Lighten the Mood

With the end of summer now creeping up on us, our holidays long gone and only doom and gloom on the tv we thought it was time to lighten the mood a tad with a new look Trigger website. Out goes moody black and in comes a more subtle silvery grey, with a lighter brighter more refreshing tone to display your great images.

The homepage has a more interactive feel with a bolder design while the galleries are cleaner and allow the images to stand out on the page. We've kept the portfolio pages to show our clients how good your images are on the printed page and we now also have a 'selling' page that you should take a look at if you're serious about marketing your imagery.

This is where you can get a FREE trial of your personal Slideshow. Simply embed (we give you the code) this into your web and networking sites to virally promote your folio and get thousands more people to see your work. Turn these into sales by customers simply clicking on an image. You don't have to lift a finger, our sales team will do all the donkey work for you, you just wait for your Paypal payments from Trigger.

What else can you do to get more sales, the most important thing is to get more of your images in our licensing galleries. Clients want to see new inspiring emotive imagery and adding to your existing folio is the easiest option. Remember all new imagery goes to the top of our 'just arrived' gallery and gets seen before anything else and the more images you have in our galleries the more opportunities you will create.

just arrived - Images at Trigger Image

Michal Karcz joins Trigger

Michal comes from a painting background where vision was as important as technique. He has now opened "the door" to his own creative world by leaving paint and canvas and realising the opportunities that digital paint and photography offer. Michal generates unique realities that are impossible to create with ordinary darkroom techniques, creating journeys to places that don't exist. Places of dreams, desires and imaginations. His work has been featured on music and book covers and is pure inspiration.


Michal Karcz - Images by Trigger Image

Małgorzata Maj joins Trigger

2011 is starting off in the right direction with some fabulous new photographers joining our select few at Trigger.

Malgorzata Maj, born in 1980 graduated from Warmia-Masuria University in Olsztyn with the title of the master in art, specializing in traditional techniques including painting on silk. As an illustrator & photographer she fell in love with XIXth century paintings, their colours and themes, ghostly moods & dreamy visions. Her work is a rich emotional journey through dark secret gardens where we only glimpse upon romantic figures for a moment before they disappear into the memory of our dreams.

Malgorzata Maj - Images by Trigger Image

Jimmy Williams joins Trigger

Jimmy Williams - Images by Trigger Image

Get your images seen

If you're like most photographers, when it comes to uploading new images to Trigger you don't want to spend hours slaving over IPTC file data. It's the boring stuff that can add days to your file preparation before you get to uploading your high res files to us but unfortunately this dull wordy stuff is vital!! Having a good description and the right keywords with your images is very important if you're in this seriously and you want your images to stand any chance of being seen. Clients use these words to search and find your images so you need to try and put yourself in their position, what words would they use? It's not easy and it's virtually impossible to cover all possibilities and of course you are competing with all the other photographers using the same keywords. If you're not using software to help you select your keywords the next best thing is an online Thesaurus. It will open your mind to word associations you just had not considered but remember one thing, be accurate. The worst thing you can do is add keywords that are not relevant, this will send your valuable potential clients scurrying away frustrated as they see how unprofessional and unreliable your keywording is. So what else can help? Well, being a photographer in a small agency like Trigger rather than a giant like Getty has it's advantages. You simply have a better chance of being seen in a gallery of 10,000 images rather than 20,000,000.

Keywords are only part of the story of course, once the client finds your image you then have to have inspiring shots, with good lighting and great models with content that fits the client brief exactly and a suitable fee to fit the client budget!

Many photographers trying to sell their imagery for the first time as stock think it is a simple process of getting images with an agency and then they will sell themselves. At Trigger we edit hard to present the best images to our clients so they don't have to search through thousands of average images they can find elsewhere, but we live in an age flooded with digital photography where the number of images available far outstrips the demand. The general consensus is that most sales are made from only 10% of images held in a gallery. So, you need to produce imagery that is in the top 10%. That's the hard bit.

