Q+A with "The Photographer Whisperer", Allegra Wilde

Allegra Wilde is based in New York, NY and is a consultant to photographers and image based businesses across the country.

KS: Can you give the few people who don’t know who you are a little background about yourself and what you do?

AW: I came to the photography business after working as a political advance person with various presidential campaigns. It was my job to manage the press logistics and particularly, the resulting “picture.”This meant managing the camera crews and still photographers that were covering the campaign stops, as well as deciding camera positions—essentially, art directing the event.

After politics, I worked in the Creative Department at an ad agency where I learned what Agents do and made some of my most important and formative friendships with people like Bill Stockland and Maureen Martel, Howard and Sam Bernstein, Marge Casey, and others, who taught me and still continue teach me so much about the business.

Then came the Creative Blackbook, where I sold the ad space in the East Coast Photography section. We did a very consultative sale. It was important to understand the talent’s history, goals, and mostly, what they were trying to say in their portfolios, and their promotion. I worked with great people and I got to know many photographers and agents. It was there that I fell in love with photography and learned how to really “read” a portfolio.

Most people know me through my 20-year association with the Workbook. It took a long time, but eventually I developed a certain amount of equity as someone who, through my relationships, was very plugged into this market, particularly in N.Y. More recently, in addition to my work as an independent consultant and visual strategist for individual photographers and agents, and the industry forums I run, I have been doing much more in education: giving seminars, critiques at the photo schools (most recently at Art Center) mentoring (SVA MFA program through Katrin Eismann) and am also on the board of Stop Assisting which is a new organization to help assistants transition into their own businesses. In the last year or two, I’ve been branching out and learning more about the fine art and photo book publishing worlds. At the end of March, I will be giving 2 full day workshops for photographers on portfolio development and how to edit your own work at the Palm Springs Photo Festival, as well as reviewing portfolios there as part of their general reviews.

KS: You also run two online forums, Art and Photo Agents Forum and the Art Producers Forum, can you tell us more about those?

AW: After the Workbook, I wanted to gather the community to share ideas, industry practices, referrals etc. This wasn’t without precedent. There was SPAR on the agent side, and the Art Buyers Club on the assignment buying side, but both had evaporated over the years, and were mostly New York centric anyway. I had a lot of conversations with both reps and buyers all over the country who were lamenting the lack of “community” in our business, and expressing their desire to pool information with their peers. So I created these two forums as a response to that, in Yahoo groups and later on Facebook. I have also started a group recently for print production coordinators/producers, who have a different set of issues.

We have nearly 300 members in each forum, and they are comprised of national and internationally based Agents (both illustration and photo) Photo Editors and Art producers. While most of the day-to-day problem-solving among the membership takes place online, I have had several events for each to tackle larger issues, both in N.Y. and L.A. So far there have been meetings on topics like creating a Universal Estimate Form, and recently, a Demo on the RED Camera for the Art Producers group at Industrial Color. We will be having another RED Demo exclusively for Agents and Print Producers on March 17th (also at Industrial Color). People interested in joining these forums can email me at aw@allegrawilde.com (please include a brief introduction about your position, where you are working, etc).

KS: As an authority on the agent/artist relationship, how do you see that relationship changing in the current economy? Have expectations shifted? Have business practices shifted? What do you see for the future of both parties?

AW: There is plenty of uncertainty on both sides. That said, with respect to the artist/agent relationships, I am seeing a few things evolve to meet the current economic and technological climates.

The most difficult sustainable structure right now is if you are a small agency, with say, 10 talent or under and you are “non-niched,” which means that there isn’t a certain thread to the kind of talent you represent (like Julian Richards or Apostrophe, or Frank Meo or Carol LeFlufy have). The big agencies, like Stockland Martel, Bernstein/Andriulli, Marge Casey and others are much more likely to have equity outside of the talent they represent, and while most, whether they are big or small, are fully branded these days on their own, the big agencies offer more choice and this can translate into a more “full-service” experience for the buyers at the initial book call. The larger the agency, the more likely they are to get more calls for the agent’s expertise and direction, as well as the inquiries for talent by name. Often this is where I can measure the difference in market saturation between large and small agents: These calls for non-specific talent indicate the degree to which an agency is used as a resource by itself, as well as for the specific talent it represents.

Small agencies who are successful, like Norman Maslov, do a few things that are helping them compete against the big ones. They are sharpening their talent stables into a more threaded point of view. Because they are smaller, and more fleet, they are able to make more frequent personal calls on buyers, especially out of town, and do more agency shows. Some are combining with each other, and sharing resources, like I2I does, and Marianne Campbell and Heather Elder do. However, there is a mis-impression among talent, that the smaller the agent, the more attention the photographers will get, and the truth is, that that is determined more by the number of agents per talent, no matter what the size of the agency.

