.
I’ve been observing some photographers out there reacting to what I’ve been working on, and a few who are now seriously attempting to move in on my primary photography market, which is modeling portfolio photography and talent headshot photography.
Too little, too late. I see what’s going on (I love the wedding/ portrait photographer who launched a headshot photography web site in June, and who obviously has been reading my sites, and love the reaction posted in an effort to compete against me on another photography site), and the sleeping giant is now awake. Good luck competing with what is coming in the next few months.
I observed an SEO issue in the summer of 2008 (hence the SEO 2008 name for the issue), and began monitoring what was going on. I began to address it, too, with the development, and deployment of several photography marketing web sites, which did well, and continue to do well. As a stop-gap measure, I used my modeling and talent resource web sites as a way to pick up the slack. This was only the beginning, however.
In the summer of 2009, I bought more marketing domain names, and began working on completely addressing the SEO 2008 issue. Now, in August 2010, I am finally doing something about it.
I’m almost finished.
There will be major improvements within a few weeks, and it should be resolved by next month.
One of the keys was my main Aurora PhotoArts Venus Class web site, which was launched on 2007, and has not been updated since early 2008. The Aurora PhotoArts web site will undergo a major upgrade to a new Venus 3 Venus Class web site, and the Venus 3 will form the foundation of an array of photography marketing web sites. In the next four weeks, a total of eight of those sites will be developed and deployed. Two of those sites have been reserved for the photography blog sites; this Tampa Photography Blog, and the Tampa Photographer Blog. The Venus 3 sites that will be used for the blogs will be modified “Wide Screen” versions, specifically for the support of lots of content. Additionally, the hundreds of pages of content on these blogs will be properly archived, organized, and indexed.
Tampa Boudoir Photography, Tampa Glamour Photography, and the Tampa Photography Society are also scheduled to be converted to Venus 3's. This will make eleven Venus 3 sites, and an additional one is also planned for the Eos MediaArts Tampa advertising agency site, which will bring the total to twelve. Two more may be optioned, too, which would bring the total to fourteen, making the Venus Class site the most numerous marketing site in the Eos arsenal.
I’m blogging about this now to let everyone know how serious that we are about resolving this, and how serious that we are about addressing some of the search engine issues which are now annoying us in the Tampa Bay market. There is absolutely no way that anyone can compete with this level of marketing firepower.
It’s war, and we’re throwing everything that we have at the market. Resources are now mobilized, and we’re now in the execution phase of our plan. Aurora PhotoArts will remain the standard in the Tampa Bay market, and after the SEO 2008 issue is addressed this fall, we will continue to increase our lead.
The Venus 3's will be among the last of the third generation web sites, which have been around for about six years. Being late third generation, also, the Venus 3 is designed to be easily upgraded to new fourth generation web sites. The Venus 3 is a vast improvement on my Venus Class web site design, and incorporates a lot of concepts, and lessons learned, from our web team’s hard work on the Tampa Bay Film Super Raptor Class sites in late 2009 (As well as the newest web site class developed and deployed last month, the Pioneer Class, which is used by Frontier Pop). The Super Raptor Class site, of which there are eight deployed now, was, until now, our most ambitious SEO effort. The Super Raptor Class site has exceeded all of its design and performance goals, and all that the sites need now is content, which will wait until next year.
The Venus 3 photography marketing sites will be front-line web sites for Aurora PhotoArts for at least a couple of years, and have the ability to function in that capacity for up to five years, with some upgrades, if needed. This is not bad for the base Venus Class site platform, which has already been around for five years. It’s been very successful, and will continue to be. At least, in all respects, it will finally see its full potential by the end of the year.
This is a prelude for what is to come in the future. A new, advanced photography and design services marketing web site class is in development, and it will be a fourth generation web site which will be much more advanced than any current front line marketing web site in our arsenal.
My Tampa advertising agency, Eos MediaArts, is now developing new, advanced fourth generation web sites due to begin deployment in 2011. A true successor to the effective Venus Class photography and design marketing web sites, this new class, called the Mosaic Class, will be the most advanced photography and design marketing web site on the Internet. Mosaic Class specs, and even the design layout, are classified. The first Mosaic Class web site may be ready to be tested as early as late 2011, and we could have a full rollout of the new, advanced sites by 2012, where as many as sixteen could dominate the market.
Until then, however, the new Venus 3's will be our main workhorse for Aurora PhotoArts marketing sites, and one of the most effective photography marketing web sites in the country. It will be the standard for all Florida markets.
I, for one, am going to love documenting the history of Aurora PhotoArts web sites, from the first simple one in 2000, to the more advanced one in 2003, to the prototype Diana Class site in 2004, to the first Venus Class site in 2005, to the second Venus Class site in 2007, and now, the full rollout of a proven, and effective, marketing web site, the Venus 3 Venus Class site.

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Thursday, July 1, 2010 - 08:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Headshot Printing Issue Solved By A Client? Looks Like It!

I was cleaning the studio, and going through files, the other day, and I came upon a headshot that one of my clients gave me after I did the design and set up. This WAS PERFECT, and was exactly what I’ve been needing. The quality was there, and she found the solution all on her own. I smiled, too, because the headshot had my Aurora PhotoArts branding on it. How many Aurora PhotoArts-branded headshots and composite cards are there floating around out there? I really have no idea. I could tell you how many I’ve set up over the years, and because almost all of my clients elected to go out and get them printed on their own, I have no idea how many of them are floating around out there.
The client who came up with my solution is actress, singer, and model Harmony Layne / Oswald, and we became friends after she booked me to do her headshot photography and design. We’ve been friends for about five years, now, and I even referred her into a lead role for a Tampa indie film project. I really need to call her up and find out where she got those headshots printed. I also need to pay more attention to what my clients and friends give me, instead of noticing it after the fact. I think that I may have realized that the headshots were good quality back when she gave it to me, but I probably got sidetracked with other projects, and forgot about it. Such is life.
I like Harmony. She’s a smart woman, and a good friend. I remember one day we she was doing some bikini modeling for me, we had lunch at a nice restaurant, and the food made me sick. Although I was sick, we continued to do our shoot, and we made a pitstop at another Tampa location to give some pictures to another client. Well, the client did not bother reading her service agreement, and she was expecting prints of her pictures. She became irate when I gave her the files on a CD. Not in any shape to deal with her complaints, because I was sicker than a dog, Harmony jumped in and handled it. You see, Harmony, too, was a client of mine, a client who was happy with the work that I did, and who became my friend. So, one satisfied client and friend helped defuse the one situation where a client was not happy (this was short lived, though, because the client was even more pissed the next day. It took quite a lot of effort to please them, and the issue was not my fault at all. This one clients, however, was the only one that I can recall who was not happy with me. You can’t please everyone, I suppose). Harmony also solved an ongoing problem for me; the solution for printing headshots is nearly at hand!
Much more happened the day that Harmony and I did that shoot, too. Over a year later, I referred Harmony to a television appearance on behalf of my Tampa Bay Modeling site. I told a prominent news anchor friend the story about that day, and how, after I became sick and Harmony dealt with my irate model client, we drove to Brandon, and continued our shoot. While in Brandon, some idiot called the police on us, and we were pulled over by a police officer while leaving the parking lot of our shoot location (it pays to have permits, people, but you also need liability insurance and planning to secure those permits. My shoots often go too fast to go through all of that.... Harmony and I were just having fun doing a shoot, and it was a professional collaboration). The police officer only had sketchy information to go on, and he was overly cautious. He came up to my car window with his hand on his holstered gun, and told me to get out of the car. The police officer demanded to know if we were shooting topless shots in public, and both Harmony and I explained that we were not doing that kind of shoot (neither she nor I do that kind of crap). Explaining what we were doing, I had an idea. I told the police officer that he could look at the raw pictures on my camera if he wished, and that we were only doing family-friendly photography. The police officer declined, apologized, and sent us on our way. It was quite an eventful day of shooting, for sure. When I recollected this with my television news friend, he cracked up. He asked me, while illustrating it, if the police officer told me to put my hands on my car, as if he would if he were going to arrest me. I laughed, too. I was certainly glad that I did not get shot, literally, over a misunderstanding.
Who ever said that photography couldn’t be an adventure?

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Friday, June 4, 2010 - 08:10 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

More Venus Class Photography Marketing Sites Ordered

With all of the work upgrading the graphics of the main Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design marketing Venus Class web site, a decision has been made.
Although the Huey Class photography marketing sites have been proven winners in SEO efforts, that’s because those sites were launched with lots of content. The site thumbnail array is limited to 10 on the main layout. The Venus Class photography marketing web sites, on the other hand, have a layout with 32 thumbnails, in two rows of 16. Don’t let the numbers fool you. The Venus Class sites are superior, and the only reason that they have had SEO issues is a lack of content (and this is being rectified, starting with dumping the template placeholder pages in the online portfolio).
So, the graphics overhaul work on the main site will, by default, enable easy construction, and launches, of other Venus Class Aurora PhotoArts marketing sites; sites which are optimized for specialized photography markets (I already have most of the graphics, so content will be the hardest part to do). Also, these sites will be coded brand new, from the ground up, with the latest SEO tactics, and will have none of the old directory baggage from ancient Aurora PhotoArts sites.
Tampa Modeling Photography, Tampa Modeling Portfolios, Tampa Model Testing, and Tampa Model Search will all be launched as specialized Aurora PhotoArts Venus Class marketing web sites, and Tampa Model Search will be a joint effort of Aurora PhotoArts and Tampa Bay Modeling. Tampa Headshots, currently a Huey Class site, will be converted to a Venus Class site soon after, and all of the sites will be highly interconnected.
I am delaying my book writing projects until the SEO 2008 issue is resolved. All of the sites will be up to spec by the end of summer.
The Tampa photography services market is mine, and SEO dominance will be maintained.

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Thursday, May 20, 2010 - 08:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Printing Services

