BLAIR HOWARD
photographer & writer

Melanie Rockett : How did you start your Photography career?

Blair Howard : I've had a camera in my hands ever since I was 16 years old - it was a Miranda SLR (auto nothing) camera.

Photography was, for many years, just a hobby. I started thinking seriously about it in my early 20s. I had no formal training. For many years I studied all the available books and practiced, practiced, practiced. Book learning is not the best way: the complicated, professional techniques, even properly laid out, take a lot of understanding. Had I had a competent teacher, I know I could have cut at least five years off the learning curve.

Melanie Rockett: When did you make the decision to start shooting stock and focusing on travel photography?

Blair Howard :: Stock photography was never what I really wanted to do. It was something that just seemed to naturally evolve out of my other interests. Travel is something I've always been interested in. Writing was another of my hobbies. It seemed only natural that I should marry all three interests together, thus I get to enjoy the best of all possible worlds. I made a conscious decision some 25 years ago to make a career change and do the things I love best. Today, I travel all I want, teach other aspiring writers and photographer how to do what I do, and generally live the good life - ain't it great?

Melanie Rockett: Tell me a bit about your stock photo agency ... when/how did you approach them, how did you PICK them,?

Blair Howard: I didn't pick them, they picked me. In 1996 I was approached by a small, traditional stock photo agency and asked if I'd like to submit photographs. I did. They were bought out in, I think in the year 2000, and my images were transferred to the new company in New York

.I have continued to submit to the new company ever since. Sales at the traditional agencies have dropped since the advent of the new "royalty free" agencies, so I am now member of three of those companies. Sales of digital images are growing, though the returns are minimal compared to what they used to be for film. However, each digital image on file with a royalty free agency is worth at least $1 per month. Doesn't sound like much, but consider a portfolio of only 1,000 images and.... well, you get the idea.

Melanie Rockett : I know that a large part of your business is the sale of article/photo packages. In fact this is something you teach at your workshops, and in an online course. How did the submission of the photo/article packages change your business and impact your sales?

Blair Howard :: This was something I learned to do very early on in my career. I am basically a very lazy person. I figured it was better to write and photograph one article and sell it ten times than it was to write 10 articles and sell them only once. Makes sense, right? So, I have been submitting "complete" packages for at least 15 years. The impact was huge: my earnings tripled in a matter of only months. It sounds easy, but it's not. I had to learn exactly how to this, and how to market the packages on a wide scale, something I'd already spent more than five years doing.

The Photo Essay - Getting Your Foot in the Door, is an online course we've developed. The idea is to give our students a way to jump-start their careers and short circuit all the years of trial and error. My contention is that you can make a great living just writing and photographing photo essays or round-up articles.

Melanie Rockett : What is your normal traveling kit? (Are you shooting film or digital and in what percentage).

Blair Howard:: Today, I shoot digital, exclusively. The savings are enormous, and the publishing industry has just about made the transition from film to digital. True, there are few publishers that still require film, but they are few and far between and their numbers are dwindling fast.

Melanie Rockett: What advice do you have for the aspiring STOCK photographer?

Blair Howard: Become the best photographer you can be. Never submit a substandard image. Keep your promises. Set goals and submit regularly. There are certain types of images that sell well, consistently - try to shoot that type of image and do it well and you'll make money.

Melanie Rockett : One of the questions that people ALWAYS ask me about in workshops is about money ... how much do I make, and how much (and how fast) can they expect to make money. Would you be willing to talk about money?

Blair Howard :: Hahahaha. You have no idea how many times I get asked that question. No, I wouldn't like to talk about them in detail, but I don't mind giving you hint or two.

In 1988, I earned enough money doing what I do to buy more than $40,000 worth of cameras and equipment. That was almost 20 years ago. Today, I make as much money as I want to. I can give myself a raise whenever I want to. How do I do that? I simply write one more photo essay and submit it to my client base. That will usually bring in at least a half-dozen sales and, depending upon the essay, it could bring in as many as a dozen. If an essay has "universal appeal," it will continue to sell year after year. Let's just say this: I make good money doing the things I love best: traveling, writing, shooting photographs, and teaching other aspiring pros to do what I do. What could be better than that?

Melanie Rockett: Blair, thanks very much for talking with me today. I very much look forward to having you on board as our new STOCK and TRAVEL Photography Columnist.

Read more about Blair and his extensive list of credits HERE.

Read Blair's EXCELLENT series of articles on Working With Stock Photo Agencies

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Check out Blair Howard's WEBSITE