For both the small and large agencies, there have been necessary adjustments to the way they structure their relationships with photographers. Agencies of all sizes are taking on more of a management role, (and often charging higher percentage of fees). They are taking on the individual talent’s branding and portfolio development, billing, and even some aspects of studio management. Some agents charge the talent a la carte for these services, but most do not. Agencies are also consolidating production: creating in-house production, hair + makeup and casting departments for the large agencies, and for the small ones, making partnerships with producers and production coordinators that are more formalized.

One of the other interesting reasons for the broadening of the agents purview, particularly into full-service talent management, is that many reps began to increase their management and production roles because they were taking on non-mainstream advertising and more editorial and photojournalism talent. We have seen many of the more commercial agents take on photographers who have come from the fine-art and documentary worlds with less experience on commercial shoots. Taking on more singular talent, even though they may be “untested” commercially, can be a safer path for agents who must distinguish themselves from their competitors. And because those agents have put the necessary production and management services in place, hiring a non-commercial photographer is “safer” for the clients too.

Aside from the obvious financial benefits for Agents in bringing some of these services in-house, it does become more efficient for both the photographer and the client to have a seamless, closed-loop experience. From the first book call to the final bill, the Agent is able to steward the job.

We continue to see enormous competition for assignments in ad agencies in particular, whose volume and budgets for print are shrinking. Art-buying departments are shrinking in personnel. So it has become incumbent upon agents to make adjustments in their sales structure as well. They are devoting more and more time and resources into creating their own stock libraries, and going after the increasing corporate library business. “Broadcast” departments are being created at magazines too, with photo editors facilitating the video as well as the print. So agents and photographers have no choice but to at least learn about this new component of the business, and whether they pursue it or not, it would seem that among the traditional markets for assignment photography (advertising and editorial) the demand for video packaged with print is only going to increase.

Most agents, in addition to their websites, have embraced social networking, especially Facebook. Many have their own blogs, but the most successful and well-read ones (and this is true for photographers blogs as well) seem to take a position on issues, and offer opinion and content beyond an endless stream of “who shot what last week” and their own self-promotion.

KS: Would you say that Facebook and Twitter are necessary marketing tools for professional photographers?

AW: Yes, although I have little of no experience either personally or with my clients in seeing the effectiveness of Twitter for professional photographers, Facebook, is an absolutely necessary component of promotion.

The most important thing to me, and the reason I recommend it to my clients, is that it is a chance for your potential clients to see who you are as a person, beyond your portfolio. The subject of the personality of photographers they are about to hire has come up many times on the Art Producers and Photo Editors Forum. The funny thing is, when one art producer is recommending a photographer to another art producer, they almost always say whether or not the photographer is a nice person, or something specific about their experience of working with them. This is 95 percent of what art directors and art producers are trying to figure out about you in the ubiquitous “pre-production” phone call. Whether or not they are going to be able to like being with you for the duration of the shoot, whether you have anything in common, and how well you might collaborate—these attributes are the soul of repeat business. Assuming the photo shoot part is successful, the reason they come back to you is more experiential.

Also, online magazines and other photo blogs. Not only is this a fantastic example of our community coming together, but it represents another potential distribution outlet for photographers looking to get their work seen. Some of them are specific, like Burn Magazine, run by David Alan Harvey for emergent documentary photographers, others more general and fine-art oriented, but reflect the taste of the author, as in the case of Jorg Colberg’s Conscientious. Some have more general art and design content and photography too, like notcot.org, and others, combine photo news and galleries (What’s the Jackanory? or A Photo Editor).

KS: You are a consultant to artists and photographers who are marketing to the advertising, editorial assignment marketplaces. If you had to whittle down your approach/philosophy to a few sentences for each market, what would you say?

AW: I don’t distinguish between these market segments in terms of photographers directing their efforts to any/all of them. And the base reality for photographers wanting to work with these clients (and to me, what underlies every successful career in our business) is the same: make original work, create new work constantly, be able to say what it is about your work that makes it yours and promote it like crazy, be totally buttoned up in your business dealings (or get an agent or studio manager to help you do that) and make sure the experience of spending time with you and collaborating with you makes a positive impression on your clients.

I think the greatest challenge for photographers is really inside of the portfolio. The distribution part is easy. There are a lot of photographer’s who look alike. When I first look at someone’s book or website, I ask myself if it looks like anyone else’s. And then I start counting. If I can come up with 10 other names this is a problem. Most people feel safer trying to figure out what the trends are, and following them, but this can put photographers in the most dangerous position.

There are a lot of really talented and competent photographers out there. And the buyers, on a given book call, believe that any/all of these photographers would be “right” for the project. Art Producers and Photo Editors want to make sure the project goes smoothly, successfully, and within budget, but in this frequent scenario, will usually make their decision based on a recommendation from a peer, whether they’ve worked with you before, and now, more often than ever, on money. You will have a turn once in a while following this path, but it is very hard to carve out a successful career this way. Think about it. None of the heroes of photography have spoken the language of the marketplace. That is why you know who they are…