I was beginning to wonder why I was getting so many calls from people wanting their headshots printed. I checked the search engines, and now I know. Those search engines are not the most accurate things, for sure.
I am a headshot photographer. I am a modeling portfolio photographer. Sure, I offer headshot set-up services (actually, I had lumped those services with my headshot photography services these past five years, but effective next month, they will be separated, again. Headshot set-up services will be offered at the same rate as my composite card design and set up services) and composite card set-up and design services, but I’m a photographer and designer. I’m not a printing company. I’m really getting tired of explaining this to people.
If I were a printing company, I would have printing facilities and a huge $1,000,000.00 printing press. The high quality printing stock and process that my composite cards use, when I refer them to third-party printing companies on behalf of my clients, after I am done setting them up, use that kind of printing hardware. Aurora PhotoArts composite cards are referred to out of state printers, and are printed on 14 PT heavy stock with a 4/4 CYMK color process, and UV coated. They blow away the cheap, amateur laser printed composite cards that most models insist on using.
I’ve also done my homework in this area.
Back in 2002, I toured several printing companies in the Tampa Bay area. I did all the research so my models would not have to. I learned about the printing process, about paper stock that I could use for composite cards, and other things about that business. I learned how to design, and optimize those designs, for the printing process, too. Sadly, though, I wanted my composite cards printed on at least 12 PT stock, and, at the time, no local printing company could do that.
So, one of my photographers referred me to a printing company in Los Angeles, and I now use them for my composite card printing. They also print my business cards on the same stock, and using the same process (look at my business cards if you want to see a sample of what the composite cards are like).
There is just one problem with getting my comp cards printed. There is very little mark-up available on those services. As a result, I don’t have much of an incentive to market composite cards. I usually do them for clients upon request. Printing is just so damn expensive.
I’ve found, however, that simply offering comp card set-up and design services is much more cost-effective, with pretty much no overhead. I simply do that work for the client, and then send them on their way to a printing company of their choice, or, in some cases, send their order to one of my third-party printers with minimal mark-up, which is hardly worth my effort.
With the former, encouraging the client to find a printing company on their own, there is a problem, though, even if I educate them on what to look for. I have no control over quality, and some of those clients get their comps printed on cheap stock using the usual laser printing. Sure, my comps look great, despite the washed out colors when done by laser, but I don’t really want my company branding on such cards.
So, with those dilemmas, I’ve gone over the numbers and have come up with a happy compromise. The solution? The best of both worlds. You mark up the set-up and design services for composite cards just enough to cover the hassle of handling the referral to a qualified third-party printer (and, of course, the guarantees for quality from the printing company govern that transaction. The client is made aware of that, and it is, ultimately, their choice. It’s pretty much the same deal if I were to use the printing company for my own work. Am I able to guarantee that?). Although the client is always able to go to a printing company on their own, you encourage the one that you would use. The results are high quality composite cards that you would be proud to have your company brand on, as well as professional looking, and feeling, cards that give the model an advantage over other models, other models who short themselves by using inferior, mortal laser comps, or worse, cards printed on their home computer on photo paper. Which model would you book if you had a job for models?
There is more, too. Although the design and set-up services ARE marked up to cover handing services to a preferred printing company, the total for those services are lower cost than what they would be if the client decided to go on their own and get them printed. How? It’s easy. You have to give them every incentive for your to be able to put your company brand on those cards, which is basically piggyback advertising. I give my clients discounts on my set-up and design services if they allow me to put Aurora PhotoArts, discretely, on their cards, which is set up initially in the finalized design file. Of course, I am only able to give them that discount if I want to put my brand on those cards, and I don’t want to do that if I have no control over the printing quality of the comps. I certainly do not want my company brand on poorly printed card, despite my excellent design and set up work.
If the client elects to use their own printing services, the discounts don’t apply because I have to leave my brand off of their cards, and the result is a higher set-up and design rate. Sure, they can get the card printed cheaply, but they end up with career marketing tools that aren’t that effective because they are printed on low quality card stock with washed out colors that do not do their composite card printing master file justice. So, most clients would (and I would, if I were a client) obtain set-up and design services at a discount, and then apply those savings to more expensive, but best quality, printing services, obtaining top quality composite cards to market their modeling careers with. So, do you go cheap, or do you go for value? Professionals understand the power of value.
And that, my friends, is how you handle that. The key is to partner with a printing company which consistently delivers the quality that your clients need for their careers.
Of course, there is another problem which I have not been able to resolve, yet. The problem is with printing headshots, which is another animal entirely. It is also a constant thorn in my side, because I get a lot of calls where they say that they already have their headshots done, but they just need them printed.
So, why don’t I just apply the above business model to headshot printing? I can’t. The reason is size. Composite cards can be run two to a “page” in printing, doubling efficiency. A headshot, however, can’t be run like that. Headshots are 8 X 10 inches, and although a page is a little larger than that, a single headshot takes a whole page, as well as some cropping.
If I were to run headshots off like I did modeling composite cards, it would cost the client twice as much for printing! This is especially true when the composite card runs have to be run at a minimum of 1,000 cards to be cost-effective with the high quality printing process and stock, and the number of headshots could not be lower than that for comps. With minimum runs of 1,000, the headshots would use twice as much printing stock for the same amount, doubling the cost.
Yes, and I’ve heard it. Models baulk at that many cards. Well, that’s what you do for quality. I explain to them that they are paying for the quality, and that the extra cards are merely a bonus. Additionally, if they market their careers like smart models do, they are going to need all of those cards. A busy working model should go through that many cards in less than six months. How? Professional independent models, the smart ones who I provide quality services to, obtain representation from as many modeling and talent agencies as possible, don’t allow any agency to represent them exclusively (allowing any agency to represent them exclusively limits their prospects, especially in the Florida market), don’t allow any agency, or agencies, to manage them (the agencies work for the model, finding them job leads, as well as work for the competition of the model who they work for, which are other models whom they represent, and who are trying to book the same modeling jobs! This would be a conflict of interest, and models have to realize that the agency, working for them, really has no business telling them what to do. That would be like your employee telling you what to do), and find modeling job leads on their own, submitting their composite cards to those contacts. All of these career resources consume composite cards. Sure, if you were to limit yourself with a single agency, 1,000 cards would be excessive, but not if you are serious about working your career and booking work!
As a result, the models don’t have a problem ordering that many cards.
Going back to headshots, the problem is that the same number of headshots would have to be ordered, due to the printing process, and it would cost double! As a result, it is not cost-effective to print headshots the same way that composite cards are printed.
I have a solution, but I haven’t achieved it, yet. Not really. For headshot printing, a local printing company would have to be used, and different paper stock, as well. Why local? The quality margins would be lower in order for the headshot to be cost-effective to begin with, and quality would have to be monitored at those lower threshholds. With the composite cards, you have small cards that can take advantage of the best printing technology available, and running two cards to a page, it is cost-effective, although more expensive than the usual laser-printed cards. Headshots, running one to a page, would not be worth it (although the actors and talent would have awesome quality headshots if they were willing to pay that much for them. They can, but I wouldn’t). I’m going to offer them that best-quality option, of course, but not without offering them alternatives. The key is to give them good quality at a reasonable cost, and for an 8 X 10, that’s not easy.
One thing going in the favor of headshots are that, normally, they are in black and white. This is usually a lot more forgiving of lower quality stock than a color headshot would be. So, that’s part of a solution there, by default. A headshot is not typically a composite card.
So, my search for a local printing company which can deliver on more critical criteria continues. I ought to have this resolved this summer. I know, it sucks that I cannot have one printing company do it all, but these are the realities of the business (actually, I use another printing company for my marketing material which do not have pictures on them, because it is more cost-effective to do it like that, further fragmenting the third-party printing that I have to do!).
Another thing which is different with headshots is that you have a resume on the back, which is a lot harder to set up than doing a layout on a composite card. I suppose that this, alone, will justify charging the same as for composite card design and set-up services when I separate those services from my headshot photography services (how they merged is a long story, but it reduces the profit margin of my headshot photography services due to the extra work that I have to throw in, and my headshot photography rates are already fair, at least, just for the headshot photography). Some of you know how much work it is to get your resume just right. Well, it’s the same thing for a headshot set-up, and sometimes more; when you have to import a formatted text document into a graphic design program, it often causes all sort of issues that have to be fixed!
Thus, starting this summer, if my clients want me to do headshot photography AND the set-up for their headshot printing, it’s going to be more. Those changes will go into effect with the new service agreements, which will be in a few weeks.
Oh, and I have another bone to pick with those people who call me up to have their composite cards and headshots, which have already been photographed, of course, printed. If the photographers whom you booked to do your modeling portfolio or headshots are really that good, why do you have to call me up to get their work printed? Why couldn’t they make arrangements for you (Well, after they read this blog entry, they might be able to finish what they started one day, and be a true full-service solution and a one-stop-shop)? I'm thinking that those photographers didn't want to deal with printing, and told the model to find printing services on their own.
Oh, and another thing: Why did you book them over me? Why am I asking this? Because I am tired of models and talent coming to me with substandard, cheap pictures (or amateur pictures from TFP), and then having me spend a ton of time trying to fix them and make them usable. Guess what? If the pictures are flawed (and I will tell you if they are or not before you book me), you will be paying more for all of the extra work that I have to do fixing your mistakes.
In the end, though, you can only get out of something what you put into it. I’m limited if the ingredients are low quality.
Perhaps I’m being too hard on some clients, though. After all, they are the first ones who usually admit that they should have come to me for their photographs to begin with. You live and learn.
As for myself, however, I’d rather just do photography and design services (providing I am designing with good source material). These printing solutions are more for the convenience of my clients than for my benefit. In the long run, though, all this effort will be worth it for all of us, and will make what a do a true one-stop-shop for professionals. That will be cool.

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Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 08:10 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Working On Photography Marketing Sites

And what a lot of work it is tuning out to be! Quite simply, I am out of time, and will have to resume editing and organizing existing blog content in a couple of weeks. I barely have enough time to post this update on the Tampa Photography Blog! I had to add content to my Tampa Headshots site, noticed that the portfolio support content on that site was still in cookie-cutter template mode, with limited duplicate content, and that it would require at least 15 pages of content to fix it. The modeling photography/ portfolio marketing sites were in worse shape, though, so I had to spend a few hours writing content for those sites, as well. Expect a solid week's worth of writing to bring my three modeling photography annex marketing sites up to spec, a few days for Tampa headshots, and another two weeks of writing for my core Aurora PhotoArts site. Everything else will have to wait, and it can. I'm now out of time for this post, too, as I spent most of my time today writing for Tampa Modeling Photography and Tampa Headshots, so I'm out!

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Friday, April 23, 2010 - 08:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Photography Marketing Site Work To Resume

I've been busy organizing a few hundred pages of content on the Tampa Film Blog, which has been a long, tedious process. I'm almost done. I should be able to resume content and design work on my photography marketing web sites next week. I'll spend two weeks on that work, and then it's on to my modeling resource sites (I will be getting to my acting and talent resource sites this summer). With work being done on the upcoming Frontier Pop web site next month (sigh...... I already have some web developer / SEO guy from California who called me about Frontier Pop within 24 hours of registering it. I love how he wouldn't state on the voice mail what his company did, what they were called, and what he was calling about; the lack of information seemed to imply that he was calling from the company whom I bought the domain name through. I hate shady sales calls like that. Sorry, guy, but I won't be calling you back. Web sites and SEO are what I do, and I'd rather do it myself, anyway! I also wish that these so-called professionals would check search engines before they email me lies such as "We checked the search engines for IndependentModeling.Com, and it did not place high in most searches". Whatever, jerks! Had they actually checked, which I do all of the time, they would feel silly sending me emails like that, for any of my sites. It is highly unlikely that they are better than I am in SEO, too, deceptive marketing tactics not considered in the evaluation of whether they actually know what they are doing! SEO is tough, and I work hard at it. I do extremely well.), which will become my top web site, and will reference all of my web sites, my web site work time is taken up. I need to find a few days in all of this to put together, and properly launch, Tampa Bay Photographers, which will be a resource site for professional photographers; Tampa Bay Photographers will help photographers like Tampa Bay Modeling and my modeling resource sites help models. Oh, and yes, I believe in balance in every industry, so there will be free tools on Tampa Bay Photographers which will help professional photographers deal with unethical, unprofessional models and businesses (Tampa Bay Modeling helps models deal with unethical, unprofessional photographers, too. Like I said: balance).

Oh my. I need to get my Venus Class Aurora PhotoArts marketing site up to spec, with the new design update and new content, by next week. I also need to finished content on my other two photography marketing sites, Tampa Modeling Photography and Tampa Modeling Portfolios, and deploy them as fully operational Huey Class sites (the same design class as Tampa-Headshots.Com, Tampa Photography Society, and Tampa Boudoir Photography) within two weeks. A lot of work for my 30 hours a week of allocated web development time (on top of my normal 50 hour work schedule). Can I do all of this, along with my normal workload, in 120 working hours? I will certainly try!

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Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 08:50 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Photographers Getting Ripped Off

This is not what I wanted. If you are an ethical, professional photographer, you deserve to make a living doing what you love to do. You need to so it as a photographer.
I’m hearing things now about professional photographers who are finding it hard to get paid anymore. I talked to one just the other day who was working for free, and he deserved to get paid! This situation, where everyone expects photographers to work free of charge, will not stand. I’m going to do something about it!
This gets me mad. The market is proving to be very difficult for photographers to negotiate, and when professional photographers can’t make a living anymore, it’s just wrong.
Ok, here’s the deal. I have solutions, and they work. I’m all for the integrity of the photography services market, as we ALL BENEFIT if it is strong, and I don’t have a problem giving up market share if it helps the market. What I am saying is that I do not mind helping other photographers, even if they are my competition, and it costs me a little business. I’d gladly lose a little business to keep our industry on track.
Just earn my trust. Demonstrate that you are genuine, and that you are ethical and professional. Respect boundaries. Do these things, and I have no problem helping you in your business, and I’ll do it at no charge. With me, there are no tricks, and no hidden agenda. I am sincere about helping other professional photographers, and have a proven track record of doing just that, without asking for anything in return, or expecting anything in return. Sure, photography is a business, but realize that I also love it, and I love the art of photography. I want to see every professional photographer, photographers who have paid their dues, make it.
Just last summer, a photographer called me up and asked for help with marketing their business. So, I had dinner with that photographer and another photographer. I gave them some tips, and discussed marketing with them, and they benefitted greatly from the advice. Why did I do this? Because they were professional photographers, and deserved to be in business.
I have a lot of work to do to stabilize the market. I suppose that I can start by launching the Tampa Bay Photographers site, which will be a free resource web site for professional, and aspiring photographers. We can all help ourselves by helping each other. Ultimately, the market will stabilize, and we will all benefit.
Please keep in mind that I don’t need any help. It’s just that I’m looking at where all this is going, and it isn’t looking good for the future of our industry. I can do something about it, now, and so can all of you. It’s our responsibility, as professionals, to work together to maintain the integrity of our industry. The same thing is going on in the modeling industry right now, and I am presently mobilizing my modeling resource sites to address that industry.
Just wait a few weeks, though. I am in the middle of something right now. I’m working on organizing my blogs for the next few days. I then have to work on my photography marketing sites. After that, I have to work on my portfolio, and some business details. When that’s done, I have to launch the Advanced Model site, and do massive updates on my modeling resource sites. I’ll be quite busy, but by this summer, I will address all of these issues in the Tampa photography services market.
I used to think that my return to event planning would start with a series of film festivals and a video game festival. It looks like it will begin with a ongoing series of shootout events, photography business events, and modeling events.

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Saturday, April 3, 2010 - 04:40 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Content Generation For Photography Marketing Sites

I did more work on the Aurora PhotoArts Venus Class site (although it will not be uploaded and refreshed until next week; 30% of the content must be updated, and the design overhaul must be finished; the existing site already has hundreds of pages of content which are in archives, and will not be changed- I found a 300+ page news archive database within the site last night which will prove invaluable for historical reference. The thumbnail array is all that it left with the graphics work, and that's tedious work). I also spent six hours writing content for the three new photography marketing annex sites. The content is the foundation, will be required to be online before the upgraded Aurora PhotoArts site is online, and will pave the way for the official launch of all three sites. The three new sites will be Huey Class sites, much the successful Tampa Headshots, Tampa Photography Society, and Tampa Boudoir Photography sites; all three of those sites are already at the top of all search results for their relevant markets.
The photography blogs (Tampa Photography Blog and Tampa Photographer Blog) will see upgrades this week. Once the work on the photography marketing sites is finished (at least enough for initial goals), the photography blogs will receive a design overhaul, and the content will be indexed and organized. I will also code, and launch, the Tampa Glamour Photography site for my friend, Tampa photographer Andy Meng. Tampa Glamour Photography already has top search performance, and Andy may as well benefit from it, much like Craig Huey is benefiting from Tampa Boudoir Photography. If I'm not in position to work certain markets, I will, at least, help my professional, ethical photographer friends fill in until I am ready to work in those markets (obviously, I will need glamour and boudoir portfolios before that will happen, and it's going to be at least another year before those are ready). This, too, is coming. I have special plans for the wedding photography market, too. Hmmmmmm... perhaps the successor of the Venus Class site format for starters? Wouldn't it be weird if I were the top wedding photographer in the Tampa Bay market in 2015, as well as the top modeling and talent photographer? There is good money, and a large market, in the wedding business. My experience taking pictures of models and talent will enhance my potential there, too, because, as we know, it seldom works the other way around. When was the last time that you saw a wedding photographer who was able to shoot models and talent? Sure, they all claim that they can, and tack on those services on their wedding sites, but pulling it off in practice is an entirely different situation.
The SEO project for my photography marketing agenda is well underway. I have extrapolated, and projected, that the Aurora PhotoArts site will achieve top SEO performance as early as this summer. Nothing will give me greater satisfaction than to see this SEO issue resolved, and those hack-job photographers and their primitive sites put in their proper place. I could care less if their work can be seen alongside mine in searches, as my work is good, and I don't have a problem with competition. It’s just that I want top search results, and only ask that my work is seen on my main photography sites.
I also have shoots this weekend; a headshot photography shoot and a modeling portfolio shoot, for starters. Ought to be productive.