By regularly updating your images at Trigger your images go to the top of our 'Just Arrived' gallery and these get seen by designers on a daily basis, we also promote new images via social networking. So you can use this gallery to enhance the publicity of your images before keywords are even used by our clients.

There is keyword software to help in the time consuming process, but we can't recommend any particular supplier: http://www.imagekeyworder.com/ you can download this and try it free for 30 days.

just arrived - Images by Trigger Image

Art.com Introduce New High Quality Prints

If you're busy behind the camera it can be difficult finding time to market your work and when you do it often includes costly printing, postage, cold calling, email lists, websites and networking, time you don't have. That's why at Trigger we place your images in front of art buyers for free, saving you the hassle.

In addition to licensing your work directly from Trigger you can also benefit from our distributors in 30 countries including Alamy and Age and also our print on demand supplier Art.com, the world's largest online print supplier. To maximise your opportunities you simply need to get as many of your images past our editors, we then do the rest while you sit back and drink cappuccino's.

If you're not already doing so Art.com offers an opportunity to sell prints of your work and develop a wider fan base. The editors at Art.com love the work in our galleries and are now offering new high spec print options which include Fine Art Watercolour paper, Kodak Professional Endura Metallic papers and Art on Acrylic. These are in addition to their standard posters and sell at a much higher price so you could see a higher return.

We provide all our photographers with the choice to Opt In to Art.com so if you want to give it a go just let me know by return. We do all the work for you so you can continue with your cappuccino while we submit your images and collect your royalties on sales.

It's a great way to promote and sell your work and with the new repro options you can have confidence in the reproduction quality of your prints. If you want your work to be included in our next submission to Art.com simply reply 'ART.COM OPT IN' in the subject heading of your email and we'll do the rest, while you take a rest.

4 in 1

A new series of ghost books is soon to hit the shops featuring the work of Trigger photographer Luc Coiffait. The Mediator series with two tales in each book features another Trigger photographer Lara Jade as the model. When she's not jet setting between shoots Lara is just as calm infront of the camera as she is behind it.

Luc had a good week, as well as this series he also had another image selected for the cover of 'Gifted' by Marilyn Kaye. Four covers in one week, not bad for someone who graduated only last year.

Luc Coiffait - Images by Trigger Image">

Trigger & The Big Boys

In a world of bland mega agencies, Trigger occupies a small but perfectly formed creative atoll amidst a sea awash with stock dirge. Millions of images you wouldn't want to use and the rare one you might find if you have the patience of a saint. Art buyers face a frustrating search and are increasingly rejecting what has been, in favour of something new. As a result after years of filling their galleries with literally millions of average staged shots the big agencies are now seeing the light and adding 'creative' galleries to their stock pile. Welcome to the modern world big agencies.

As a small agency Trigger cannot compete on size and we don't want to, we're not designed to do that. It's not how big you are it's what you do with it, afterall when did big equal good and small equal not so good. Trigger is small, we're niche, we're boutique, we're specialist, we love creative stuff and we want our carefully selected photographers to fill our galleries with inspiring work offering art buyers a real new creative choice of images for their projects.

The big boys have recognised that niche can be good and so they've been chatting to us over the past few months. The exciting news is that most of the work in our galleries is now being marketed to a whole new clientele through some of these big boy agencies including Agefotostock with offices in Spain, Paris and New York, DPA Pictue-Alliance in Germany, StockPhotoPro and Glasshouse Images in USA and now Alamy based in UK.

Alamy have 17.58 million images to date, which in anyones books is big, very big. Did we go grovelling to their door in the vain hope they would be interested in a small agency? No, they approached us. The result is we now have over 5000 images online at Alamy and this number will increase as our photographers submit new work. If you've ever tried to get images accepted by Alamy you'll know how difficult it can be. Their QC (quality control) is infamous for rejecting the slightest image aberration and if they reject one image they reject them all!! At Trigger we love aberrations if they add to an image and so this makes the decision by Alamy even more revolutionary.

