At Rocky Mountain School of Photography we guide dreamers toward becoming professionals.

Career Training 

June 4 – Oct 24, 2012

What would it take for you to take the plunge?  To dive headfirst into the thing that excites your creative mind.  To give your self the opportunity to expand your understanding and develop your skill.  To work toward revealing how you see. To share your heart and impact the world around you.  To give yourself the space and time to become the person that you really are.

There are challenges involved in pulling together the resources needed to really learn a new skill and to commit to the effort.  There are many things to consider and arrangements to be made. There is the money to come up with. Who would take care of the dog?  It’s a lot to consider.

When Steve Jobs said,  “Stay hungry. Stay foolish” did he mean that it is good to identify the thing that you long for and to take the risk to make it happen?  Career Training students find a way make it happen. They give themselves permission to step in to their own learning and pursue their passion.  They arrive hungry and foolish and we help them.

When was the last time you felt hungry and foolish?

As she wrote in a recent article for PBS Media Shift:

“With the power of the media now in the hands of every citizen with a smartphone, questions about ethics and accuracy are working their way through the journalism industry—how do we know what we see on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter is true? Who are the media watchdogs for a form of journalism rooted in unedited immediacy?”

To learn more about “Speak Out Tunisia: A Citizen Journalism Training Project check out this introduction to Anne’s project.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The goal is to start this project in March…that’s a little over a month from now.  At the time that this article was written she had reached $13,505 of her $19,000 goal. Check out Speak Out Tunisia: A Citizen Journalism Training Project to learn more about how you can get involved.

Anne’s “work is part of a burgeoning trend in journalism training for the masses.” She is no stranger to working with underrepresented groups. Two years ago, Anne spent three months teaching multimedia journalism to a group of students at a small university in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Here’s the website for that project.

To learn more about Anne Medley check out these links:

PBS Media Shift Article: Why Training Citizen Journalists is So Important After the Arab Spring

Anne Medley’s Website

We are so grateful to have Anne teach multimedia production to our Career Training students. She is an instructor who is exceptional at both challenging and inspiring her students. If you are looking to expand your own skills with multimedia, come on out for Career Training this year! She will immerse you in the fundamentals of working with DSLR video covering video capture techniques, composition, story telling, audio, lighting and editing. Motion is here to stay.  Now is the perfect time to explore how you see and interpret our world with both stills and video. One by one, we can all make a difference.

Q. You have been in the image licensing business for decades. How did you get started?
A.  It all started on the Amazon….
I’ve been licensing stock photography since 1980 when I was working for a photographer that I’d met on the Amazon River while working for an expedition travel company.  Wolfgang Kaehler was taking photos of the passengers going ashore in their rubber zodiac boats, tromping through remote jungle villages and cruising up inner tributaries. Wolfgang had a darkroom in his ship’s cabin and would develop the best prints of the day & then post them on a board for the passengers to see and buy throughout the course of the trip.  Wolfgang soon moved to Seattle where Society Expeditions was headquartered and my husband and I set him up in a house down the street.  He traveled the world, photographing for the company’s brochure and marketing needs, while I researched new remote itineraries and wrote the brochures.  Before too long we started our own business with me working as a commissioned rep, interacting with clients and sending out photo requests.  When I look back at how I came to be involved in this business, it’s those early experiences that I remember that changed the course of my career.

Q.  Were you and are you a photographer as well?
A.  I took dark room photography classes in college but I never really wanted to be a “photographer.”   There’s a lot of technical detail involved, which doesn’t hold my interest.  I have no patience for it.  I’d rather talk to people.

Q.  Tell our readers a bit about the structure and day-to-day operations of Danita Delimont Stock Photography.  How many people are on your team? What roles do they play? How much time do you spend looking at images vs. traveling vs. being on the phone?
A.  We have five people on our team, two of which have been with me for 8 and 5 years respectively.  They each have their own role but we all work together to make a cohesive team.  Savanah, who has earned our Office Manager title, keeps me sane and focused and manages the major software program functionality and image-partner content distributions, as well as taking care of the billing and invoicing and submissions to clients.  Jeff has tackled the footage world, and works with our footage submissions, and photo requests. Julia works on photographer submissions, checking for metadata, captions and looking to see how well the images are cleaned up (or not).  Keith works with processing the images to the website, and keeping our computers managed and up to date.  Everyone works a little on Photoshop clean up.  Excel is a major program that we all use and I would recommend anyone interested in this business know it well.

I review upwards of 20,000 images a week sometimes.  Then the selects lists are sent to the photographers for the high res images.  We process between 2-3,000 new images to our website a week.  I am out of the office on business during the normal course of a year 4-5 weeks, depending on trade shows, conferences, client calls, etc.  We’re not on the phone as much since most people communicate via email these days.  I spend 2-3 hours every morning going through my email, which comes in from all over the world.  Between globally-based clients, image partners in different world markets and photographers in the field or living in different countries, we have a very mixed bag of international communications!

Home page to Danita Delimont Stock Photography

Q.  How many photographers do you represent? How many images?
A.  I have contracts with about 300 photographers and we have around 600,000 images on our website.

Q.   Our Career Training students were lucky enough to have you spend some time with them discussing stock photography and reviewing portfolios.  Have you visited Missoula and RMSP before?
A.  I’ve never been to Missoula before so it was fun to be there.  I found the warm hospitality of the people inviting and even had someone I sat next to on the plane offer me a ride to my hotel.  I took an extra day and drove around Flathead Lake, visiting the National Bison Range, Ninepipes and other stops along the way.  After seeing everyone’s portfolio photos from those places, it was fun to see them firsthand!  What a beautiful setting it was in too, with the gold and yellow trees in their autumn splendor, and the Mission Mountains as the backdrop.  Also, when I checked into the airport, there was a down-home Chili Feed going on as a local fundraiser.  When did you last eat a TSA officer’s homemade Jalapeño/Guinness chili, or even have a choice from six others?  It was great to see such community spirit, everyone vying for the best recipe!