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Friday, April 2, 2010 - 08:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Working On The Aurora PhotoArts Web Site

I spent several hours updating content and upgrading my main photography services marketing web site for Aurora PhotoArts. I also spent a lot of time poking around under the hood, in the code, to re-familiarize myself with my work and refresh my memory of how the site is designed to work. No wonder its not at the top of the search engines right now.... the site was launched in July 2007, and barely updated at all since. It only has basic, minimal content, and the portfolio information system uses default templates. The site itself, however, is brilliant, and the SEO potential is even greater than the recent Huey Class sites that I launched. It was way ahead of its time. One feature that I installed in the site, which would supercharge its performance once online, is a multi core CSS SEO system. With minimal content and only one core, the main one, barely working, the site was only operating at 20% of its potential. The core system, although awesome, has a drawback, however; to get all four cores up and running to full capacity, you have to add a lot of content, and properly organize it. Each core is like a subdomain of a large web site, and the site is like four sites in one. I have a ton of content to write, and it will take a few weeks of writing and coding to get the site up to full capability, with all four cores up to speed (I estimate at least sixty hours of work, and over fifty pages of content). It will be two weeks before the site will be up to speed, and it will be this fall before it is at full capability.
Good God...... This thing, once unleashed, is going to be a fire-breathing monster in photography services marketing. I'm talking total SEO superiority over anything else out there, and it will chew up and spit out all of the rival web sites fighting for market share now. That SEO issue will be over (and the sad thing is that this could have been resolved back in 2008!). That Venus Class site is a thing of beauty, and is the most advanced marketing web site I've ever designed. Like a high performance machine, though, it is resource extensive. It guzzles a lot of content to perform at peak efficiency. I’m going to have to get a handle on the site details.
There is a photography marketing web site which is used by a photographer across the country (and, no, I will not publish any details about whom and how). His site has a lot of content, and the way that the content is organized is genius. He has extremely good search engine performance because of it, too (so good, in fact, that his site comes up in local searches. I know this because I spend a lot of time experimenting with search results. That site of his has better SEO performance than anything that I have, at the moment, at least). I'm going to study the way that his site organizes content and apply those techniques to my sites which have a lot of content. There is a saying that there is always someone better out there, and in my case, it's someone well outside of my market. I'm learning from what he's done, and once those tweaks are added to my sites, it will improve their performance. My blogs will benefit the most from those lessons. My blogs have a ton of content, and the search engines often choke on them. By next year, my Aurora PhotoArts site will outperform his, and so will a lot of my other sites.
With the Aurora PhotoArts site, I've also been overhauling the graphics. I'm replacing the thumbnails in the thumbnail array with new thumbnail graphics. I also upgraded the title graphics, text colors, and made the background a darker gray. Don't bother looking right now, though, because it's not uploaded yet. I'll have to completely refresh the site directories on the server, and it will be tomorrow night, at the earliest. You'll see. The site is going to look much better.
It’s also going to completely dominate the Tampa photography market.

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Thursday, April 1, 2010 - 06:14 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

SEO 2008 Issue To Be Addressed This Month

I will be taking a few weeks to address an issue which I have been putting off since 2008. I have a lot of work, and writing, to do. There are a lot of photographers out there who are spamming search engines and trying to move into my market. Although their work cannot compete with mine, their persistence is becoming annoying. Tampa Bay Modeling and my talent resource sites dominate the search engines, and have been picking up the slack, as they have been superb marketing platforms. Using talent resource sites as a marketing platform, however, should not be a substitute for using my main photography marketing sites as my primary marketing platform. Although performance is good with my photography marketing sites, it could be a lot better, and I have the ability to push all of them to the top, regardless of what others are doing; I just have to make the time to do it.
I will be deploying three new photography marketing web sites (Huey Class sites, much like my Tampa Photography Society site, my Tampa Headshots site, and my Tampa Boudoir Photography site, which all have awesome SEO performance; an indication that I will pull this off. Play around with the search engines if you want proof.), as well as seriously overhauling the content and portfolio on my main Aurora PhotoArts site. The archived Aurora PhotoArts site on Passinault.Com will remain the same, but the primary Aurora PhotoArts site will receive all of the updates. Yes, I mop the floor with other photographers and photography web sites in specific photography markets, but Aurora must take top position for basic searches for photography and design services in Tampa.
This will be resolved by this fall. This shouldn't be an issue, because the web sites that I will be going up against are not as good as mine are (and I know this because I have analyzed all of them. These people are poor to mediocre web designers. Want a chance to compete with me? Spend a lot of money by hiring a good web designer or web site company. Good luck there, though, because I'm one of the best in that market, too. I also do business doing web work, and have been for years). The Aurora PhotoArts web site is a Venus Class marketing platform, and the only reason that it is not dominant is that I haven't had a chance to add any content, or updates, in a few years. I've been busy.
My advertising agency, Eos MediaArts, will also utilize a Venus Class site, like the one that Aurora PhotoArts has. This site was almost completed in 2008, and then put on the back burner as I worked on other projects. Some might say that I have too much going on.
I especially get a kick out of watching other photographers copy my web marketing efforts (and I'm not implying that any of these photographers are shady, or bad, because I can't blame someone for trying to market their business. When you have legitimate photographers and businesses competing with you, it just comes down to good old fashioned competition, which is something that I love. It will be a glorious battle for market share!). There are definitely a lot of them reacting to what my sites are doing. I wish them luck in countering my efforts, because I'm better at this than they are. Web sites, much like photography, are something that I just do, and I'm one of the best. I've been doing this a long time, and my efforts have been very effective. This said, I will not rest on my laurels and allow these people to close the gap. The war in the Tampa photography market begins on the web, and it's on.
There is one photography market which I have no plans to work in. That market is sports photography. I do not like sports, do not know much about sports, simply don't care about sports, and would be bored trying to photograph sporting events. My friend, photographer Andy Meng, specializes in sports photography, however, and he does an awesome job. He's had issues with a photography company which has been very effective in their SEO efforts (I've looked at them, and they know what they are doing. I can take them, but it's going to be tough. I am glad that most photographers who try to compete with me in my markets are not as good with SEO). So, I will be helping Andy with his web sites and his SEO. Other photographers have contracted me to do this work in the past, and they were never disappointed with the results. Andy, for step one, I'll tell you what you need to do to set up the foundation for your web marketing strategy. You'll do well, because I'm on your side.
I’m going to have to work on the homefront first, though. The only reason that any of these people have had a chance against me is because I have a lot going on. I’m done with allowing them any slack. Time to fix the situation, and then maintain my position.

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Thursday, April 1, 2010 - 08:49 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Blog Content Restored

Kendra, Jessica, Lori, Kenneth, Matt, Steve, Miranda, Briana, Monica, Jillian, Marlon, Mike, and Denise, this is for you.
My opinions haven't changed, and as a professional photographer, I need to tell it how it is. Code Black adjustments have been removed from both the Tampa Photographer Blog, and this Tampa Photography Blog (and, you should see the latest post over at the Tampa Film Blog!). The complete original content, in all of its glory, has been restored to both blogs. I just spent the past two hours reading over the blogs, and it is good stuff. There is a lot of it, too.... a couple of book's worth (I really need to organize all of my blog content soon).
I encourage everyone, if you've already read these blogs and think that you've read everything, to read over them again. You might just be surprised to see a ton of content re-published on them; content which most of you have not yet read.
Also, please note that it is not my intention to offend anyone. These are my opinions, and they are born from experience and education. I want to share my experiences with, and help educate, others. Hopefully, the information on my blogs can help people, as well as the integrity of the photography industry. I’ve been a professional photographer for ten years now, and have been working in the industry a long time. I am also a modeling and talent expert, as well as a casting director, designer, event planner, and a lot of other things. I’m a polymath, and many of my observations are pretty much dead-on.
Please try to consider, and understand, where I am coming from.
If my opinions piss anyone off, I encourage you to contact me and communicate your concerns with me. I am a professional. This said, if there is even the remotest possibility that I am wrong, I would like to hear your opinions, too. You never know, I could be wrong. This is how we learn, and grow.

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Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 09:21 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Somali In Film

Matt, my friend Somali is in this film on my Tampa Bay Film Online Film Festival. She's the blonde, and she's a good model and actress.

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Wednesday, March 24, 2010 - 04:00 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

The Winds Of Change, The Tampa Photography Society, And Countering Issues

My friend, a model named Somali, once wrote me that change was in the wind (or something like that; I'd have to go back and read her email to quote it accurately). Anyway, I like the idea of change. For about six years now, I've been working on a variety of projects, and I feel that it is time to start deploying them. It's time to get to work.

For the most part, most of my work as a photographer from 2001 until 2009 has been as a working photographer, doing business shooting modeling portfolios and talent headshots (the most difficult markets to work as a photographer, but they are my specialty). I've met a lot of interesting people, and have worked with them. Ironically, though, I did very little work in portrait photography, wedding photography, and other, more marketable genres of the business (I also did not do any nude, glamour, or boudoir photography work, as I did not feel comfortable shooting those markets, and it conflicted with modeling and talent photography; case in point: most of my modeling portfolios are new models, and most new models are underage, with the shoots booked by the parents.... Funny thing, considering nude work with models who are adults, as I am listening to a "model and photographer" podcast by TFP hobbyists, and the horror stories concerning this are old-hat.... Don't do nudes or risky work unless you really know what you are doing, and have the experience to navigate the minefield, as pictures are forever! Hey guys, what do I look for when I look for models and photographers to work for? Not one on a freebie web site; you guys keep touting freebie portfolio networking sites as the main way to have a "career", and I strongly disagree! They have to have a professional portfolio, and a web site with a domain name, before I collaborate with them. Otherwise, the model will have to pay for the port that they need!). The reason for this is that my portfolio mostly has photographs of models and talent in it; the average consumer might feel intimidated by my other clients. So, how have I done business doing what is considered to be one of the most difficult markets in the photography business? As touched on above, I own a massive amount of web sites. I own some of the top modeling resource web sites in the country, and a variety of photography and other service marketing web sites. I get calls, and I book shoots. Treat it like a professional business, invest in your career, and do good work, and you'll do business, too; I think that, for the most part, that the main issue that other Tampa Bay photographers have had with me over the years is that I do business in my photography career, and they don't. Additionally, some of the best models in the business have become my friends after we work together. It make sense, of course, when you consider the following:

1. I have paid my dues, and did not take any shortcuts. I invested in my career.

2. I have real web sites, and that's how many professionals find me. Although I will use freebie social and portfolio networking web sites to suppliment my marketing efforts, I would never use them as primary business tools!

3. I don't exploit my models or hit on them. I treat them with respect. This is one reason that, in ten years of professional photography, that I have not shot a single nude, and have not ventured into the choppy waters of glamour and boudoir photography. At this point in my career, however, I now know how to do this with reduced risk (and those risks will be addressed before any shoot), and I'm going to have to start doing work in these fields in order to make a professional alternative to what is going on out there now. This said, nude, glamour, and boudoir work has no business being in any mainstream modeling portfolio.

4. I actually get along with most people quite well, and am quite personable (when I want to be, I suppose). I also know a lot about the business. Lately, I've been known more as a modeling and talent expert than a photographer (because of my armada of talent resources sites.... I launched another one, Tampa Bay Talent, a few weeks ago, and will be launching Advanced Model in April 2010), and that's fine. People also trust me, which is well deserved, especially after I earn their trust.

Although I will continue to do well as one of Tampa's best talent photographers, I also have other projects in the works, projects which will bring integrity, and establish new standards, in the photography, modeling, and talent industries. I've always beleived in a philosophy called "collaborative competition", where competitors can enhance their market share, and position, by collaborating. If a photographer is ethical, and professional, I have no problem helping them out, even if I am in competition with them. That's just a start, however. Anyway, starting this year, here is what I'll also be doing:

1. Monthly Modeling and Photography Networking Shoot outs

These will be free of charge for professional models and photographers, at least initially.

I started the Florida Modeling Community networking resource a few days ago (which ties into my Florida Modeling Career modeling resource site, and my other modeling sites; It's safe to say that no one can compete against that kind of online marketing firepower), as a professional alternative to other efforts that I have seen out there. I've been aware of certain people and their efforts for quite some time now, and professional models keep complaining, and asking me to do something about it. So, I will. Starting this spring, I will be hosting, and managing, monthly modeling and photography networking shoot outs in the Tampa Bay area. Although there will be shoots, and the primary emphasis will be on sharing information about the business of our professions (I will not be teaching anyone how to shoot), in general, the target market will be established professional models and photographers, so most will already know what they are doing, in that respect.

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Friday, March 19, 2010 - 2:58 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Retail, Business, And Helping My Competition

Matt, here is a link to that film festival review which I did which includes that information about retail sales (I know, it's weird, as it seems like I was off-topic, but it will make sense when you read it) which we discussed. Check it at The Tampa Film Review 2008 Review on Tampa Bay Film (I own a lot of powerful sites, in case you haven't noticed). Oh, and for everyone else, I will start posting information here which will help other photographers, even if they are competition. Collaborative competition has served me well in the Tampa photography services market, and I don't have a problem helping my competition if it serves to maintain the integrity of the Tampa photography market, where we all would benefit (I've already met with competitors, and have helped them with their businesses in the past, and it worked out well for all of us). This looks like a great time to finally get my Tampa Bay Photographers site online, too, which has been in development hell for six years now (I know, I know..... I have a lot going on, and sometimes, it takes me a while to get certain things done. It does seem like it the site will be online soon, though, especially when I put together and launched my new Tampa Bay Talent site, in three days, last month; Tampa Bay Photographers is the last piece in the puzzle for my network of "Tampa Bay" resource sites. It takes me forever to do some things, but rest assured that these things are eventually done, and done well)! Anyway, what may happen here is that I will post a little bit of information which will link back to full articles and tutorials on Tampa Bay Photographers, much like the mail bag/ letters section on Advanced Model will link to articles on Independent Modeling (Independent Modeling is one of the most effective modeling resource site in the world, online since late 2001, and Advanced Model will finally launch sometime in April 2010). Solutions developed for Advanced Model will work well here, too. At any rate, photographers, it's time for professional photographers to get together and organize. I've had a Tampa Photography Association in the works for quite some time, and it's seems to be the right time to begin doing something with it.

