Getting into the Public Eye

– So, JP, we all wanna know how did you get yourself on TV and really, why was that important for you? – Really? Does anyone really wanna know? – Oh, we do. – Well, whether you want to know or not, I’m gonna tell you. I had just finished a book. The book is called, “The Slanted Lens.” And what it is, is a compilation of single-panel photo comics that I had ran in all the newspapers. I had about 38 newspapers that ran it each week, and so it was a compilation of just the lines and the images. Anyway, in that process, the PR firm I was working with, the publisher said, “We would love to get you on to the morning shows in Los Angeles. What have you got to offer?” I said, “Well, I can come in and build a little set. And we can set the host up in the set, have him fly and do something crazy, and it’ll just be a lot of fun. And they were in love with the idea– – Yes– – And so they started sending it to all the morning shows and we got a great response. Everyone wanted to have it as part of their show. – Yeah, which shows were you on? – I was on all the morning shows, like Channel Seven, Eleven, I was on Don and Marie. You know, it was just a great experience. We would build these small sets, either out on the set at the location, or we’d adapt their set, or some people came to our studio and we would put them into a set that we had just built. So it was a lot of fun.

– Yeah. I wonder if you’re thinking, “Okay, I don’t build sets, what, what can I do? I don’t have money for a PR firm.” So what do you suggest for someone who is in that situation. What can they do? – You know, you become your own PR firm. All you have to do is take a morning show that’s in your area. Call the producer of the show. That’s the person you wanna talk to. Whomever produces the show is looking for content every day to fill that time. Interesting things about the community, interesting things that will create interest, that people wanna watch. So call that producer and say, “Hey I would love to do a little segment.” “I’m a photographer in this area and I would love to talk about” “Christmas lights, how to, ten ways to take better pictures of Christmas lights.” And just write yourself up a little script, memorize the things you can say, and go turn on some Christmas lights, take a picture of the host, and talk about taking pictures of Christmas lights. You now become the expert in the area and that’s an interesting thing. People wanna learn about Christmas lights, taking the pictures of Christmas lights at Christmas time. – Okay, so now I wanna talk about why this is important. When you were on the news, what opportunities that opened up for you. – Well, people saw me on the news. Now I’m not trying to get work as portrait kind of work, so I’m not looking for people to call me off the street, but I wanna work with art directors, and the art directors are all watching the morning news, and I got calls from several call centers. “Hey, we saw you on the news,” “we got a little project.” You know, or that was always on the conversation, so it just gave us credibility. It kind of pushed us up, as far as these guys are very legit, and so it really gives you that sense. But you can do that for yourself. You can write press releases. You send out to the local newspapers about anything you’ve done, anything that’s interesting. If it’s not interesting, make it sound interesting and try to get the newspaper to run these kinds of things, or tip off some photography that you can run on the local paper. Anything that will give you some exposure and people start to see you as an expert. And they’ll also start to realize that you have value, like this is…”Oh wow,” “this is the person,…” – Yeah. “you know, the photograph of this person.” – And another, another, like if you wanna start a little smaller, another thing you can do is if there’s an event going on in your community, you can offer to be the sponsor of that event by taking the pictures for free. And so you’re sponsoring that event and then you can also write a press release about that. That gets you out in the papers.

– Absolutely, you are looking to be a sponsor and what you’re gonna say is, “Look, I’ll take pictures of this event for free. I will send them in to the” “newspapers for you. I just want my name to be on the program, to be on the banner” that they put up.” Just any way to give you some recognition there, so that people’ll know that you were part of this event. That gives you a lot of great PR. Take your business cards. You’ll pass them out to people, ’cause people will go on, “Hey can you take pictures?” You know, you’re there with your camera, having and owning, and carrying a camera makes you an expert. – Seriously. So, on September 3rd… – September 3rd. – our business class is starting and we wanna help you make a marketing plan, so we can keep you accountable to these things, and we can teach you how to write the press releases, how to get them out, how to contact the producers, how to do all these things, so that you can grow your business and make the money that you wanna make. – I was just on the phone with a young man who called me and said, “Hey, I want” “information about business.” And I took 30 minutes to do a phone interview with him. And when we’re done, he said, “My word, I have learned more about business in 30 minutes than” “I learned in my undergraduate and my graduate degree in photography.” I’m going, “That’s because those kinds of institutions are not set up to teach people how to set up their business, to run their business to be able to get clients. We are. We do it. That’s what we do.