Business building news from PhotoShelter

A huge part of building a photography business is visibility. People have to know about you somehow. Although I've not decided what my specialty will be, I know that one part of my business is going to be stock sales. And along those lines, Photoshelter has just given me a huge boost off my launch pad. The image you see above is the banner ad they launched today on the design site www.behance.net, using one of my images! More details after I catch my breath...

I was contacted earlier this week by Andrew Fingerman, VP of Marketing at PhotoShelter, who wrote:

I came across your Cycle 61 blog a few days ago... love your mission and the story you're sharing. You're exactly the type of new fresh photographer that is helping make our collection diverse and appealing to buyers. Naturally, after I saw the blog I went to check out your images in the collection. One of your images stood out as PERFECT for a new set of banner ads we're doing to raise awareness among buyers....I am working on the next round of ads for a designer site called Behance.net, and I would love the opportunity to feature your image. This is one of the ways we are able to play an advocate role for independent, up and coming photographers. I figured it would be a nice boost as you kickoff your mission. As a best practice, we always ask permission from the photographer to use their image, recognizing that it also helps us raise awareness for the Collection. The credit would obviously be loud and clear "Nick Davis has some of the coolest images you've never seen..."

Of course I wrote back as quickly as I could that I would love to have my image be part of their campaign, and now it's live on behance.net, hardly 48 hours after our initial contact.

Thanks Andrew, for picking this up and helping support the little guys like me. I think the real story here is far larger than any one image or ad on a website. This kind of action shows me that you guys are building something that has the power to really turn the industry around. Should be an interesting ride. I'm all in. Let's help bring some self-respect back to the artists, stop selling ourselves out, and see what we can do.

When you see somebody going places, grab hold and hang on tight. I'm white-knuckle here, and I love every second of it.