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Friday, March 5, 2010 - 08:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

New Rules Now In Place

I have some new rules now in place which are rather unique to me as a photographer. They also address my other careers, especially my work in the modeling industry.
Although this hasn’t made me lose business (as far as I know; after all, I’ve always said that it’s impossible to miss what you never see), I need to address it now, especially since my search engine performance is significantly advanced.
In the past, I’ve branded my company name and logo on talent headshots and composite cards. I’ve also put many of my clients on my web sites. As of now, this is no longer mandatory. My clients would have to sign up for this, and agree to it in writing if they do. Of course, as of now, too, I have to obtain written permission from them before I write about our shoot on this (Well, scratch that.... I meant my Tampa Photographer Blog, which is my other blog; the blog where I would publish shoot anecdotes) blog, too. They also get to read it and approve it before the anecdote of our photography session is published.
One reason for this is that I do not want other photographers and people in the modeling and entertainment industries using my web sites and blogs to keep tabs on how much business I am doing. Another reason is that I will not force models and talent into an ongoing war with modeling and talent agencies, unethical photographers, and scams.
Let’s talk about that war, while we are on the subject. It has been very effective. I can now look at local newspapers, and listen to the radio, and smile. Prolonged, effective efforts by Tampa Bay Modeling and my other web sites have undermined the modeling and talent scams. My people in the field are now telling me that we cost Tampa modeling scams, alone, up to 80% of their business. Additionally, Tampa modeling and talent agencies, a legitimate component of the industry, have lost a good 45% of their business because of my sites; a lot of modeling jobs and models are now working without the middleman.
That’s good.
Now, for the not-so-good. This is my fight. I have no business dragging models and talent into it. So, they now have a choice (and, they’ve always had a choice. I’m just going to make sure that they know this, now).
I realize that my photography company is the best choice for modeling portfolios and talent headshots in the Tampa photography services market. I don’t want my ongoing efforts bringing balance and integrity to industries to conflict with business. Thus, if any of my clients want to keep things on the down-low, they can now book services without any identifying marks on their tools, and they don’t have to be on my web sites. If you want to secretly use my services and work with the agencies, you’re more than welcome to.
By default, no one is required to support my branding or my industry agenda.
There is much to consider, however.
First, my web sites are the top modeling and talent resource sites in the country. They have a lot of power for exposure and promotion. Additionally, note that there will be a lot of advantages to being promoted on my sites (which will only happen if they make the cut with me, too..... the plan was, and still is, to never to promote all of my clients on my sites; only the best ones), especially with the featured model and talent profiles linking directly into resources such as the job boards (all parties who have jobs can look at the featured talent before posting their job offer, which gives the promoted talent an advantage over those who simply respond to job posts).
Second, I’ve posted before on my Tampa Photography Blog about having lunch with an agency model, and she didn’t want to get involved with my modeling web sites because she was afraid that she would alienate her agencies
(although, to this day, I am not certain why this "agency model" had her own web site and other independent modeling tools) . I respect her decision, and there are no hard feelings. As a matter of fact, she emailed me a day later and inquired about information regarding the printing company which printed my cards. Although I realized that giving her that information would not change her mind, I sent it to her. I’m here to help.
That was a couple of years ago, though, and since then, the independent talent movement which I have been spearheading has gained serious traction. I’ve been proven right, and a lot of models and talent today book work on their own, without an agency. Additionally, the independent models and talent have a serious advantage over the agency-only models. The independent models and talent not only use several agencies as one of many sources of job leads, but they compete with the agency bookers and often scoop up the job leads before the bookers can refer them to the models and talent whom they represent.
I’m sure that, today, that agency model whom turned me down is wondering how the independent models are getting all of the jobs. She missed her opportunity to work at the leading edge of a new modeling industry. The old modeling industry standard of the agency way being the only way to have a legitimate modeling career is no longer valid, despite what anyone says or thinks. It’s been proven.
I would suggest that models not worry about agencies getting mad at them. It would be a lot like an employer worrying about their employees getting mad at them because they are not entirely dependent upon them. Independent models and talent are actually good for legitimate modeling and talent agencies, too. The bookers work harder to get modeling job leads because of competition from independent models and talent who are booking those same job leads without the agency. Additionally, the agency bookers realize that the independent models and talent are booking work. That makes them valuable commodities. If the independent models and talent are booking work without the agency, anyway, wouldn’t you think that the bookers would work harder to book those same models and talent into the jobs so that they could at least make their commission? Something to think about.
Models and talent should NEVER be dependent upon anyone! This, of course, also includes myself and my talent resource sites. What do you suppose that being independent is all about, anyway? Being independent is about taking charge of your career. Being independent is about managing your own career, and taking advantage of the wide range of resources available for careers. For more about this, check out Tampa Bay Modeling and Independent Modeling, two top modeling resources sites with lot of free information; information which gives independent models an advantage over models who choose to be blindly led by, and be dependent upon, the agencies who are supposed to be working for them. Oh, and I own BOTH of those sites!
I don’t know about you, but would you respect anyone who couldn’t think for themselves, and who were dependent upon you?
As a professional independent photographer, I am not dependent upon modeling and talent agencies to obtain the jobs leads that I need to book model and talent into my modeling portfolio photography and headshot photography services. I am not on agency lists, either, and that’s a good thing, as I do not want my clients wondering if I give agencies illegal kickbacks for referrals. This gives me leverage, and I am also in the position to refer my clients to modeling and talent agencies, if the clients wish.
This said, of course, I would never force my clients to do something that they were not comfortable with. It’s really their choice. It's always been about choices.
There are other new rules, too. Please realize that I have been doing this for a long time now, and I have everything figured out by now. I’m also one of the few professional photographers in the Tampa Bay market who has booked work with modeling portfolio photography and talent headshot photography; I am very proud of my high client satisfaction rates, the fact that I am associated with the top professionals in this market, and the fact that many of my clients chose to become my friend after business was concluded (also a choice). I am also proud of the fact that many of my clients are impressed enough by what I do for them to become repeat clients, as well as refer others to my services.

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Monday, August 31, 2009 - 08:46 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Yes, I Am Up To Something

People do weird things at 4 in the morning. Some eat, and others drink. I do dealings in the Internet. This morning, I bought another two domain names. One of them is every significant for my photography career, particularly in the area of modeling portfolio photography. I launched a new photography site last year marketing Tampa headshots and headshot photography. I booked a lot of headshots shoots before the site launched. It has proven to be very effective, and I command a much greater lead in Tampa headshot photography services today. As a matter of fact, my headshot photography services have outsold my modeling portfolio photography sessions dramatically.

Leticia Godwin, a swimsuit model, once asked if I was primarily a headshot photographer. Well, I can see where she may have obtained that perception- I do a lot of headshots for actors and talent. That isn't, however, quite right. I cut my teeth on shooting models, and it is the main photography career that I specialize in.

By 2010, I'll be doing more modeling portfolio photography services than any other type of photography, although I do tend to like doing headshots. Headshot photography, for me, is one my most cost-effective services. Those shoots tend to be quick and easy, particularly because my headshot photography services tend to attract seasoned professional actors and talent who are easy to get good pictures out of. I suppose that the professionals know what is good.

Modeling portfolio photography, on the other hand, is not quite as easy- or quick. You have to shoot at least five looks, with several locations, and it can take time. Like my headshot photography services, my modeling portfolio photography services are booked by a lot of professional models. There are now measures in place, however, to boost the marketing for that service exponentially. It also helps that I own some of the top modeling resource web sites in the country, among them Tampa Bay Modeling and Independent Modeling. Tampa Bay Modeling, as an example, is a front-line modeling site, and is one of my most important properties. Last year, it made tremendous strides, with major television news stories and Tampa Bay Modeling models beginning a long series of television appearances. With new improvements to Tampa Bay Modeling, as well as work to bring both Independent Modeling and Florida Modeling Career into a vast modeling resource package, the exposure will only grow.

Several months ago, I began marketing photography services directly from my modeling sites. It has proven to be very effective. With a series of modeling job boards about to come online, the modeling sites will become much more popular. These free boards, of course, can be used with no obligation to book my services, by the way, so don't think that I will become a modeling job scam who baits models with job leads only to turn around and pitch them services. Such practices are deceptive; they are fraud, and highly unethical. I am a modeling scam expert as well as an ethical professional. I don't have to trick people in order to book photography services, as my work is good enough to book on its own (and even if it were not, I still would not cheat in order to get business..... I'd be honest about my shortcomings and learn how to shoot before I went into business as a photographer).

Oh, and did I mention my book deal for a national modeling book? Yes, I am a professional writer and an author, too... which is one of may things that I have over other Tampa photographers. That's just the beginning.

At any rate, I will be launching a new photography marketing web site this week. The current Aurora PhotoArts site is a Venus Class site, designed in 2006 and first launched on July 31, 2007. While the Venus Class sites are superb photography marketing platforms, and the best photography marketing web site design in the country (my numbers attest to that), Aurora PhotoArts offers a wide range of services, and no single type of photography service on the site has enough marketing push to take the marketing potential of the site to its full potential (in other words, the array of services dilute the marketing of any single service). This is why I am now working on a specialized, stand-alone web site for marketing my modeling photography services (er.... make that two- I just noticed something). The site will not be a Venus class site, however, although it will be derived from the Venus Class marketing site (a second Venus Class site, for my Tampa advertising agency, Eos MediaArts, is due soon. I almost have it done). The new modeling photography marketing site will be a Grail Class site, a state of the art, top-of-the line photography marketing site. I may deploy two more Grail Class sites soon, too. In closing, for my photography career, the term "Grail" references the holy Grail. It describes work that is ultimately desirable, and means the same thing as the old term "money shot" (which sounds trashy, which is why I don't use the term). Every photography shoot that I do, I strive to obtain Grail shots for my clients, and for myself. From what I understand, other photographers are beginning to adopt my term, too, which is amusing, if not flattering.

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 09:26 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Do The Right Thing, Tampa Photographers!

You know, some things really bug me. There are some Tampa photographers who will accept any photography job out there, regardless of the source. There are photographers out there who get business through modeling schemes who mislead prospective models. If you are a photographer who obtains your leads from a modeling scam, you are as responsible for scamming models as they are. Indeed, you are who you associate with.
Have integrity, and be ethical about how you do business as a photographer. A professional photographer has the responsibility to evaluate every job lead that they get and decide if it is ethical to book it. I know that, in this economy, it is difficult to turn down work, but in the long run, your career will survive if you have integrity. What bothers me is that there are a few talented photographers out there who make modeling scams look good, and boost their credibility. Work obtained through deceptive trade practices and by misleading people is nothing to be proud of.
There are Tampa modeling scams who advertise modeling jobs and placement with modeling agencies, when in reality they are actually selling photography services. There is nothing wrong with marketing photography services, as long as you are honest about what you are marketing. What makes these businesses modeling scams is that they bait models with jobs, and then turn around and sell them services.
Tampa photographers, I'm warning you.... don't compromise your professional integrity and get involved with shady modeling companies. As of today, my model friends and I are mobilizing ALL of our modeling and talent industry resources to launch a major, and ongoing offensive against modeling job scams. I am even considering addressing this with my media contacts (as I have demonstrated in the past, I don't have any problem obtaining news coverage, and I am very good at interviews). Anyone associated with these scams is going to take a serious credibility hit, and, if you ask me, they will deserve it.
Because of the lack of legitimate modeling jobs in the Tampa modeling job market, we have actually seen modeling job scams become more aggressive, and grow in number, in the past year. My friends and I have the ability to do something to undermine modeling job scams, and to address this issue, and we are going to do it. After all, no one else is bothering to do anything. Do any of you photographers care about the integrity of our industry? You should, because what is good for the photography services industry is good for all professional photographers. Professional photographers are obligated to invest in the overall integrity of the industry!
Professional Tampa photographers should also care because these modeling job scams are actually selling photography services, and taking business away from legitimate professional photographer by tricking people. Speaking for myself, they really aren't that effective in taking business from me, because few Tampa businesses have the marketing resources that I command. Most photographers, unfortunately, do not have the benefit of the marketing firepower that I have.
I have already turned down photography jobs from modeling schools, modeling studios, and other shady schemes. Sure, in the short run, it cost me bookings, but I will not sell out my integrity at ANY PRICE! As a result, I am a market leader, and I book work while others do not. It's getting busy around here with photography and design work, and all of my clients are happy with my work. How about you?
Do the right thing. It's easy to be a saint in paradise, but your true character and integrity as a professional are revealed in the worst of times. I'm proud of who I am and what I do. Are you, or are you in the business to merely make money at the expense of others?

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Friday, May 15, 2009 - 09:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

I Think That I Made My Point

I spent all day yesterday shooting models, and then went onto my "favorite" portfolio networking site, where I have a profile for Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design, which I hardly ever use (It's there mainly to maintain a professional presence among a collective of amateur photographers), and posted this:

This is a portfolio networking site. Our profile is only on here to maintain a presence here. This is a free profile, and does not count as a career investment. We do have a strong portfolio of career, and business, investments, which include an array of the most effective marketing and resource web sites in the world. Please realize that we do not run our business from free portfolio networking sites or social networking sites such as Myspace, and no professional photographer or photography company should do that. We use such profiles for marketing purposes, and they are one of many marketing services that we use.
Most of our time is spent running a photography business. We specialize in modeling portfolio photography and talent headshot photography. We also offer design services with modeling composite cards and headshots. Printing is referred to qualified third parties.
We are a business. If you are a new model who needs a portfolio, we will not give you one at no charge. If you are an experienced model who needs to update your portfolio, we will not give you one at no charge. If you are a professional model who has a solid portfolio and are not in the market for updating your portfolio, we are, however, open to no-cost service exchanges, or collaborations. We rarely offer this, however, especially since many top Tampa models regularly invest in our photography services for their portfolios; effective portfolios which market them in their modeling careers and help them book paying modeling jobs.
What is a solid modeling portfolio? A modeling portfolio which a model invests money and time into building. Models need to pay professional photographers to build effective portfolios which will give them an advantage over other models who they compete against for modeling jobs.
Our model clients don't have any problems competing against models who use portfolio networking sites for their "modeling web site" and who build freebie portfolios from amateur photographers who have no clue what they are doing. Likewise, we have no problem competing against photographers who use portfolio networking sites as their main "photography business web site" and who build their portfolio doing free shoots with amateur models. We take the business away from them, and are proud of it. We save models from what they try to offer.
Anyone who obviously did not invest anything into their career, or their business, handicaps themselves when they market their services against qualified professionals.
In the old days, before digital cameras, and when photographers had overhead such as film and development costs, you had no choice but to invest in your career or business. TFP was just that; Time For Print. TFP was a mutual collaboration between experienced, qualified professionals who already had strong, effective portfolios, and it was the exception to the rule of business. In many ways, it was like paying for marketing services, where collaborating was a way to give your marketing, or your portfolio, a competitive edge.
These days, TFP / TFCD is a misguided, and hijacked, term to describe the unprofessional practice of amateurs helping other amateurs build their portfolios for free. This is a lot like the blind leading the blind, and tends to waste a lot of time. It can also be dangerous, and can teach amateurs some bad habits which will undermine any chance that they can have for establishing a professional career.
We chuckle at the stories of amateur models from portfolio networking sites who flake out. With no investment into their career, and no accountability because they did not invest into building their career, what do you expect? The models who we work with don't flake. They are professional models. We can depend upon them to do what they agree to do. These are models who the photographers who use portfolio networking sites want to work with, but don't get to after the models don't bother giving a freebie profile a second glance and move on to looking for professional photographers who have invested in professional web sites and a professional portfolio.
Us and them? Believe it. The difference is obvious.
If you are a model who needs a portfolio, pay a professional photographer, or photographers, to build the portfolio that you are going to need to compete against other models. Verify their references, get everything in writing, and make sure that they have invested in their business and their marketing resources.
If you are an aspiring photographer who needs a portfolio, pay professional models to help you build what you are going to need. Verify their references, get everything in writing, and make sure that they have invested in their career and their marketing resources.
If you are an aspiring photographer who is trying to compete against us, you are going to need to spend time and money building a professional portfolio and business resources. You will not be able to compete, otherwise. This is why we book work with our photography business, and many of you don't.
You only get out of something what you put into it.