Congratulations to our photographers for creating great images and to Alamy for recognising their creativity.

Tim

The Future of Photography?

Here's a really interesting viewpoint on how to market your work by a photo editor.

A Thought on the Future of Photography

Photographers need more fans.

Photographers spend waaay too much time and money trying to develop a very small and elite group of fans at the top. What needs to change is instead of thinking about having a couple of fans with deep pockets you need to start adding a large number with shallow pockets. These fans are actually just the same consumers you would potentially reach through traditional media except now they can find you without the help of magazines and newspapers. As these people abandon traditional media they’re looking for places to spend the time and money they used to spend at the top. Why not be there waiting?

If you somehow find marketing and selling yourself to average citizens somehow revolting, not to worry, there will always be a group of 500 successful elite photographers who dominate the top of this industry with a handful of deep pocketed fans (top Photo Directors, Art Buyers and Creatives) and if that’s your goal you can continue the long slow climb to the top, but for many people it’s just not possible to make that climb anymore or maybe the mystique of it all has suddenly evaporated.

If that’s the case you need to prepare to go get your fans back.

Christopher Anderson, Editor of Wired gives the following relevant example in his article,Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business (here)

Traditionalists wring their hands about the “vaporization of value” and “demonetization” of entire industries. The success of craigslist’s free listings, for instance, has hurt the newspaper classified ad business. But that lost newspaper revenue is certainly not ending up in the craigslist coffers. In 2006, the site earned an estimated $40 million from the few things it charges for. That’s about 12 percent of the $326 million by which classified ad revenue declined that year.

But free is not quite as simple — or as stupid — as it sounds. Just because products are free doesn’t mean that someone, somewhere, isn’t making huge gobs of money. Google is the prime example of this. The monetary benefits of craigslist are enormous as well, but they’re distributed among its tens of thousands of users rather than funneled straight to Craig Newmark Inc.

Here's the link for the full article and feedback from fellow photographers.... remember to post your replies on our Blog.

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2008/03/19/a-thought-on-the-future-of-photography/

Get optimised and get higher on Google

Hey, if you want to get ahead with self promotion you know you've got to be easy to spot on Google, but how the hell do you do that when everyone else is up to the same thing. Well it's not easy but optimising your website to increase visitors can help.

As you know Trigger work with Photoshelter.com who provide lots of great information on their site for photographers on how to market yourself. This stuff is FREE so if you have the time to watch some videos on setting up your search engine optimisation (SEO) why not try it out. You can get all the info you need here.

If you want to share this info with non-members, go for it, the SEO guidance is designed for all photographers.

Look who's Looking

To give you a better idea and a closer look of just who is scanning through your images in the Trigger galleries take a peek at this short list. These are clients who are looking for inspiring work and have chosen to register with Trigger because they can see the potential in your imagery. By continually updating with your new work they will at some point turn their enquiry into a purchase. Think positive and be pro-active to meet your clients image search needs.

Verstegen Trading : Germany
Black Cat Design : USA
Hilden Design : Germany
Cree Design : Italy
Hachette Books : USA
Butcher Design : USA
Ogilvy Mather Advertising : India
Schweitzer Design : USA
L'Espresso Edoitoriale : Italy
Turrini Design : Italy
The Design Works : USA
JFD London : England
Robinson Design : England
Random House : Spain
Folk Creative : USA
Tilly Marketing : England
Slade Deisgn : England
Guter Punkt : Germany
Anu Design : Germany
Oxford University Press : England
Little Brown Books : England
Planeta : Spain
Starwood Hotels : USA
Random House : Germany
Harper Collins : England
Grand Central Books : USA
Head Design : England
Pan Macmillan : England
Terner & Sons : England
Leidon University :
Hachette Livre : England
Redcow Creative : England
IKOS :
Mays Publishing:
Love Commercials :
Momentum :
Chandler Chicco Agency :
Capital Publishing :
Swanke Hayden Connell : England
Hodder & Stoughton : England
JWT Advertising : Dubai
Pocket Editions : France
Seed Design :
Blank Canvas : England
River Publishing : England
Ogilvy One : England
Harlequin Publishers : Australia
Taylor Inc : USA
Pygmalia : France

JUST ARRIVED - Images by Trigger Image

New Photographer Cristina Carra Caso

Mysterious yellowing landscapes with dreamlike qualities typify the emotive work of new contributor Cristina Carra Caso to Trigger Image.

