Navigating the Downturn – Part two

This is the second part of 3 podcasts from the Navigating the Downturn NPPA Region 11 Workshop on May 9, 2009.

In this podcast Craig Mitchelldyer, Rod Mar, Karl Maasdam and Rich Frishman talk about how to continue being a photographer in current economic conditions.

Some of the points covered in this part include:

• Promoting yourself online and building your brand.
• How to use networking sites to get your name out.
• Value of your work and making wise business decisions.
• Banking, accounting, taxes and paying yourself.
• Insurance tips
• Thoughts on making a fresh start with little capital.
• Importance of photo rights and registration

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NEXT UP — Part three: What do you charge for multimedia projects?

Subscribe to the Region 11 Podcast Channel in iTunes.

(note the original copy of this podcast was  not working, if you have problems please let me know.)
-TJ

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Navigating the Downturn – It’s a wrap and a podcast

Navigating The Downturn: Seattle Listen to the panelists by clicking on the links below. The three podcasts will be provided over the next week and a half.  Each episode is straight from the workshop with audience participation included and are approximately an hour long. Podcast Episodes Introduction Part 1

SEATTLE — Region 11 of the National Press Photographers Association hosted “Navigating The Downturn: A Photography Survival Discussion,” on May 9, 2009, in downtown Seattle.

The event organized by past NPPA President, Tony Overman, to help Region 11 members who are feeling the impact of the economic downturn.

“A photojournalist who is out of work feels pretty alone,” NPPA’s vice president Sean D. Elliot, said. “Without the camaraderie of the newsroom we are prone to feeling disconnected. The Internet, a message board, a Webinar, an eMail list, can only help so much. Getting together, 10 or 15 or 30 of us at a time, to hear some advice on building a business plan and to ask questions and to complain and moan if necessary, is a lot more helpful to the individual. The idea is to help build local, grassroots connections.”

“With the near-collapse of the newspaper industry there is a glut of former newspaper photographers determined to keep doing what they do best,” Overman said, “but they don’t have the training and knowledge of business ownership, proper pricing, negotiating, handling contracts and taxes, and determining the true cost of doing business. An influx of ill-prepared photographers into the freelance market is in no one’s best interest.”

Special thanks go to Navigating the Downturn’s panel, which included Craig Mitchelldyer, an editorial, portrait, and wedding photographer based in Portland, OR, who is a former newspaper staff photographer; Rod Mar, team photographer for the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders, a former Seattle Times staff photographer to took a buy-out from the paper; Karl Maasdam, a portrait and wedding photographer who left his job as the chief photographer for the Corvallis Gazette-Times in 2004 to start his own business; and Rich Frishman, an editorial and annual report photographer from Seattle. Overman moderated the panel.

The workshop model set up in Seattle may be part of a larger national NPPA endeavor to host similar workshops in their regions based on a planned program template, of which the Seattle program is the first.

NPPA executive director Jim Straight says a request has been sent out to NPPA volunteers to organize similar programs in their own regions.

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Visual editor Charles Apple has written an excellent blog post about what to do if you’ve lost your job. It’s online here.

Text from this post was modified from the nppa.org site.

Navigating the Downturn – Part one

This is the first part of 3 podcasts from the Navigating the Downturn NPPA Region 11 Workshop on May 9, 2009.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download