Leslie Burns Dell’Acqua, of Burns Auto Parts, is an internationally known creative marketing consultant who specializes in working with commercial photographers. During the ASMP‘s Strictly Business 2 tour, she gave a presentation on Seven Steps to an Effective (and doable) Marketing Plan.

Step One is to create what she calls a Vision Marketing Statement, which is basically an Artist’s Statement for people who want to actually make money with their art. With her permission, I repost certain segments of that speech here for the strangely large number of people who seem to be coming to my site looking for advice on writing an Artist’s Statement. For more tips, check the tag Writing Tips.

The following questions are designed to help you find a verbal method for describing your vision. Don’t over-think — answer them honestly and make sure they resonate with your own individual Truth. Don’t worry about being judged or sounding crazy — honesty in marketing goes a long way with persuading clients. You must tell your own story. How else can your business be any different and thus valuable to your market?

• What do you love to shoot?
• How do you love to shoot it/them? Maybe you love to shoot in existing/natural light or maybe you love highly-produced environments…or what about your approach, etc?
• What do you bring to a project? Think about things like a sense of humor or conceptual thinking or connecting with your models, etc.
• Who are your dream clients? Be very specific and list at least 5, like “American Express” or “New York Times Magazine,” or “Apple.”
• Why did you become a photographer? What was the first spark that lit the fire?
• List 5 words that describe your work (like “ethereal” or “hyper-real” or “clean” etc.).
• List 5 words that describe you (like “energetic” or “intense” or “funny”).
• What makes working with you different from working with any other photographer out there?

I really enjoyed Leslie’s seminars, and continue to enjoy her podcast, Creative Lube, which you can find on her website along with her blog. Once I get a few hours to catch my breath and finish digesting the incredibly deep well of information that was SB2, you’ll be seeing my own answers to these questions, and the resultant VMS/Artist Statement.

If you are not a commercial photographer, and are having trouble converting these questions to apply to your own situation, leave a comment and I’ll try to help you out (although I think Leslie would tell you that it’d be better to ask some of your own friends to help with that process, since she’s always egging us creative professionals to get out of our studios).jackass party boy
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Episode 18 of Paul Giguere’s excellent podcast, Thoughts on Photography, does a great job of summarizing the primary points to consider when writing an Artist Statement or a Project Statement. Even better, he concisely explains the difference between the two.

I’ve been listening to Paul’s podcasts practically since the first episode, having discovered him through the LightSource podcast. His podcasts have a gentle, open and unabashedly reflective nature to them which makes them really worth listening to. I often struggle with the question of just how much of my artistic passion should I let show when talking about my photography, and I really think that Paul is an excellent role model for that question: he doesn’t let his passion consume him, but nor does he deny it. With his every spoken word on the subject, you can hear the comfortable acceptance of his love for what he does.

Matt Siber is having my class write Artist’s Statements. It’s another one of those strange moments where I find myself simultaneously ahead and behind the class because I’ve ventured into this territory on my own, unguided. Guides are nice, though, especially when you’re walking through the woods you always get lost in.
Here’s the new version. Please give me your input:

I am frequently frustrated by the prevailing myth of photography as a form of truth. My imagery consists of lies and fictions, sometimes depicting the misconceptions we develop about relationships, and other times crafting works that are wholly fiction for the sake of fiction. Perhaps it can be said that there are subtler truths to be found in the sweet desolation of children’s playgrounds at night, and maybe I successfully connect to something universal in those soft, sensual nudes which depict women in ways we’re taught not to look for. At a minimum, my photography usually revels in the masks we wear, and so the only truth you can find in my images are the kind heard when we shout our lies from bell towers and roof tops.

In case anybody stumbles across this while working on their own, here are a few of his pointers that I found particularly helpful:

• No details in your first sentence! Remember your basic writing rules, start with a broad description of concept and then specify later. Your first sentence or two needs to broadly describe your concept and get the viewer interested.
• Questions you may want to answer in your artist’s statement:
  • What is your motivation for making the work?
  • What issues or ideas are most important to you?
  • What kind of questions does your work raise?
  • Who is your audience? (Why is your work interesting to them?)
  • Who are your influences?
• Terms like Abstraction, Documentary, Fashion, and Landscape describe your style or approach rather than the ideas and concepts you’re interested in. Be sure to discuss your concept as well as your style.
• Avoid phrases that could apply to many photographers. Eg, “Capturing a moment in time,” “exploring issues that are important to me.”
• There’s no reason to glorify or get nostalgic about your photography in your statement, unless these concepts are present in your work.
• Try to show that you have a realistic understanding of photography’s streenths and weaknesses.
• Your statement is intended to accompany your work, not stand in for it.
• Avoid technical discussions of your photography. Say everything in terms that non-photographers can understand.
• Try starting by looking at all the work you’ve done so far, and spend some time looking at them as a whole, seeking common themes and threads. Look for common subject matter and ideas. Ask a friend to look at your work and tell you what they see.