Angela Melling Exhibition

Are You Having an Exhibition?
Spread the word by sticking all the details on our Blog. Just email the essentials to me and I'll do the rest so more people know about your show.

Angela Melling has done just that. If you're in the south east of England near to the small town of Dorking in Surrey, then take a diversion to Denbies Vineyard where she is having her debut exhibition with fellow photographer Philip Banfield. The show is open from Monday 18th May - Sunday 24th May 2009.

Denbies Vineyard Picture Gallery
London Road (A24)
Dorking
Surrey
England
RH5 6AA

The Spanish are Enchanted by Vanesa Muñoz

Spanish Publisher Espasa are licensing imagery by Trigger photographer Vanesa Muñoz.
Since its foundation, its mission has been to promote the cultural development of Spain and Latin America through a wide range of works complemented by the best fiction and non fiction today. 'A Dark Enchantment' by Roland Vernon originally published by Transworld Publishers in UK in 2008 is now set to be reproduced in Spanish with the cover by photographer Vanesa Muñoz.

First Sale for New Trigger Photographer

Elizabeth May from California joined Trigger only a few short weeks ago but has already made her first sale. Her work has been selected by Harlequin Publishers in Australia and will appear on a book cover entitled 'Bloodline'.

Welcome to Vintage Floral

Welcome to Angela Melling who joins Trigger from England. New to photography but the proud owner of a D300 she dumped her day job working in accountancy for a more precarious life as a snapper. Producing stunning vintage floral imagery she is currently working on a new series called 'idioms'.

Read it now listen to it

Hey, congratulations go out to Trigger photographer Martina Zancan who has just had her book cover for Pan Macmillan Publishers reproduced as an audio cd cover. Chao.

New distributors to work with Trigger

Just like every other business on this little spinning planet we're always on the lookout for new customers. Thanks to the web and digital techno stuff artists are in the fortunate position of being able to communicate, sell and deliver imagery in an instant, any time of day or night to anyone with a computer and a credit card. This is the easy bit of course, the tough part is finding the new clients who want to part with real cash. This usually means investing our money or a great deal of time or both in the pursuit of people who want to use your images in exchange for hard currency. As a small agency with a niche licensing art product we have to search even harder to find those specialist clients who recognise the value of creativity. We're not providing the safe, standard stock image you can find on most sites at knock down prices. We're filling our galleries with new inspiring emotive imagery that will captivate our audience.

Trigger clients include the BBC, The Almanac Gallery, Random House Publishing in England, Germany and Spain, Transworld, Orion and Little Brown Publishing in UK, L'Espresso Editoriale in Italy, Espasa Calpe and Editoriale Planeta in Spain, jewellery designers in Paris, interior designers in Sweden, Harlequin Publishers in Australia and JWT advertising in Dubai. Our reach is broadening and we're becoming a real resource for art buyers who are looking for something different.

In our first 18 months of business we've been putting out the feelers, dipping our toes in the water and sometimes getting our fingers burnt. We've doubled our library to 9000 images and now we're attracting attention from other much larger image agencies who see the value in our highly selective image content. This is an exciting time and over the coming months we'll be working closely with image agencies ic.worldwide in USA and Polfoto in Scandinavia to broaden our reach to new clients by utilising their extensive marketing power. We've spent the past few months working day and night preparing all our contributors images. Now we're ready!

To benefit from this new marketing opportunity all our photographers need to update their FREE subscription at: http://triggerimage.co.uk/form.html . You don't have to do anything else, we have done all the work for you and it's totally free. This will ensure more clients see your stock imagery and ultimately your folio.

Best
Tim