If you are a professional model who wishes to collaborate with us, keep in mind that you are competing against the best Tampa models for that same consideration. Show us a professional web site which is not based on cheap flash templates, a strong portfolio, high quality composite cards which are not cheap laser comps, a work history earning money modeling, and a work history which shows us that you know what you are doing (i.e. no nudes all over the place, when you don't specialize in high-risk nude modeling, and also when you try to do mainstream commercial modeling. Nude work makes it much more difficult to do other types of modeling, and many clients will stay away from models who do questionable work; to them, it will not be a good investment allowing such a model and their likeness to represent the marketing of their products or service. This is one of the reasons that we don't offer nude photography services, although we can recommend ethical, professional photographers who specialize in this. What is on our portfolio reflects on us, too, and directly effects our ability to market our services). Demonstrate for us that you are a professional model, and then we will consider you for collaboration.
Want to learn more from our main professional photographer, C. A. Passinault. Check out his Tampa Photographer Blog (TampaPhotographerBlog.Com) for career anecdotes and his Tampa Photography Blog (TampaPhotographyBlog.Com) for his observations about the Tampa photography services industry; a professional view from the top of the Tampa photography services market.

I hope that you enjoyed what I had to publish. I pretty much said it all.

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Saturday, April 18, 2009 - 08:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

The Demise Of Photography Portfolio Networking Sites?

As a professional photographer who respects the power of my art, and who accepts the responsibility that comes with professional photography, I have been observing the Tampa photography market for years. I know who my competition is, and of those, I know who is professional, and ethical, and which is deserving of my respect.
The problem is that there really aren’t that many professional photographers in Tampa. Sure, it may look that way, but don’t buy into the illusion. Much of what I’ve been observing both disgusts, and amuses, me.
There are a lot of amateur photographers out there pretending to be professional photographers. It’s an epidemic! Perhaps it’s because a certain, over-rated, unaccredited school keeps running those stupid commercials for their local digital photography courses, or pathetic, lonely men are tired of being toyed with by exotic dancers and wasting their money at the clubs. A dim light bulb goes off in their heads, and they feel that they can go out, buy a camera, and work as a photographer to hit on beautiful women and make lots of money at the expense of their customers. For the purpose of this Tampa Photography Blog entry, I will refer to such photographers as roaches (I told my friend, photographer Craig Huey about this, and he laughed. I suppose that the insect term is funny, as well as accurate).
Some of the roaches barely know how to pick up a camera and take a picture with the subject in-frame. It doesn’t matter to them, because they know that there are a lot of stupid people out there who can be convinced to buy anything, especially when some people don’t have a clue about what makes a photograph good and usable; too many people listen to the promises of the photographer and don’t really look at their work. They take short cuts, and often get shoots by misrepresenting themselves and promising modeling jobs to aspiring models. Then there are roaches who manage to learn a few tricks, such as using fill flash on a location shoot. An aspiring model recently told me about this photographer who was “incredible”, and “awesome”, and was surprised that I did not know who he was (honestly, there are so many out there now, that many of them are hard to find in the clutter; I also don’t consider roaches to be competition. That’s great news, too, because if I cannot find them specifically looking for them, it is unlikely that others will find them, too. If your potential customers cannot find you, then you might as well be out of business). She said that his work was so good that she would be willing to do anything to shoot with him. She said that he told her what he charged for modeling portfolios, which didn’t bother me until she added some additional information. According to her, he said that if models could not afford him, that they would pay him in “other ways”. I was disgusted by her report of such unethical, and unprofessional, behavior, as such photographers give the professional photography industry a bad name. This said, I looked up his work upon returning to the studio. His photography wasn’t bad, and he was a location shooter like me. One thing that stood out in his work, however, was his use of fill flash on location to make his models “pop out” of the picture and gave his photographs a fashion look. It looked good, but it also served to camouflage his mediocre skill in photographic composition. I called the aspiring model and explained to her exactly what how he took pictures, and she was surprised that I knew what he had been using. I explained to her that I knew because I paid my dues and learned how to shoot long ago. His photography was fools gold, looking glossy and good at first glance, but still weak in areas, and it would do more harm than good in a model’s portfolio. It was convincingly fake. I was especially amused by his online photograph comments about “another secret Tampa location”, and being a location photographer I could name each of his secret locations, including the angle, the exact spot that the photograph was taken, and the time of day. Some secret locations. I’ve been shooting models on location for ten years now, and I know all of the good photography spots in Tampa Bay. I even know a lot of spots that the other photographers haven’t figured out (although, in all honesty, if you know what you are doing, you can make just about any location work). At any rate, I certainly hope that his “secret location” comments were not aimed at me, because I am protective of my locations, and am well known by other photographers, even if I don’t know of them. I certainly realize that, while most of these roaches are difficult to find, that I am not. I have an array of the best photography marketing web sites in the Tampa Bay market which I specifically designed and coded myself, and did not use and cheesy, cheap flash templates that so many others use (It makes me laugh out loud when I see so many photography sites, from different photographers and photography companies, such as those for wedding photographers, which look the same). If you are looking for Tampa photography services or a Tampa photographer in any search engine, many of my sites will show up in the top results.
There are others there in those search results, too, but I don’t really mind so much. As long as prospective clients can see my work along with theirs, I’m not concerned. Why? Because my work is very good, very solid, and shows the best range. I am very proud of it, and that pride in my photography is well earned. I didn’t take short cuts, I paid my dues over a long period of years of hard work, and don’t resort to gimmicks to make my work look better than it actually is. You take one of those fake photographers, and put them a situation with tricky lighting, or with a model who needs direction, and they will be in serious trouble. They won’t have the experience to adapt to the challenge, and won’t be able to get the job done.
Shortcuts apply to their web site philosophy, too. I see a lot of photographers using black hat SEO techniques, stuffing their web sites with keyword spam, and other nasty tricks to get them up in the search engines. Those tactics may work at first, but they eventually catch up to you.
I’ve been around in the Tampa photography services market a long time. I’ve seen it all. I’ve also seen photographers come and go. Most don’t last long in this photography market, because they find that they can’t make money (or they put themselves out of business by being unethical, unprofessional, and by taking shortcuts). One of the reasons for this is that, if they do know what they are doing as far as marketing their photography services, that they cannot compete with me, and I take their business from them. It’s as it should be.
I know of one arrogant photographer who, no surprise, hates me, and that’s cool by me. This photographer is better than most of the pretenders (and he really has improved a lot in the past few years, so I have to hand it to him), and his work has actually been brought up to a respectable level. At any rate, on a portfolio networking site message board, he once posted that he was an Alpha wolf observing the others. The other “photographers” on the message board, of course, were too stupid to realize that he was insulting them. As for myself, I sat back in my chair and snickered. If he thought of himself as the king of the photography ghetto, or the king of fools, more power to him. It didn’t matter to me, or effect me, because I was busy booking shoots, and they were not. How do I know this? People tell me things, and I am really good at checking things out. Besides, they did seem to have an awful amount of free times on their hands to post on message boards instead of booking photography work and working photography jobs.
As for me, I’m too busy working my business and booking work at their expense. I enjoy giving them more free time to post on modeling message boards. They should thank me for the free time.
Then, there are other photographers who see my company, Aurora PhotoArts, as a “big photography company” which is difficult, if not impossible, to compete with, and it frustrates them. Well, what do they expect? I was here long before they were. I invested in resources, and have the experience, which gives me a huge advantage. Oh, and here is a secret. I am gearing up to compete with big New York photographers, photographers who are well-known names in the modeling industry. In the eyes of the ignorant, my photography is about to get a lot better (actually, it won’t really improve that much, because it doesn’t have to. I will be obtaining more equipment which will give me more creative flexibility and art direction, and by default, that will add the icing on the big cake that I have built and invested in. The others merely try to use icing to disguise the fact that they don’t have a cake, and they end up putting themselves out of business this way). I will have the flash that others fumble around with, along with the substance. I fully expect to continue to own the Tampa photography services market, and it’s as it should be.
Don’t expect me to play nice, however. I am about to make things really hard on the roaches. It’s not enough to own the market. I simply don’t want these people littering it- I want it all pretty and nice. So, I’ll help speed up the failure of their photography businesses. I’m very good at doing that, and I’ll even go into detail here about how I’m going to accomplish this.
Actually, I got the idea from a Tampa modeling agency owner. We were discussing professional credibility one day, and she tried to debate that art directors and modeling jobs would not book independent models without being referred through an agency, because they did not have any credibility, and that such models had a higher risk of flaking out. Well, what she didn’t know, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her, was that models were already doing it. In hindsight, however, maybe she did know. Maybe her agency bookers were complaining to her that they were competing against models whom were booking modeling jobs without an agency.
Well, at the least, she did give me an idea, and it is about to make life very, very difficult for all of the roaches out there.
You see, it all comes down to credibility. Whom would you trust? Someone who doesn’t invest anything in their career, or someone who has invested in professional tools and business assets?
Those roaches out there who run their so-called photography businesses from a freebie myspace, facebook, or a portfolio networking site profile are about to find that their lack of investment into their careers is going to undermine their professional credibility. At the very least, it is going to cost them a lot of business, if not put them out of business altogether (that is, if you can call what they are trying to do a “business”).
I actually sit at my computer and laugh out loud. I post my photography services ads on certain classifieds sites (which I don’t really need to do, because of my search engine performance, but it’s icing on my cake, and pisses the roaches off, so I do it), and watch the roaches post their ads, full of cheesy copy and bad photography; I see them try to compete against me. I can see them crying as they post their ads, and they don’t get any responses. They curse at me because they see me as taking their business away. I laugh at them because they don’t deserve to have any business, especially since it is obvious that they are little more than hacks who haven’t put much into their business other than going out and buying a camera so that they can make money at the expense of idiots and meet so-called “hot girls”. Sure, they have been a “professional photographer” for a couple hundred years and concentrate on their “commercial photography” customers because they are so good at what they do (I love the mindgames that they use when they claim to be a “commercial photographer” who has modeling jobs to offer through their clients, and that modeling portfolio photography is so beneath them, yet they would book a portfolio shoot in a heartbeat if any aspiring models bothered to inquire). It’s too bad that their photography work does not support their lies- I mean, claims. Others claim to be all that, and then charge rates that are so low that it makes their business suspicious. A professional photographer has a good handle on what their rates are, they invest in their career, they don’t do “discount rate” pitches because they respect their own work. They also know what their photography work is worth, and they stick to their guns. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. The hack roach photographer does not have a clue what they should be charging, and takes a shortcut of offering discount photography services in an attempt to undercut their competition and make it up in volume. Well, it backfires, of course. How so? Allow me to illustrate (the following have no relation to any known photographers, are used for the purpose of illustrating a point, and any similarities to any photographer is purely coincidental, although I do know a Rick, and he is an ass).
Nelson the photographer and Ricky the photographer both have decent portfolios. Their work is nothing to fawn over, but they look like they can get the job done. There is a big difference in rates, however. Nelson knows the market and has an idea of what is appropriate to charge (the following numbers are not indicative of what is appropriate for the Tampa photography services market, and is not an indicator of what my rates would be, by the way. This is only an example). Nelson charges $200.00 for his photography package. Ricky, however, charges $75.00 for a comparable photography service package. Oh, but wait, here comes another photographer! His name is Frank. Frank claims to be a famous fashion photographer, and charges $600.00 for the same service, and what looks like the same quality of work.
Which photography service would you book?
The correct answer is the one that Nelson is selling for $200.00.
Why? Think about this. Perceived value comes into play.
It’s common knowledge that the service should cost around what Nelson is charging, because that’s what it is worth. Ricky is obviously an amateur, because he is willing to charge way less than what his work is supposedly worth; anyone looking at that rate would wonder what was wrong with the service, because it is too cheap. Frank, on the other hand, is hyping himself up and trying to rip people off by charging too much. Most people will refrain from booking a shoot which is too expensive, and Frank will have to embellish a lot, sell, and mislead people in order to book at those rates.
Don’t believe me? It happens every day! See those modeling job ads advertised on the radio and in the paper? How do you suppose that they make money? They promise models jobs, jobs that they often are not doing directly, and jobs which they cannot legally make money at referring models to. The aspiring models, hearing that they can be considered for a modeling job with no modeling experience (which is wrong, and misleading, on many levels), then come in and pay for modeling portfolio shoots which cost over $1,000.00. I know that this happens because I have talked to many people who have been taken in by this type of modeling scam. Do you think that they ever booked those modeling jobs, or were even able to confirm that they existed in the first place?
Moving on, let’s talk about professional credibility. The roaches take a few minutes to set up free profiles on Myspace, and on portfolio networking sites. These become their main business sites. They do all these free TFP / TFCD shoots with amateur and aspiring models, and build a generic photography portfolio full of mediocre and cliched pictures. They get aspiring models with breast implants and other modifications to take off their clothes and pose in wet shirts. In their minds, they are cool, and are ready to do business. They then try to compete against professional photographers, real photographers with experience who know what in the hell they are doing, and discover that they cannot compete. They can’t get business, and become frustrated. So, where did they fail?
Two areas. One, it is obvious that they did not invest in their business. This is the mark of an amateur, and only a fool would take them seriously. They go up against a professional photographer who is operating from a professional web site, and who obviously spent years and money building a portfolio with real professional models, and they get crushed. Two would be the failure to identify and segment different photography markets, which I’ll have to go into some other time. Just remember that term, and think about this: If you were a model looking for a photographer to do your modeling portfolio, would you hire a photographer who operates from a freebie profile and who has lots of tacky nudes in their portfolio? I didn’t think so.

