Scott Bourne

New Contest - Enter for a chance to win a Nikon D800 & Free Yr Mosaic Archive Pro

Welcome to the next Photofocus contest. This contest starts May 14, 2013 and ends August 15, 2013. The winner gets the following: Nikon D800 Body Only and Mosaic Archive 2TB Backup Professional Plan free for one year (PLEASE READ THIS PAGE CAREFULLY – IT ANSWERS ALL YOUR LEGITIMATE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CONTEST!) Here’s how to enter. - Follow @ScottBourne on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/scottbourne) - Follow @mosaicarchive  on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/mosaicarchive ) (If you are already following no need to unfollow and refollow – doing so repeatedly will get you permanently blocked and banned from our contests — we have recently blocked or banned several hundred followers who engaged in this practice after the last contest – if you are amongst those people – sorry – no need to enter because you are not eligible.) - Tweet the message you see highlighted below once! (There is no advantage to tweeting more than once. There is also no penalty for tweeting more than once, but you won’t have any better chance of winning and you may anger your own Twitter followers if you decide to tweet more than once. Please keep track of your own entry here - http://photofocus.com/open-contests/. We can’t (and won’t) respond to requests asking about entry status.) Twitter has changed its policy to no longer allow disabling of link shortening – so if you need to use a different link to get to the same exact contest page that’s fine. As long as people end up on this page – that’s all that matters. The rest of the Tweet must be identical to the one below.Do NOT put the @ sign in front of Scott Bourne in the tweet. This is to cut down on noise to people who follow you and me. Here is the Tweet:

Enter for a chance to win a Nikon D800 & Free Yr Mosaic Archive Pro from @mosaicarchive & Scott Bourne. Info http://bit.ly/yTGr2n

Official Rules: All general Bourne Media Group/Photofocus contest rules apply. In addition: No purchase necessary to enter or win. 1. You must be 18 years or older to enter 2. You must be following Scott Bourne (http://www.twitter.com/scottbourne) and Mosaic Archive on Twitter -  (http://www.twitter.com/mosaicarchive) 3. You must send out the above tweet EXACTLY as it appears. A failure to do so will disqualify you. 4. The prize will be announced on August 15, 2013 by Scott Bourne via Twitter and on Photofocus.com. 5. US residents responsible for any taxes (if any) incurred as winner. If you live outside the US you are responsible for any taxes, custom duties and shipping in the event you win. We will only ship the prize to a US address. Foreign winners must be able to retrieve the prize from a US address to be eligible to win. 6. If users make lots of Twitter accounts in order to enter a contest more than once, they’re liable to get all of their accounts suspended. Anyone found to use multiple Twitter accounts to enter will be ineligible. Scott Bourne will keep a record of each tweet in a database and then a random number generator picks the winner. Due to the volume of requests we receive, we cannot and will not answer ANY questions about the contest on Twitter or via e-mail. The information you need is all right here. We are proud to be working with Mosaic Archive. Not only do they keep your photos safe, they let you see them on your portable device. Check out their amazing service and signup for their great, free Lightroom newsletter - MosaicArchive. As always, if you are not a fan of these contests, please don’t participate. For the tens of thousands of you who do enjoy the contests, we’ll continue to try to find new contests and new prizes that will make it fun and interesting to be a part of the Photofocus family. Thanks for your support.

How To Market To Photography Bloggers

Okay this probably won’t help but I waste so much time wading through press releases these days I figured I might at least TRY to teach the PR firms marketing to me how to do their jobs.

Let’s start with the basics…

Who, what, when, where and why.

THAT IS ALL I NEED!

I won’t ever read the boiler plate so why bother? And If you truly are the “class-leading, world-champion, award-winning, kimono-opening, rising star of blah blah blah” you don’t need to tell me that. If it’s true I already know that. I’ve met MANY beautiful women in my lifetime. Upon introduction NOT ONE OF THEM has ever said, “Oh by the way I am beautiful.” If you are beautiful I’ll figure that out so stop trying to impress me and get to the meat of the story.

And cut out the adjectives and the superlatives in general. Like Joe Friday used to say - “Just the facts ma’am.” The more adjectives you use - the less likely it is I will run your story. Just saying…

If you include quotes from your CEO and he isn’t someone every single person in the world already recognizes like Steve Jobs, then I won’t read the quote or use it or care about it so skip it.

If you really want a chance to be exposed to the hundreds of thousands of photographers I interact with every year, just pretend there’s a 140 character limit on your press release plus your phone number and email. If you can’t tell me in 140 characters what it is then chances are excellent that I don’t care about it and don’t think my audience does either.

To recap:

I just want the basics. If I have to spend more than 20 seconds to figure out what I you are pitching I am moving on - forever. 

Please take note that I am actually trying to help you help me.

Thanks and close your kimono - nobody wants to see that - really!

My response to the reaction Trey Ratcliff received on his post about mirror-less cameras.

Read Trey’s post here - http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2012/01/04/dslrs-are-a-dying-breed-3rd-gen-cameras-are-the-future/ and if you have interest the comments thereto.

I read a few of them and then grew tired of some of the negativity. You have your nay sayers attacking Trey’s post. These people (in my opinion) break down into a few different groups

1. Those who just spent a ton of money on DSLRs and feel the need to defend that decision so they are upset at Trey’s predictions

2. Those who think you need a “big” or “pro-looking” camera to get pro results or to get paid - pretty sure their portfolios would speak volumes about that statement

3. Those who would disagree with Trey no matter what position he took because they think it makes them cool to fight with a genuine thought leader in the field

4. Those who didn’t read the article carefully and didn’t notice some of the qualifiers he mentioned like - the five year time frame - or the fact that people who shoot fast action (like sports or wildlife) may still have a need for DSLRs

5. Pedants who want to prove how smart they are by picking at every little thing like whether or not these really are “third generation” cameras to which I respond “who cares?”

I am not swearing off the future purchase of DSLRs. I shoot fast action motor sports and wildlife and will need long telephoto lenses with fast frame rates to do my job. But I HAVE sworn off using them any chance I get. I’ve sold several sessions and images from my Oly EP3. Nobody cared that I wasn’t using a DSLR. Using a DSLR for any of these sessions wouldn’t have improved the results.

I think many people missed Trey’s point. This is about the future. And all you have to do to see how fast  this stuff moves is look back at five years ago. Look at the tech advances in that time. You can’t tell me that things won’t move as fast going forward.

I’m selling  the images I make with the micro 4/3 camera format right now. So in a sense the future is already here. But I am looking forward to even more future improvements in mirror-less cameras and second Trey’s opinion that this is the future. Okay - flame away :)