File this under interesting cross promotions. CB2 (or as I like to call them, the hip version of Crate & Barrel) has teamed up with photographer Todd Selby for this contest. Folks are asked to submit three photos of their place. Visitors to the CB2.com site are asked to vote on their favorite and the winner gets $10,000 gift card for CB2 and a private photo shoot with Todd Selby.
Seems win win to me. Todd gets his book mention on the CB2 page with a link to buy the book on CB2.com and has his name email blasted to I assume thousands of address while CB2 gets to use Selby's name and book to promote their brand.
Selby is an interesting cat to watch. He has managed to stand out of the crowd and make a unique position for himself in these times. His site site gets roughly 35,000 hits a day and it features spaces of well known and not so well known creative folks. Now he shoots for well-known clients such as Nike, Paris Vogue and (ahem) Crate & Barrel.
Times have definitely changed. When I started, the way you do it was knock on editorial doors, build yourself through the magazine and work your way to the top magazines. Then hoping art buyers will go through these magazines and hire you for advertising.
It does not seem to work that way anymore. Now it seems like you have to build your own followings and when you get large enough, the advertisers will start a-calling. Look at Scott Shuman (The Sartorialist). He started by photographing fashionable folks on the street and through that worked his way into a book, a gallery show as well as shooting for Burberry, DKNY and so forth.
This just tells me that photographers out there need to find their strengths and follow it. Remember the Chris Anderson's article The Long Tail in Wired magazine back in '06 ?
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