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Saturday, March 28, 2009 - 09:30 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Tampa Photography Blog Reboot

Just like I had to do with the Tampa Photographer Blog this morning, I just did a soft reboot of the Tampa Photography Blog. I removed a lot of the content, edited the remaining content and removed some lines, and am now ready to launch this blog in a new direction which is fully compatible with my Tampa photography business directives. In other words, I removed a lot of my opinions and statements which could be perceived as negative. I also removed content which would be seen as redundant between the two blogs. As I have stated on the other blog, I fully stand behind every opinion that I have ever posted here and have not changed my mind. It's just that I tend to state the obvious, and it's no longer appropriate to do so here.

The Tampa Photographer Blog will focus more on my adventures as a professional photographer, and what I've been up to. This Tampa Photography Blog will focus on the Tampa photography services industry. Both blogs will link to the latest updates in my web sites, projects, and other relevant things.

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Wednesday, February 12, 2009 - 05:00 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Gearing Up With My Secret Plan

Contracts, contracts..... I’m busy putting together new service contracts for Aurora PhotoArts, including a special one which will be the key to the future for my photography company, my event planning company, and my advertising agency.
This is a lot like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, but it is fun, and a bit satisfying. I like creating and tweaking legal contracts. My attorneys love my contracts, and they’ve said that I should have been an attorney.
Hmmmmm...... I adjusted our support paperwork, too. I changed the client contact telephone numbers for all of my web sites. Now, I’m doing it on the paperwork and the contracts, and marketing material is next. Our (813) 671-9507 client services number is no longer in operation, and it is now (813) 546-0092. With the old number spread all over the four corners of the Internet and it being in use since 1997, I feel sorry for anyone who ends up with it.
God, sometimes I hate change. It’s a pain in the butt. Such is the price of progress, however.
This is going to a busy year, and these new service agreements and other paperwork are needed; the old ones in use since 2003 would not be able to keep up with business now. For now, it’s time to work on some spec sheets. I should be done with the main paperwork by this weekend, which should just be in time for........
Oh, and all of you photographers who are aspiring to compete with my photography company, or are failing to compete, I have some really interesting things on the way. You should see some of these revolutionary concepts working in the lab, and now they are ready to leave the lab and work their magic in the market. Want a sneak peek? Well, for starters, I’m working on a

For photography sessions, we are investing in

And then, for photography services marketing, I’m looking forward to

These are revolutionary photography industry concepts. I foresee a photography market arms race of sorts caused by what we will be introducing to the Tampa photography service market. My photography rates, of course, are fair, starting at

Why not include all of this information on our web sites? Well, for starters, it’s a secret, but I’ll tell a bit here in the interest of fair competition and helping the integrity of the Tampa photography services market. The reason that we don’t include this information for every site visitor to be able to read is that

Of course, many Tampa photographers are wondering how they, too, can compete against me on the search engines which my photography web sites dominate. Well, it’s simple. They only have to

I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve been booking work as a professional photographer for longer than most Tampa photographers have been taking pictures. I have this down to a science, and my photography company is one which I would book if I were a client looking for photography services. I’m working with things that are years ahead of anything any Tampa photographer is capable of, such as

That’s about it for now. Perhaps I said too much for the past ten pages. Hopefully, my security team will not censor my master plan before you get to read it. After all, my competition needs all the help that they can get. Good luck.

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Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 08:00 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

My Web Site Photography Marketing Platforms

Tampa Bay Acting was upgraded today to serve as a Tampa actor headshot photography marketing platform for my Tampa headshot photography company, Aurora PhotoArts. All Tampa headshots marketing links will direct to the recently launched Aurora PhotoArts annex photography marketing web site, Tampa Headshots.
Tampa headshot photography services will also be sold directly from the Tampa Bay Acting web site. This arrangement is identical to the one now in operation on Tampa Bay Modeling. I have not decided if I will do this on Tampa Bay Film and some of my other sites yet, and may keep my Google advertising on those sites. Tampa Bay Photographers will, however, be exclusively used to market my photography business, and the site will also be a free online career resource for photographers (see, I am interested in helping professional, ethical photographers).
All of my sites used to market my photography business will be exclusive to my photography business. No other photographers or photography businesses will be permitted to advertise or be promoted on those sites, although I do not mind being compared to others. With search engine results, other photographers and photography companies come up along with my “competition”, and I have countless people tell me that they booked me after looking at those other photographers because they prefer my photography work, and my sites are more professional. Ironically, I booked a lot of work lately because clients have found my photography blogs, and they like what I have to say, as well as my work.
All these professional resource web sites marketing my photography businesses will remain free resource web sites. Site users are not obligated to book my photography services or buy anything to use the sites.
Tampa Bay Acting is a free resource web site for professional actors, much like Tampa Bay Modeling is the top regional career resource for professional models. In 2009, I foresee Tampa Bay Acting becoming the new “it” site. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the most updated web site in my arsenal, and it is well deserved, as well as needed.

From 2001 to 2004, my “it” site was Independent Modeling.

In 2005, my “it site became Tampa Bay Modeling, as Independent Modeling was in redesign hell, and resources were diverted to Tampa Bay Modeling.

The “it” site in 2006 continued to be Tampa Bay Modeling.

In 2007, my new “it” site became Tampa Bay Film. That site, with its online film festival, saw incredible growth all during that year. Work on Tampa Bay Film crawled to a stop in December 2007 due to a redesign effort and a new design for the online film festival.

In 2008, my “it” site became Tampa Bay Modeling, again. With all of the television interviews and television appearances by my models, Tampa Bay Modeling took the lead in the first seven months of 2008.
In the last five months of 2008, the “it” factor swung back to Tampa Bay Film and its new stand-alone online film festival web site. Both of these sites became my most popular, and attractive, sites in a matter of months.

In 2009, the new “it” site will probably be Tampa Bay Acting, as it will be used heavily to promote my headshot photography services and used to help actors recognize and fight Tampa indie film scams. Many of my actors are already scheduled to promote Tampa Bay Acting in 2009 and make television appearances for Tampa Bay Acting, much like my models continue to make television appearances for Tampa Bay Modeling. Tampa Bay Film and the Tampa Bay Film Online Film Festival sites will continue updating, but a lot of work will be done on the three main modeling resource sites. Most of Tampa Bay Modeling work will be diverted back to a renewed Independent Modeling, and Independent Modeling, Tampa Bay Modeling, and the new Florida Modeling Career sites will come in a close second to Tampa Bay Acting. All three modeling sites will exclusively market my modeling portfolio photography and my modeling composite card services, too.
I’m already getting a ton of photography business from all of my web sites. My photography business is expected to increase a lot in 2009, especially since I will be promoting many of my clients on these web sites.
Any Tampa photographers out there upset over all of this, yet? I would be. I’m a very tough competitor, and it could be said that I now have the Tampa photography services market cornered, boxed, and gift-wrapped. I can’t wait to expand my popular photography services to wedding photography, glamour photography, boudoir photography, swimsuit photography, and other photography markets this year. The planned move toward wedding photography is already well known, and I’ve already learned, often from the photographers themselves, that they are concerned. After witnessing what I’ve done to the Tampa modeling and talent photography services markets, many wedding photographers are afraid that competing against me will be a nightmare, and that I will take their business away from them.
I’ve already stated on more than one occasion that modeling portfolio photography is much more difficult than wedding photography, especially when you consider how tough and educated the target market is in the modeling industry (models, unlike the average consumer, know what a good, usable picture is, and these photographs have to be able to market the model against some serious competition). This is why many wedding photographers are unable to shoot models, and cannot compete with seasoned modeling portfolio photographers like myself. A modeling portfolio photographer, on the other hand, will easily be able to move into the softer, yet more profitable, wedding photography market. This is the nightmare of the wedding photographer, and I have been noticing that most Tampa photographers are wedding photographers. This is going to be fun.
Alrighty, going back to web sites, and then I have to close this blog post so that I can go back and work on the services section on Tampa Bay Acting for upload this morning. Why is it that a lot of Tampa photographers don’t bother investing in their businesses, and don’t have professional, effective, web sites? Want to see a joke? All of these Tampa photographers who run their business from a freebie Myspace profile (pathetic), or a free portfolio networking site profile like you would find on sites like model chaos (not the real name, but very appropriately named either way). In the case of the portfolio networking site profile, who is the photographer marketing their services to, other photographers? This, of course, is stupid, and it does not work. Photographers, you have to think about your target market and the best way to reach them before you position your marketing efforts. Putting all your effort into a small tidal pool with a few small fish when you are right next to the vast Internet ocean is not cost-effective. Photographers like me are out there on the high seas with a fleet of fishing ships, and you’re catching stunted minnows with a hand net in a puddle with a crowd of other photographers who are also stumbling around with hand nets. Think that you can compete? Excuse me while I buzz the shoreline with one of my ships, swamp you with a wave, and catch the few good fish that there were in your tidal pool when they wash out to sea with me. Hey, Dougie, having fun catching the same fish over and over again? Can you swim, or don’t you have a boat? Are you really going anywhere, or are you content to be king of the beach of amateur photographers?
It is in the best interest of a professional photographer to invest in a professional photography marketing web site, as well as other marketing tools. It is much easier to make money as a photographer if you invest in your photography career and work your business as efficiently as you can.
Think about this for a moment, and then I must go. For a moment, imagine that the playing field is level, and we all do the same quality work in photography. Ok, now consider this. You’re a person looking for a photographer. You find one on Myspace. Then, you find one on a professional web site which only markets them. Who are you going to book for your shoot? The freebie Myspace profile photographer with questionable credibility, or the photographer who has their act together and has invested in professional tools for their business?
This is why I book more photography work than most Tampa photographers. Hey, if you are having trouble competing against me, don’t blame me. Blame yourself. In the meantime, I will continue to do what I’ve been doing best for many years now- running the Tampa photography services market.
Crap. Now I’m out of time. I have to close my files and spend time cleaning the studio over the next two days. Have a great week!

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - 11:00 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Tampa Photographers Unite!

Sorry, but I just had to use that title. One of the complaints that I hear from certain unethical modeling and talent agency bookers is that what they don’t like about me is that I am “trying” to unite the models and talent as I fight for their rights.
Try nothing. It’s already been done. It’s been done since the great Tampa modeling scam wars of 2004. There is now a powerful professional modeling and talent lobby in place in the Tampa Bay market, and my professional model and talent friends and I are behind it. Since the modeling agencies work for the models and talent, the models and talent are now telling them what to do, and they are not allowing the modeling and talent agencies to manage their careers. It’s just not me, either. There are thousands of models and talent who are free from the limitations which agencies and con artists used to impose upon them. You’ll never know who they are, either; I don’t even know who they all are. There are models out there right now playing dumb to see what agencies, and these modeling offers which are advertised, pitch them. If they find something wrong, they deal with it by reporting the offenders to the proper authorities. The Tampa Bay market is becoming a tough place for unethical modeling agencies and modeling scams to operate in, and that’s awesome for the overall integrity and the reputation of the Tampa entertainment, modeling, and advertising industries.
At long last, the modeling and talent agencies are in their proper place. They work for the models and talent whom they represent, and they are one of many sources of job leads. I’ll say it once, and I’ll keep saying it: models and talent, don’t let an agency manage your career. A modeling and talent agency is a working conflict of interest if they manage the careers of those whom they represent. Why? Because they also work for your competition, which are other models and talent. How can you be sure that they are working in your best interest if they are working for your competition? How can you trust the advice that they give you? Because of this, feel free to use modeling and talent agencies as one of many sources of modeling job leads and talent auditions, but nothing more. Remember that they work for you, or at least they are supposed to. Any agency which tries to tell you what to do is out of line.
Some think that I have something against modeling and talent agencies. I really don’t. What I have an issue with is that they overstep their bounds and try to act as talent management, or as an employer, rather than
stay in their proper place, working for those who they represent. I suppose that they overstep their bounds when they believe that they are the end-all, be-all source of modeling jobs and talent auditions. The dangerous perception in the modeling industry, and one which is kept alive by the so-called supermodels who put their name on modeling books, is that going through a modeling and talent agency is the only legitimate way to be a professional model, and to have a modeling career is to obtain representation of a modeling agency, make them your “mother agency”, and do what they tell you to do. Sorry Roshumba. That’s wrong, and I completely disagree with a lot of what those books are full of. One such book, The complete idiots guide to being a model, is appropriately titled. It’s for idiotic, aspiring models who want to be blindly led and told what to do, and not for the professional, smart models who know that they don’t have to accept the B.S.
So, why do these modeling books misinform models, and convince models to accept the limitations of being blindly led by an agency entails? Well, what do you think that they are going to say? These models who sell out their name to put on the modeling book are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. They are sell-outs who are part of an industry of controls, in my opinion. Although they know that most of what they tell you is B.S., they don’t care, in my opinion. They are doing their part to keep models stupid and controlled by the old modeling industry, and they were paid well for their help, in my opinion. Also, the misconception that modeling and talent agencies are the only way to have a professional modeling career creates a monopolistic industry, and fuels modeling scams. A lot of modeling scams hold out the promise of referring new models to modeling agencies for representation, and if people realized that the agency way is not the only way, then the modeling scams wouldn’t be as effective using agencies as bait.
Don’t get me wrong. Modeling and talent agencies are a great source of modeling job leads, and models are better off going to them for modeling job leads than to the businesses who advertise modeling jobs. That’s what they do, and there are great leads to be found through them. It’s just that models need to know that the modeling agencies work for them, and not the other way around. Modeling and talent agencies have no business managing the careers of models. They have no business telling them what to do. Models, don’t let modeling agencies run you. You run them. Also, never, ever settle for exclusive representation by a single modeling and talent agency. Obtain representation by several modeling agencies, and make them compete against each other. Remember: Legally, modeling agencies can only make money if you book jobs through them. Make them work for you, and work them hard.
Oh, well. Ha.... what I just wrote should have been posted on the new Independent Modeling blog, which I also own and run. This blog is supposed to be about professional Tampa photography, and don’t worry, I’m getting to that. I have a point to make, if you’ll just keep reading. First, however, I have a little more to say about modeling agencies and people who work in the modeling industry, since modeling portfolio photography, modeling composite cards, and model testing makes up a lot of my photography business.
Tampa modeling and talent agencies, don’t get mad at me. I not only tell it how it is to benefit models and talent, but I am professionally obligated to help keep the Tampa modeling industry, and Tampa entertainment, professional and ethical. All professionals have an obligation to help maintain the integrity of their industries.
The bottom line is that if you are not doing anything wrong, don’t worry about it. I have done the right thing by helping models introduce badly-needed checks and balances into an unbalanced, outdated modeling industry. Those same checks and balances apply to me, as well, and I am not immune to them. If I were doing something wrong, then the tools and resources which I have helped introduce into the market would come back and bite me. I’d be burned by what I do. I don’t do anything wrong, however, so I don’t worry about it. If I had the same mentality that many modeling agencies and photographers had, then I would be pissed off at myself by introducing checks and balances to the industry, even if I were not doing anything wrong. I am a friend to ethical professionals, and there is no doubt about that.
Professional photography is the same way. I don’t have anything against other Tampa photographers, and I am not out to undermine my competition. It’s all about collaborative competition. If a photographer is ethical and professional, they don’t have a problem with me, and I’m cool with them. They have a right to be in business, and to compete.
I know, I know. My Tampa Photographer Blog, and to an extent, this Tampa Photography Blog, piss photographers off because I come off as cocky, and dare I say, arrogant. Please note, however, that this is not how I am at all. There is a method to the madness, and a reason for the tone of these blogs, I can assure you, but that reason will never be explained here. I reserve the right to explain myself, and only my model friends, photographer friends, and other professional friends in the photography services industry, the modeling industry, and the entertainment industry know the details. They all think that it is brilliant.
I am always interested in collaborating with other professional photographers, even if we are technically competition. I help them, and they help me. We also refer jobs to each other, assist each other with tools, and support each other. My Tampa photography company is what it is today because of the assistance of other photographers, and business would be harder to do without them.
That’s not to say that my photographer friends don’t benefit from my support. They do. I’ll share an anecdote with you which happened in 2008. Many of you will find this to be interesting.
In late 2007, I began to advertise on Craigslist. My ads were slick, and professionally designed, and many of the amateur photographers and other so-called photographers on there were upset because they could not compete with my photography work or my photography services marketing. Additionally, I had professional photography web sites, and many of these characters did not; many simply posted ads on Craigslist, and others had freebie amateur profiles which they tried to pass of as professional business web sites on Myspace or on modeling portfolio sites. Of course they were scared of competing with me! So, many of them began to abuse the flagging system on the web site and flag off my ads, even though I posted under, and complied with, the terms and conditions of Craigslist, and was not doing anything wrong. I would repost my ads, and their flagging did not stop me as I took business from them, but the process was annoying, and I had to monitor the ads several times a day to make sure that they stayed up. When my photography ads were flagged off, I would repost, and the flaggers would actually help me out by keeping my ads at the top of the list. Consider, too, that at the time I had not flagged a single person.
Of course, I noticed that the photographers who were flagging me were the ones breaking the rules, and some of them were shady, or running scams. Noticing this, I decided to deal with it.
I have lots of industry contacts, which include the models and talent who these characters try to market photography services to. After informing my contacts as to what was going on with Craigslist, they agreed to assist me with waging war on unethical posters on the site by flagging them off as much as it took to keep them off. I added some conditions, which were as follows:

