"Why Do Photographers Have Such Crappy Photos Of Themselves ?"

I laughed at that headline over at the PhotoShelter blog this morning, but it is so true ! Years ago, a photographer told me to have a good portrait done of myself. Reason being ? Sooner or later, a magazine will ask for your photo for their contributor section and you want to present a decent image of yourself - not there's anything wrong with snapshot ones per say. A few years ago, a magazine did ask me and I dug through my less-than-lacking photos of myself and finally submitted a baby shot of me.

Yeah, I know. This is fine for Facebook...not good for the media.



In any case, I believe that photographers should have a decent photo of themselves and a bio ready to go whenever it is needed. I'm sure y'all know other shooters so buy that person a beer or dinner. Can't write ? Sure at least one of your friend is a writer.

Makes sense if you think of a company. They have a PR dept with bio, press release and photo ready to go at an email's moment. As a photographer, you are your own brand, company, entity and you have to have your bio, press release and photo ready too. What if your local newspaper wants to do a profile of you and your school portrait business ? You're ready with a photo of yourself and a photo of yourself at work.

My guess why the photos aren't so great is because we rather not to do it in the first place. We're suppose to be behind the camera not in front ! And we rather just do a quick shot and get it done with it. At least I know I do.

Oh, back to the PhotoShelter blog. Allen Murabayashi shows us different portraits of photographers....my favorite are Rachel Hulin balancing on a bottle and Peter Yang's with his fake mustache. He's asking photographers to show their formal portraits done by other photographers. Not sure if he wants folks to email it in or post links on the comments.

And even A Photo Editor talks about this last year. (Read the comments, they're great !)

Photoshelter Blog LINK