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Black Star Rising Home Categories Advice for Clients Art of Photography Business of Photography Graphic Design Legal Matters Photojournalism Stock Art and Photography Teaching Photography and Design Video and Multimedia Video Blog Posts Visual Inspiration Visual Storytelling Web Design Archives October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 About Contact Subscribe to posts by RSS or email Black Star Today New York, 1935. The city is overflowing with immigrants from Europe. Among them are Kurt Safranski, Ernest Mayer and Kurt Kornfield. A few years before they were still successful professionals in the flourishing world of publishing and newspapers in the Weimar Republic. Safranski had been an editor... Keep Reading The Idea Grove Black Star Rising is a collaboration with the Idea Grove, a Dallas marketing firm that provides public relations, Web design , brand development, social media consulting and other services to its clients from New York to Silicon Valley. Contact Us FREE E-BOOKS What’s right and wrong today? Download Black Star’s free e-book on photojournalism ethics. Black Star Sites AssignmentPhoto.com Twitter.com/BlackStar BlackStar.com Clients Black Star’s clients include the largest corporations, most respected advertising and PR agencies, and most popular media organizations in the world. If you need photography, our global network of talented professionals can capture anything, anywhere. Contact Us Photographers Are you interested in becoming a Black Star photographer? Learn more about the process. Then, drop us a line. Contact Us How to Get Website Visitors to Call You When They Can’t Tell The Difference Between Your Work and an Amateur’s October 16 | By Kathy DalPra | Posted in Business of Photography As an artist, it’s natural to want your prospects to appreciate the quality of your work. After all, you’ve put a lot of energy into perfecting your craft. It’s also the reason you feel justified in charging top rates. (more…) Tags: natural style photography , photography , photography website 3 Steps to Using Google Analytics To Help You Get More Photography Clients September 22 | By Liz Lockard | Posted in Business of Photography Let me ask you a serious question. Do you know what’s going on with your photography website traffic? Like how many visits? Where they’re coming from? And what they’re doing on your website? (more…) Tags: Google Analytics , photography website 5 Instant Website Turnoffs September 8 | By Kathy DalPra | Posted in Business of Photography It’s tough evaluating our own websites. We can’t help it, we’re a little bias. We put a lot of time, thought and effort into launching our site that it’s sometimes hard to admit that it actually might be doing us more harm than good. If you’ve fallen for any of the following five website faux paus, that might be the case. (more…) Tags: website faux paus What Apple and Samsung Can Teach Photographers About Attracting Loyal Clients August 11 | By Kathy DalPra | Posted in Business of Photography Apple wasn’t the first to launch a smart phone, but it was the first to create a clear and distinct divide between the old, clunky Blackberries and the new age of mobile technology. Apple was the first to step up and give people what they really wanted: a rich mobile life. (more…) Tags: customer service , photography A Simple SEO Tweak To Get Better Blog Traffic July 30 | By Kathy DalPra | Posted in Business of Photography When I was contacted by an up-and-coming New York wedding photographer to assist with their SEO strategy, one of the first things I noticed is that she was using her blog as her portfolio. At first glance, there is nothing wrong with this approach. However, the problems began when I saw how she was naming her posts. (more…) Tags: blog traffic , photography website , SEO A Real Story Of How Old Fashioned Marketing Still Works July 20 | By Kathy DalPra | Posted in Business of Photography Good old fashioned relationship marketing still works. I love the Internet for growing a business, but it doesn’t eliminate the power of local promotion. For instance, when I was pregnant with my daughter I started seeing a new chiropractor for the sudden back pain my big belly was bringing on. One of the things I loved about her practice was the modern, zen decor that put me at ease and especially the gorgeous lifestyle canvas prints hanging everywhere. (more…) Tags: networking , photography Leverage Your Photography Skills to Generate Leads July 16 | By Kathy DalPra | Posted in Business of Photography When I had my bridal and fashion jewelry business, getting press was a big part of my marketing strategy. I really didn’t know much about PR until I dove into it. As my pieces started to get featured more and as I became a writer for some of these publications, one of the things I learned is that established magazines typically have a photographer on call or on staff to shoot their featured articles for each edition. (more…) Tags: photography skills In Photography, Inspiration is All Around You June 30 | By Ellen Fisch | Posted in Art of Photography Finding photography inspiration without direction is often challenging. If I am not commissioned to photograph subjects for a client, I am often hard pressed to come up with fresh material on a daily basis. For that is what I do: photograph every day. It can be far less demanding to see the Eiffel Tower on a trip to Paris and take some great images, but to work on my own photographs day in and day out in a familiar place requires commitment. What do I shoot? Where does the inspiration come from? (more…) Tags: architectural photography , photography inspiration Get More Clients: Conducting a Client Phone Call June 16 | By Susie Hadeed | Posted in Business of Photography When we have a client interested in our services, we’re finding more and more that we’re booking people over the phone and not necessarily after we meet. We do still meet a lot of our clients, but we always try to have a phone call first to make sure they’re a good fit before we schedule a meeting. When we’re planning for a client phone call there are a few goals we have in mind: (more…) Tags: business of photography , photography Get More Clients: Creating a Script for Client Phone Calls June 2 | By Susie Hadeed | Posted in Business of Photography Scripts will help tremendously when you’re starting out to do client phone calls. It might feel a little robotic at first, but after a few calls and revisions to your script, you’ll be doing it like a pro. A lot of people (myself included) have a hard time remembering all they need to say on a client phone call or in a meeting. We’ve found that creating a script has made our calls go SO much smoother, and it’s also helped us in our meetings as well! Using a script can also make it easier to decipher if you and the lead are a good fit. (more…) Tags: business of photography , photography Get More Clients: Following Up with Leads May 19 | By Susie Hadeed | Posted in Business of Photography When I first started in this business, I did a little happy dance every time a lead aome into my inbox. Of course, they weren’t coming in as often as I would like, but I treated them with care (or so I thought) and would send out information and then wait for their response. And I would wait, and wait, and wait. Sometimes a response came, but often I’d only hear crickets. Over time we’ve developed a process that not only helps us book clients better, but even if we don’t book them we still get a response back from them letting us know. It’s helpful to know one way or another, and this way we can close out the leads if they’re not interested. (more…) Tags: business of photograph , leads , photography How Getty’s Free Images Will Overtake The Direct Marketing World April 14 | By Rohn Engh | Posted in Stock Art and Photography Marketing is the art of...