1. The poster must be in violation of the Craigslist terms of use (this was easy, as most of them were).

2. The work of the of the poster had to be evaluated, and if it was not to the professional standards needed for the photography service that they were advertising, and they were breaking the rules, then their ad would be flagged off.

Remember, most of my friends who were flagging these guys off were also the target market that they were trying to market their services to. When your prospective clients remove you, you can consider that to be a big insult!
Anyway, over fifty of us began our war. For days, weeks, and finally months, we flagged off so many ads that Craigslist did not display anything correctly, and on some days, the days did not even list because no ads lasted.
During this campaign, I noticed a Tampa boudoir photography company who were spamming the hell out of Craigslist. I looked at their work, and it was terrible (I can understand the strategy of making your target market comfortable being that a woman is taking boudoir photographs of women, but come on- what if the female boudoir photographer is a lesbian and is trying to get women naked like many of the guys do?). Well, the boudoir photographer was flagged off a few times, and they posted some snide ad accusing me of being unethical and “undermining my competition” by flagging off their ads so that only mine could be seen. They also accused me of being some scam, a cyberbully, and using “pushy upsell tactics”.
Well, that took the cake, as I did not flag them off, and was not doing anything that they blatantly accused me of. I decided to give them a nightmare.
You see, I didn’t do boudoir photography (I will be doing glamour photography in the near future, and there will be more on that later). Not offering boudoir photography, I couldn’t compete with them in that market, although my photography blew theirs away, and the added bonus was that my work did not degrade the models in the photographs and make them look like sluts. The cool thing is, however, that I knew a photographer in Orlando who did do boudoir photography, and his photography made the models look professional and classy. This Orlando photographer, Craig Huey, was a long-time friend of mine, and he was ethical and professional. He did awesome boudoir photography work, too. Craig and I became friends back in 2001, back when we both used film SLR cameras. We worked with many of the same models, and when a model by the name of Jessica got mad at me because I didn’t have the time, or the money, to do a shoot with her and another model with a film camera, she went and told Craig that I had badmouthed his work, which was never the case (the only thing that I had said was that I did not understand the name of one of his sites, and that I did not care for diagonal compositions of certain photographs). Craig was angry, contacted me, and we compared notes, and quickly realized that Jessica had tried to start a fight between us. After a while of communicating, we became friends, and we both realized that, although we were technically competitors, that we could trust each other completely. Such began professional collaboration in professional photography community, and I soon began collaborating with other professional photographers. I don’t regret it.
Going back to the boudoir photography situation of 2008, I decided that the best way to deal with this lady was to give her some serious competition in boudoir photography. After I teleconferenced with Craig and told him the situation, I offered to give him the Tampa boudoir photography market. I was going to build Craig one of my state of the art photography services marketing web sites, and once launched, he would get the business. Why was I doing this, besides dealing with the annoying Tampa boudoir photographer? Well, for the integrity of the Tampa photography services market. I figured that the lady was sleazy, and that this way, anyone looking for boudoir photography services would get professional services which would not make them look bad, or undermine any modeling careers.
A few weeks later, I launched Tampa Boudoir Photography. When the boudoir photographer saw what she was up against, she was horrified, and freaked out. The site exploded in popularity, dominated search engine results, and Craig has been getting work from the photography services marketing site.
I’m happy for Craig, as he deserves the work. I’m also happy knowing that there is finally integrity, and professionalism, in the Tampa boudoir photography services market. It makes me smile knowing that I cost the boudoir photographer her business, and market share. I recently checked, and it doesn’t look like she has been booking much work lately. Going up against Craig's awesome work, and my sophisticated marketing machine, her loss of business was a given.
Let that be a lesson to amateur photographers out there: Don’t mess with professional photographers who have paid their dues properly, without taking shortcuts, and who have been in the photography business a lot longer than you have.
Craig helps me out when I need it. A few months ago, I coded his web sites for the Orlando and the Atlanta photography markets. He paid me with an assortment of lenses, which are some of the most expensive gear in photography. He also booked me to do some ad work for him. Oh, and there was the time when he helped refer a model to me for a television interview; a television interview which came up too fast for me to mobilize any of my other models. That was cool.
Well, I could also go on about photographers who aren’t really professional photographers, and who claim to be, but who don’t pay their dues or invest in professional marketing tools such as web sites. Photographers who don’t bother to invest in professional marketing tools, and who run their photography businesses from a Myspace account, a free portfolio networking site profile, or a Craigslist posting have issues. I don’t trust them, and neither should you. I will save this topic, however, for another Tampa Photography Blog post.
At any rate, these days I don’t use Craigslist or any of the other free advertising revenues. My photography services marketing web sites and other professional marketing tools are very effective, and I invest most of my efforts with them. There is no way that a Craigslist posting, or Craigslist itself, and compete with my marketing engine. Some of the same idiot photographers post on Craigslist, but they don’t seem to be doing anything more than post free ads. They don’t seem to be doing any shoots, and it is certainly true; you only get out of your business what you put into it
I’ll post about photographers using free tools such as Myspace and portfolio networking sites soon, too, because that’s a whole other can of worms. It’s worth exploring. I will say this much: A lot of photographers who do business that way try to figure out why I do a lot more business than they do, and why I take business away from them. In some cases, I do over one hundred times the business that they do, and it really annoys them. In a nutshell, it’s because I invest in professional marketing tools, I do professional-level photography work, I have a ton of references which can be easily verified, and, in a side by side comparison, my photography work is much better than theirs is. Who do they think is going to book the shoots? More on that, soon.
Alright. We’ve gone over collaborative competition, which I will post about again soon and explore in detail, as this is not what this post is mainly about. This post is about professional photographers uniting, and collaborative competition is only a part of that.
I work with other professional photographers quite well. I usually have the problems either through misunderstandings due to making assumptions and a general lack of communication, or because the photographer has issues.
In 2003, there was a Tampa photographer, who we will call “Dick”, who would lie, cheat, and steal to get business. Dick wasn’t a good photographer at the time, and was one of those photographers who would fake it until they made it, leaving tons of ripped off clients behind as he progressed at their expense. One of my modeling resource sites, Independent Modeling, called him out when he advertised some sleazy teen modeling web site project that he was trying to get models for (Teen modeling sites, for those of you who don’t realize it, are “legal child porn”, where underage teen and preteen girls are exploited with pictures of them posing in skimpy bathing suits, T-backs, and even lingerie! Although technically, under legal definition, this is not child porn, the sites are used by men for sexual gratification, and the photographs are used as porn. I don’t know about you, but a 13 year old girl posing provocatively in a skimpy bikini is just wrong on many levels, and it is both sleazy and unethical. It’s disturbing, and I have issues with photographers who do this - context is something that all professional photographers must take very, very seriously. As a photographer, I have concerns about my photographs, for example, say a 19 year old model in a bikini, being taken out of context and used to exploit the model in some way. This is why I take swimsuit and glamour photography very, very seriously). Once confronted, he backed down, denying that it was his deal, claimed that he didn’t know the details, and blamed his webmaster for the project (“Oh, it wasn’t me, it was HIM!”). I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. He then tried to befriend me and other photographers and set up a photography association. His photography association merely served as a means to use and to steal from other photographers by getting close to them, however, and it worked for him because he learned techniques from other photographers and stole whatever he could from them. In my case, he was out for revenge. He tried to get me to collaborate with him so he could steal from me and get information on me that he could use against me. He would call me every day to see what I was up to, and to ask my advice on supposed situations that he was in; an attempt to gather information to size me up so he could take me down. When he couldn’t find any dirt on me, he simply made stuff up in order to attack my credibility behind my back. After a while, when he made some unprofessional remarks about models, I refused to collaborate with him. In late 2003, Craig asked me about him, because he was trying to collaborate with Craig, and Craig had suspicions. I did, too. I noticed that some of my Meta tags from my photography marketing web site source code had turned up in the source code of "Dick’s" photography web site, and it was obvious that he had stolen the code. I told Craig that, and we both agreed that this photographer was up to no good, and could not be trusted.
Sure enough, our suspicions proved to be correct. Dick took contact information from other photographers who he worked with, stole anything that he could from them, and put a few out of business by stealing their businesses from them. Although I refused to collaborate with him, and did not work with him, it didn’t stop him from doing anything that he could to undermine me and to steal from me. He badmouthed me to anyone who would listen. He also plagiarized my business model for modeling composite cards off of my photography business web site, and used my ideas as bait to get other photographers to work with him, so that, in turn, he could learn from them and steal what he could.
"Dick" was, well, a major pain. In 2004, he had a band of photographers working with him in a photography studio, and he convinced them to gang up on me. This sparked a photography industry war in 2004 and 2005 which accomplished little other than wasting the time of everyone involved, pissed people of, and almost became a legal matter when I tried to embarrass the other photographers for associating with "Dick" (it didn’t help that one of them kept trying to attack my credibility, also).
Well, things end. Some things continue. To this day, one of "Dick’s" former associates hates me. "Dick", through his lying, stealing, and lots of practice, has become a good photographer, but doing good photography does not make you a professional photographer. "Dick" is still a dirtbag, and a lot of people know it and refuse to work with him.
I ran into a Make Up Artist in Brandon the other night. I asked her if she still worked with "Dick". She made a weird face, and said that she didn’t. I told her that I figured so, and that his unethical ways would eventually catch up with him, unless they already have.
You know, I miss the good old days, from 1999 to 2002 or so. The models and I had fun shooting. We didn’t fight with anyone. So much has changed.
Well, "Dick" did have one good idea. If he would have been ethical, honest, and professional, his photography association would have worked out well and enhanced everyone’s career.
I now have a photography association. I learned from "Dick’s" games and put safeguards into the association so photographers could not take advantage of other photographers ever again. The photography association will grow in 2009.
Tampa photographers unite! If you are a serious, ethical, professional photographer, I would liked to collaborate with you, so that we could mutually benefit. Don’t worry, however, because I’m not "Dick", and I won’t be a Dick.

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Monday, November 17, 2008 - 3:33 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Tampa Photography Marketing Web Site News

I'm making progress with my Tampa photography marketing web site agenda. This morning, I completed and launched the new Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Headshots web site. Since headshot photography is one of my best selling Tampa photography services, and my main Aurora PhotoArts web site covers a lot of different photography and design services, this was needed. Check it out by clicking on the image link to the right.

For more about this exciting, ground-breaking Tampa Headshots web site launch, check out my Tampa Photographer Blog. Another site in my fleet has launched, and I have two more new Tampa photography web sites in development which will launch before the end of the month. I'm also upgrading, and finally completing, my main Venus Class Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design web site. The site is huge, so that work alone should take at least a week.

Concerning Tampa photography marketing web sites, I recently posted about issues that I believed that I had with search engine rankings. Well, things were not actually like I though they were. It seems that I checked rankings using search engine terms which my sites were not optimized for. I found the old terms, which are actually what most people use (I use search terms that qualify the targeted traffic and increase the odds that the people on my sites are potential clients who are actually looking for Tampa photography services), and my search engine performance has actually increased. It does not matter, however, since the new directives involving the new search term set has already been implemented, and both sets will do well in the search engines by January 2009 (especially with the addition of three more Tampa photography marketing site using my latest SEO tools and search engine technology). These are exciting times!