Q.  Overall, how would you rate the students’ interest in stock photography? Did you get the feeling that none, some, or every student wanted to pursue it in some way?
A.  There seemed to be a lot of interest in stock photography.  I think everyone’s heard of “microstock” but not that many knew much about RM (Rights Managed) or RF (Royalty Free).  This is part of the last few years’ changes in the industry.  The “younger” generation that is just now in college have very little idea of the history and transition that the stock photo industry has undergone.  The most important thing for me was to impart an understanding that clearly outlined the differences between the licensing models so that people could make informed decisions on how they might want to categorize their images for licensing.   I also got the feeling that there were a few students that didn’t really know much about stock photography at all.  I hope what I had to offer was interesting and informative in some way for everyone.

Q.  For those students that are serious about shooting stock, what kind of advice do you have for them as far as getting started upon graduation?
A.  Pay attention to keeping your images processed regularly, with captions and keywords entered in the metadata consistently.  If you get too far behind you’ll never catch up!  Keep your sensors clean and blow up your images to 100% when cleaning them up.  When pursuing an agency for representation, make sure you have your sample images ready to show and follow up immediately and be patiently persistent.  There’s a reason that old saying “out of sight, out of mind” has been around for a while.  It’s true.

Q.  Now for the hard-hitting question…. how do you like your coffee? decaf? cream? sugar? never touch the stuff?
A.  Starbucks French Roast, black please!

If you have questions or comments for either RMSP or for Danita, you are encouraged to post them in the comments section below.

Danita Delimont ©Savanah Stewart

I spent a few moments with Richard to discover more about him and what he finds relevant in today’s professional environment.

Q: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me, Richard. So what led you down the path of professional photography? How did you get your start?
A: I started learning photography in high school, took a few classes in junior college, and began working as an assistant in the fashion and commercial markets. After a couple of years, I moved to New York and worked my way up to becoming a commercial photography producer. That lead to working in the commercial markets as a photographer and operating my own studio and business. Eventually, I moved my business to my homeland of Pittsburgh, PA, where I continue to operate in the commercial/editorial markets. For over ten years, I’ve also owned and operated a multimedia production company. For the last decade or so I’ve focused the core of my business on commercial work for non-profit organizations. There are many in the Pittsburgh area that I’ve worked with and this has sustained me pretty well until recently when the economy took its toll on this market. I’m picking up more and more teaching opportunities and expanding in personal projects.

Q: How did you get involved in education?
A: Well, over time, I really saw the evolution of the photography business and technology becoming a whole new paradigm for folks to have to re-educate themselves about. I’ve always been passionate about learning and trying to see what’s coming down the road not only for my business but for the entire industry. That’s why I jumped on board early on in the 80′s with multimedia. It has always been about creativity for me; what’s the latest and greatest. Back then this meant producing big presentations with multiple slide projectors and images fading in and out to synchronized music, or producing super 8 film movies for the music industry. This started for me way before the days of the internet or the invention of Adobe Flash technology. Because I was interested early on in my career in developing new techniques to highlight my work and the work of others, I kept doing my homework. As a result, I became more and more interested in sharing what I had learned. I started teaching photography on the community level and went from there. Now I teach to various different levels of interest and skill  in various workshops and certified programs dedicated to the professional around the country. Being an educator is part of my core identity. I believe anyone should have an opportunity to learn and grow as an artist and as a business person if this is their passion. I find that I learn the most when I am teaching. The people I interact with bring new ideas to the table, and stretch me more than I would be stretched without their insight and input.

Q: You’re currently on the board of the ASMP and have been its past president. How has this experience been for you?
A: I’ve been a member for years. When I set up shop in Pittsburgh, I eventually became the president of the local Chapter of ASMP there. I initially had no inclination to run for the national presidential office. I told myself that I wouldn’t run unless I felt like I had something to contribute to the conversation that was important for my peers to hear. With the urging of my colleague and then-president, Judy Herrmann, I finally felt I was ready to enter into this leadership role. I was elected in 2009 and remained in office until spring of this year. My main emphasis was directed toward education and promoting best business practices in the industry. There was a lot of push-back from the older establishment at the time, so it took a lot convincing and patience to get the ball rolling in that direction. I feel we made some significant headway toward making continuing education and collaboration with our current membership one of our major missions as an organization. Overall, it has been a very fulfilling experience for me personally.

Q: This is your first time teaching with RMSP. How has the experience been for you here? 
A: It’s been fantastic. I’ve been to western Montana before when I stayed in the Flathead Valley for a couple of summers back in the 90′s, so I’m familiar with the natural environment here, which is terrific. I’ve been impressed with the seriousness and focus of the students at this stage in their learning in such an intense learning environment. This has been a learning experience for me as well, as I’ve had to adapt my material to this compressed and comprehensive format. I worked closely with Judy Herrmann who preceded me in the curriculum so I was able to provide more relevant information. Really, I’ve left it up to the students and asked them what it is they wanted from me, so it’s been somewhat of a mentorship experience. The one thing I emphasize with them is to get out there and collaborate with other people in the industry. The more collaboration, the more each of the individual parties bring to the table and what they collectively can achieve. It’s the nature of social networking and marketing these days that connections are important to any creative business such as photography. The students really get that and are hungry for this information.

To see more of Richard’s excellent work, visit his website at www.richardkelly.com.