Jack Hollingsworth, one of the most prolific stock shooters of the last couple decades, has announced a three-day educational program called Photographer Makeover. The first of probably many seminars begins on June 1 in Austin, Texas.
The program is designed for “pro shooters with a heart and mind for reinvention, remodeling, refurbishing and redefining. All content will be equally applicable to a wide variety of stock, advertising, commercial, editorial, wedding and event photographers.” Hollingsworth aims to leverage Web 2.0 tools and techniques to help photographers redefine their business and brand.
You will hear how new-media marketing tools like blogs, video, photos, social network sites, Google, Skype, video-blogging and podcasting will forever change the way you think about your business and your relationship to your customers.
A quick look at the speaker list and the content of their own blogs suggests that this seminar will be a lot more about wedding and event photography, social media and digital cinema (video) than shooting stills for stock. Maybe that is the point. Despite his years of great success as a stock shooter, Hollingsworth does not seem to think that this is where the future lies. However, before stock shooters totally discount what he has to say, they should remember that he has an excellent track record for spotting the big opportunity on the horizon and exploiting it.
When most people think of a blog, they think of someone telling their personal story. That is not what the Photographer Makeover site is about, although there is an element of that there. Hollingsworth has done a tremendous amount of research and brought onto one site a remarkable number of experts in various aspects of photography. In most cases, each of these experts has linked to a number of other important resources.
If you have ever searched for something on the Internet and been frustrated at having to go through hundreds of irrelevant posts to find one useful bit of information, this site is for you. These guys and gals have filtered out a lot of the nonsense and aimed the reader and viewer at useful resources. It will not be perfect for every photographer because it covers an awful lot of ground, but every photographer will find much more useful information linked to this site than he will by just searching Google. Even if you are not interested in the seminar, you’ll find its Web site well worth your time to peruse.
The cost of the three day Photographer Makeover program is $1,200 per person. However, if you live outside the U.S., there will be video streaming of all the main podium presentations via upstream.tv; access to these presentations is $600 per person.