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Friday, November 7, 2008 - 6:53 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Tuning Up Before The Race - Er, Marathon

We've heard it all our lives, about how life, and business in particular, is a rat race. It's too bad that we have too many sprinters out there, however, and not enough real contenders who are prepared to endure a race with no finish line.
I'm sitting on a fleet of Tampa photography services marketing web sites which are in the process of finishing preparations for what is to come, and what I have to do now. There are Tampa photographers out there who think that they have my market position figured out, and that they have seen the most that they will ever see from me and my Tampa photography services company. I'll allow them to think whatever they wish to think. I allow them to lull themselves into a false sense of security, and to become complacent and weak. As someone famous once said, I have not yet begun to fight. The next year will see my Tampa photography services company invade the entire Tampa photography services market, taking the fight to the front door of other photographers, as I seize more market share and Tampa photography business than at any other time in the 14 year history of my Tampa photography services company. It's about time, as it is time for me to save people, the people looking for quality photography services, from the shortcomings and misleading promises of certain aspiring Tampa photographers and Tampa modeling scams. There are at least ten of these unqualified hack-job photographers, and modeling scams, in particular, that I intend to put out of business as I take their business away from them. I find those Tampa photographers to be very annoying, and so do many others, including those who they are trying to market their so-called Tampa photography services to. They have no right to be in business and to do what they are trying to do, especially since they make money at the expense of their clients.
I'm looking at another week to another week and a half before I finish some of the most advanced Tampa photography services marketing web sites ever developed. I'm giving myself a bit longer, as much as four weeks, to upgrade, overhaul, and refine what I already have, too, such as my main Venus class Aurora PhotoArts Tampa photography web site. Earlier this year, I moved the site to its own stand-alone marketing domain, and redirected links from the old directories. Now, it is time to finish what I started, and to complete the content additions and search engine optimization enhancements to the existing web site.
Look at my web sites in front of you. Focus on what you have to compete against. Do that, because those who fail to look both left and right, as well as to the front, will not survive competing against my Tampa photography services armada.
I'm not one to put all my proverbial eggs into one basket. To survive, and in my case, to dominate, you have to invest efforts into several effective strategies. Don't worry about what you can find and see. Worry about the things that are not immediately obvious.
What I am about to do to the Tampa photography services market will change it forever. I will become known for my business ideas and the skill in executing those ideas into highly-effective efforts, as well as my high quality photography services. Do you think that I only have a Tampa photography services company and that I am only a photographer? Think again. Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design is about to directly benefit from new business strategies and new marketing and sales tactics which were developed for my Tampa event planning company, Eventi Events, and my Tampa advertising agency, Eos MediaArts. It is well known to those who have spent years studying my ideas, and learning from my documented success, that I have several companies which support each other and enhance the marketing position of the others. If you think that this is my main advantage and my main business secret, you continue to believe that. I'm here to say that this is not it at all, although it does give me an advantage over any competitors, including any Tampa photographers who may be able to match what I can do as a photographer. I make a lot of what I do visible. Just beware of what you cannot see, because that is where the market bite will come from.
There are some Tampa photographers who ask "who the hell does he think he is?!?!?", and dream of the day that they will knock me off of my "high horse". I encourage them to try. I've earned my position as the top Tampa photographer, and I did it through years of hard work doing the best photography services that I could do, and I didn't take any shortcuts. I also did not make it at the expense of my Tampa photography services clients. I've earned the right to tell it how it is, and frankly, none of you would be taking the time to read this if you didn't know that I was right. Hey, I just may be on to something here.
There are Tampa photographers whom I respect, and who have earned my respect. They are professionals who like to learn and improve their craft as professional photographers, and they don't take shortcuts or mislead people. They have the right attitude, and have professional motives. Then we have the other so-called Tampa photographers. I have problems with self- proclaimed Tampa photographers who have character flaws and no business being in the photography business. I cringe and roll my eyes at these middle-aged men who delude themselves into thinking that they are photographers because they go out and get a camera, and then go online and make themselves a freebie myspace profile for their start-up Tampa photography business, or create a Tampa photography services profile on one of the free modeling portfolio networking sites such as a certain appropriately named model "chaos" web site. They thump their chests and market themselves as something that they are clearly not. It's like "Me professional photographer! Me get naked girls and make them top fashion models like on the Tyra Banks top model show! Me famous fashion photographer who be published in top modeling magazines like Maxim and FHM- Me no need pay or wrotten credits from Maxim or FHM because me so famous that everyone knows my name! Me make you a professional model after me get you naked and me make you look like a slut!"
Yeah. Whatever.
Tampa photographers, photography is something that requires- no, demands, the highest respect and a professional attitude.
A professional Tampa photographer DOES NOT:

1. Buy a camera to pick up girls and try to take advantage of them.

2. Steal from professional Tampa photographers because you cannot compete with them.

3. Fake it before you make it by creating fake tear sheets and professional credits.

4. Take pictures of naked women without respecting, and helping, those nude models weigh out the risks and the disadvantages of doing such work.

5. Climb into bed with unethical photographers and gang up on the real professional photographers (Yeah, you know who it is that Iam talking about here).

6. Market themselves as a professional photographer in a type of photography that they are obviously not qualified to do (er... wedding photographers trying to shoot models).

7. Center their business on free portfolio networking web site profiles or Myspace profiles which require no investment into their photography business.

8. Mislead people and misrepresent their actual experience as a professional photographer). Tampa photographers who lie, cheat, and steal only sell themselves short. Sure, in the short term you'll get ahead of those professional photographers who have their hands ties by professional ethics, but this is a false economy, and you play no one but yourself. In the long term, you'll put yourself out of business and will ruin your professional credibility. You will damage the reputation of the Tampa photography services market and make things harder for legitimate professional Tampa photographers. You may even get into legal trouble.

9. Insist that models have to pose nude or sleep with them to make it as a professional model.

10. Go onto professional photography marketing web sites of professional Tampa photographers with the intention of stealing ideas from them, plagiarizing their knowledge and their experience.

11. Collaborate with amateur models in freebie TFP / TFCD (Time For Prints / Time For CD) photography sessions. If an aspiring Tampa photographer needs a photography portfolio, they should invest in one by paying professional models to help them. If they already have a professional portfolio and are in business as a photographer, they need to charge what they are worth.

12. Make money any way that they can, shooting anything that comes along, even if it conflicts with other photography business that they do. A professional photographer knows how to segment their markets, keep photography work that conflicts with other types of photography work seperate, and turns down business that is not productive. Tampa photographers who are desperate to book work ultimately lose business because their potential clients are turned off by their desperation and realize that the photographer doesn't really know what they are doing. That's when I come along and take them away from you.

A professional photographer DOES:

1. Invest in their career by using good photography gear, taking time to build a solid photography portfolio, and invest the time and money into a real photography services marketing web site and other professional marketing tools.

2. Use service contracts and the appropriate releases in every photography session booked. One of my attorneys once told me that agreements and contracts are a way of clarifying the terms that a service is booked under. They minimize the chance that there will be misunderstandings that can make a sale go bad. Good service agreements don't penalize the client and don't give you any unfair advantages. They clarify the terms and facilitate good communication. Besides my excellent value photography services, the use of written agreements and releases is one of the main reasons that my client satisfaction rates are the best in the Tampa photography services market; my clients know exactly what they are getting into.

3. Invest in their business. If the photographer is just starting out and needs to build their photography portfolio, they are obligated to invest the time and the money into their photography portfolio. Need models? Pay for professional models (you will learn a lot from them)!

4. Get paid what they are worth. If you are a professional photographer, you stand to professionally benefit from the good photography work that you do. Does an amateur model need a modeling portfolio? They need to pay you for your services. Is your client a professional model who doesn't need a modeling portfolio, and are you a professional photographer who doesn't need a portfolio? A professional collaboration may be appropriate, if you can benefit each other's portfolio and enhance your marketability without undercutting paid business.

5. Honest business. A professional photographer is honest with their clients, even if there is a risk of losing business. It's a two way street. If you meet a client who, let's say, wants to be a model, and they don't have any chance of becoming a model, tell them. Make sure that they have a realistic picture of their potential. Make sure that the client is aware of all the details before you close the sale, and avoid telling them just what they want to hear. Misleading a client in order to make a sale does no one any favors. Sure, you'll make money, but the extra time and aggravation spent dealing with an angry client with so-so pictures does not offset the earnings, and it's not cost-effective business. It's better to lose a sale in the short term if you do more cost effective business in the long run. You will come out ahead, your photography portfolio will benefit, and you will make more money!
If I am interested in booking a client, I take my time and answer all their questions during the initial consultation. I also give them time to carefully read over the services agreement and answer all their questions. This leads to smoother business arrangements and happy clients. Communication is the key!

6. Practice selective business. Be selective, Be picky. In modeling portfolio photography, for example, I don't care what other Tampa photographers say. It's a sellers market. You have the right to fire your clients if it is not a fair, and beneficial business relationship. Your client needs you more than you need them. If the client isn't up to your standards, or the client could prove to be overly demanding, it wouldn't be cost-effective to book them. I selectively evaluate my clients, especially if they initially contact me on the phone because they found my web site on the Internet. I've been known to refer clients who either are not desirable, or who are unreasonably demanding, to competitors. Sure, my competitors will (possibly) make money from the referred business, but they take a risk of losing business from it by engaging in photography work that is not cost-effective. They make money through more effort and time spent with a pain-in-the-ass client, and the profit margins shrink as the business becomes bittersweet. I smile thinking of their frustration as they turn down business because they are sidetracked dealing with unnecessary client problems and I move on to clients who are worth what I can give to them.
Don't be desperate to book photography business. Be professional and selective about whom you choose to work with. It's good business to fire certain clients and to move onto more productive photography business.
Show me a photographer who is desperate to make money any way, and any how, and i will show you someone who won't be able to compete with me, regardless of how good their photography work is.

7. Help other professional Tampa photographers. Well, after they have earned your trust and respect. You help the overall integrity of the Tampa photography services market by helping other professional photographers, and it leads to increased business opportunities for all of you. There have been cases where I needed help from other professional Tampa photographers, and others where they needed my help. We all benefitted.

Ok, I have to go. This Tampa Photography Blog turned out to be longer than I planned.
Before I go, I'd like to address the economy. People are whining that the economy is bad. Well, I like a challenge. Think of it this way. If you are able to sell now, think about how much your sales will go up when the economy gets better.
I'd also like to close on the tuning angle. It's far better to take your time, get your ducks in a row, and make sure that you do things right before rushing out and pushing the hell out of something. Prepare, plan, and set up things right. Tune them up for the Tampa photography services market challenges. Once they are ready, then you push the hell out of them, and down the road an oversight or mistake doesn't come back to undermine you. You have to maintain and tune up a car before you join the race. Otherwise, you're going to have problems on the track, and won't be able to hang with the competitors who are passing you by.
I'll be spending another month working on things. After that, I will push what I have developed and will dramatically increase my lead in the Tampa photography services market. Heed my words. Soon, the Tampa photography services market will be mine.
Who in the hell do I think that I am? I think what I know, and what my clients know. I am a professional Tampa photographer, one who is at the top of their game, and don't ever forget that.
I'm in this for the long haul, and will be racing ahead of the competition long after other photographers have given up.

Afterthoughts: My Tampa Photography To-Do List

1. Launch my new Tampa headshot photography web site this weekend. It's almost done.
2. Complete the sections of the Tampa Photographer Blog and the Tampa Photography Blog.
2. Build and launch my new Tampa photographer business web site.
3. Overhaul my current Aurora PhotoArts photography and design business web site. Add lots of content and implement new online marketing strategies.

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Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 8:35 PM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Tampa Photography Blog Design Adjusted

The design of the Tampa Photography Blog is being adjusted. Please stand by for the design change and a new blog post about the Tampa Photography Services market. It's long overdue.

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Sunday, May 4, 2008 - 4:42 AM - Tampa Photography Industry Look by Photographer C. A. Passinault

Tampa Photographer Blog Launched

It is late, so I don't have much time to post this. This Tampa Photography Blog has spilt into two blog sites, Tampa Photography Blog and Tampa Photographer Blog. This original site, Tampa Photography Blog, will see some design adjustments, and will focus on the Tampa photography industry and my opinions about the Tampa photography services industry. The new Tampa Photographer Blog will focus on my adventures as a photographer and other photographer anecdotes. It will retain the original design, and if you want to follow up on my adventures as a photographer, will be the one to read. Each site, which make up one large binary blog site with two categories, will have to have a different color scheme and design so people won't get confused. The names are very close. Right now, both sites look identical with small differences, but this will change shortly when the design and color scheme of this site is adjusted.

I will post more later. It is time to sleep.

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UPDATED 05/09/11

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Scroll Class web site blog by Tampa Advertising Agency Eos MediaArts. Tampa Photography Blog online 02/28/08.

TAMPA PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG SITE INDEX UPDATE HISTORY

04/20/11 - Removed links to Eventi Events and Eos MediaArts, as those sites have moved, as well as some old abandoned domain names. New Mosaic Class Tampa Photography Blog site is days away; this may be the final update on this site.

03/22/11 - Replaced Meta Tags as we prepare to re-launch the Tampa Photography Blog as new Mosaic Class web site.

08/06/10 - Fixed a bug in our CSS page title script, added an enhanced disclaimer, and worked on meta tags. New Venus 3 X-View variant web site due within two weeks. Both the Tampa Photography Blog and the Tampa Photographer Blog will work as SEO boosters for the eight Aurora PhotoArts marketing sites, but will not be used to market or advertise any services or products.

08/04/10 - Site template refreshed and content restored for SEO priming. Site layout centered. Frontier Pop Support added. Preparing to relaunch the Tampa Photography Blog with a new Venus 3 Venus Class site, which will be highly interconnected with the array other Venus 3 Venus Class Aurora PhotoArts marketing web sites. This initial array of 8 web sites, which will make up one huge meta-site, will be online in September 2010. It will solve the ongoing SEO 2008 issue.

Tampa Photography Blog Web Site index refreshed 01/18/09

The Tampa Photography Blog covers, but is not limited to, the following Tampa Bay and Florida markets:

Tampa, Ybor City, Hyde Park, Westshore, Apollo Beach, Clearwater, Clearwater Beach, Saint Pete (St Petersburg), Palm Harbour, Brandon, Plant City, Lakeland, Orlando, Winter Park, Sarasota, Bradenton, Daytona Beach, Miami, Miami Beach, South Beach, Deerfield Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Key West, and Palm Springs.

Tampa Photography Blog Disclaimer

The views and the opinions shared on this blog are those of the author and are not neccessarily those of Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Bay photography and design or any other party. Presented as-is, with no guarantees expressed or implied. Informational use only. Tampa photographer Chris Passinault is not legally liable for the content on this web site blog, and use of any content waives him from liability. Anyone using the content on this site or attempting anything described on this site assumes all legal and civil liability. Please be familiar with with your local laws before using this site. Information on the Tampa Photography Blog is not to be taken as legal advice or advice which may be covered under any licensed or regulated profession. Opinions expressed on this web site are those of the individual contributor and may not be shared by other contributors, models, photographers, or businesses who may be involved with this web site or our online community.
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