Casey Templeton’s Self promo

A bunch of my friends just gratuated (see a list of them at ausserordentlich2010.de ) and are now starting out as photographers, and as there are so many talented photographers out there (also here in Germany) self promotion is an important thing to do and to pay a lot of attention to. I found the following self-promo by us-american photographer Casey Templeton and it shows very well that mailings still can work if they come with an extraordinary idea and a good design. I personally have the feeling (but I’m only guessing) that email promo isn’t very efficient anymore, because photo editors, art buyers, gallerists etc. probably receive loads of these emails from random people, but they don’t have the time to read and see everything and are maybe even annoyed by the amount of emails they receive.

Templeton put together a “lunch box” with various items, see the video from his blog here:

I’m wondering what kind of self-promo german photographers send out. Any examples available? Would love to get some feedback from you!

I don’t know if you all have seen the Blog/book “No plastic sleeves”, but there you can also find some inspirations when it comes to self promotion, designing portfolios etc.

Thorsten kleine Holthaus wins “red dot: best of the best”

With his campaign “Molecular food“, fellow student Thorsten kleine Holthaus recently was awarded the “red dot: best of the best” prize in the categorie advertising (find it on the red dot site under communication design).

I’m not a specialist in the field of food photography, though I think that Thorsten’s work is absolutely remarkable and innovative. Food Styling by René Bastian Stein.

Congratulations!

Here his concept:

The concept of Molecular Gastronomy has been the most influential trend in haute cuisine over the last fifteen years. Inspired by findings in modern science this avant-garde cuisine alters texture and appearance of individual products. The purpose of this campaign is to attract attention to the fictional 65°restaurant that utilizes the potential of Molecular Gastronomy to weave amazing new creations indulging the customer’s senses. The campaign follows the idea of Molecular Gastronomy. The innovative cuisine is promoted combining the concept of irritation and an unusual visual language. Both printed advertisements and the Citylight campaign are divided into two phases that are released consecutively.

David LaChapelle: new website

..at least I haven’t seen this new one yet. Not quite sure how much I like the new stuff, but I admire him for the great output he had over the years, for his literally fantastic productions and also the other projects he did, like the RIZE film (I unfortunately only saw some parts of it on youtube) or the stage design he did for Elton John (can be found under projects>stage).

The website shows hundreds of pictures and it’s fun to see all the complete editorial shoots he did for Italian Vogue, I-D etc.

I actually came back to his website after I found I really weird editoral David LaChapelle produced for Vogue Hommes, obviously Found Footage photographs from the 70s / 80s with some models/things photoshopped.Very entertaining.

© All photographs David LaChapelle Studio

Adam Bryce (via www.slamxhype.com ) wrote about this work:

“Vogue Homme have just published a series of photographs gathered together by David Lachapelle titled ”The Americans”. Re-opening old family albums from the holiday 4th July, Lachapelle has co ordinated a full volume of images that contain the patriotic pride of the American family which border on debauchery. An aesthetic that differs radically from david Lachapelle’s usual photos that are hyper-stylized, but they still prove to be provocative and disturbing.”

Ryan Mc Ginley II – Levis and Wrangler campaign similar?

BTW: Ryan Mc Ginely last year shot a campaign for Wrangler that won a prize in Cannes , now competitor Levis launched a campaign with exact the same photographer and a topic and style that is not so far away from what we saw with Wrangler… See an article at Creative Review here.

Dietmar Henneka on the advertising business

Thorsten told me about a video where advertising (mostly cars) photographer Dietmar Henneka talks about his job and the relation to the ADs and his clients.
Though this lecture was already held in 1999, it’s still interesting too see and gives an intense insight into the “disaster of being an advertising photographer” in Germany

Long video, but worth watching every single minute (i love the part where he shows to the client how telelens and wideangles lenses work…)
Of course there is a lot of polemic in his lecture, and for sure he exaggerates, but somebody like him who has been in the business for decades should somehow know, shouldn’t he?

Unfortunately, the video is in german only.
See it here .