Though some may view his work as “unoriginal” he was able to tune into society’s thoughts at the time. His interpretations are now being re-created and called upon in film and television years after his demise. If imitation is a measurement of originality then Roy Lichenstein is more relevant and inspirational then ever.

Thank you Eric.

I’ve always been a bit of a social media hound. You’ve heard me call myself an early adopter. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter.. you know the deal. If you are trying to do something positive for your business, or your craft, you have to be social. I was on Facebook so early, i was literally Facebooked out. Long before Fan Pages, and Groups and Like buttons. Nowadays, there are so many options for using Social Media sites to promote us as content providers. We actually have to use them, to tap in so to speak, in order to get the benefit of the exposure to our work and our brand it creates.

I’ve spent much time on this. With the release of my new website i had only a loose strategy as to how i was going to get traffic to my new site, and how i could get the word to spread about individual images, or series of images. i knew i wanted to use Sociables, a widget at the bottom of my posts that allow viewers to share to their favourite social media sites. I also knew that it was important to finally start a Fan Page and to use that part of Facebook for promotion. I have been a huge supporter of Twitter since 2008 and it has also fit in perfectly with how i use RSS feeds to automatically Tweet and post to my Facebook personal page and my Fan Page.

Flickr plays well with these other social sites especially us photographers. Some use Flickr as a dumping ground for all their work not good enough to make it to their website. My advice, get a pro account and make those galleries private. Show only your best, in every situation. I use Flickr to showcase certain portfolio images as well as share images i create with my iPhone 4.

RSS Feeds. Once you go Wordpress you don’t go back. RSS has been one of the most important aspects of my new website. It’s how i manage subscribers and feed content into my Social Media sites. Email and RSS go together beautifully and with the release of the iPad, there are some nice readers to handle all your RSS feeds and they are displayed in an organic easy to digest way. Digesting content without actually visiting sites is something many have been adopting. Here is mine. Carty’s website feed

The hardest thing about this has been digesting the creation of a workflow for image or series of images in the social media. You do an amazing session. It needs to go into your portfolio. It needs to get onto your website. Facebook? Twitter? Probably. So what’s the workflow? Everyone’s level of work and seriousness is different so I had to figure out what mine would actually be.

This part for the photographers. Retouched images gets saved as high resolution TIFF’s in a folder called Portfolio Images. These images are usually about 11×17 x 300dpi. i create an action to resize these images to 72dpi 11×17 and save them as PSD’s (very important) in a folder called Portfolio PSDS and then continue the action to make them web width and save for web at 80% and save them in a third folder called Portfolio JPGS. PSD’s can be resized and resaved without loosing any quality. JPG’s loose quality on every resave. I call it Jpegging a Jpeg. Eventually if you do this enough times, you will have nothing but noise.

So back to the Social Media flow. All things start with your website. That’s the place that you want all the traffic to end up. I put my new work up here first.

1. WEBSITE.
After my web updates are done, i need not worry about posting the link to Facebook or Twitter. I use Feedburner to create my RSS feed and with the RSS application in Facebook and Hootsuite’s RSS option, both automatically post or tweet my latest web update links or blog posts. I keep my Auto Tweeting to a minimum, but you would be suprised how much it helps when there is so much social media to update after posting a single photo story.

2. FACEBOOK GALLERIES.
After i’ve posted to my website it’s time to put selected images into my Facebook galleries. I update work to my Fan Page and my personal page. Not everything, just some goodies. I also post mobile images shot with my iphone 4, to Facebook for iPhone. These show up in Mobile uploads of course and on my wall.

3. TWITTER
A few hours after my auto tweets leave the feed, i will sometimes post a twitpic to my twitter feed from the story and post the link and ask people to check it out if they’ve missed the earlier post. We often forget about time zones and that social media is global and always on. Give some love to your fans in Australia.

4. FLICKR
Much like Facebook, i select images to post to my Flickr account, I have quite a few followers on Flickr and for us photographers it’s an important update. I also use it as a place to post images i shoot with my iPhone 4. There are all kinds of photo sharing sites, SmugMug, Picassa and more, find one you like and stick with it. I find it hard to maintain more than one.

5. BLOGS. I submit certain sets of images or stories to a list of my favourite blogs, usually they get re-posted and drive traffic back to my website.

Most importantly, send personal emails to those that enjoy your work and would appreciate your updates. remind them that they can subscribe to your RSS feed and receive your updates via email or RSS reader.

Social Media plays a big part in the role of a photographer trying to push their work to the masses. It takes discipline to stick to a social media workflow for every single thing you update. If you are looking for eyes and new fans, every little bit helps!

Here is a list of my sociables. Please subscribe where you can.

RSS feed
Twitter
Facebook Fan Page
Flickr
YouTube
Linkedin
Digg
Stumbleupon
Delicious

and please follow our Hermann & Audrey Blog. It’s a family affair.

(If you have taken the time to read this article, take another moment to share it your favourite way. It’s always appreciated.)

BIG CONGRATS to Carty for his recent feature segment on ET Canada.

Fashion and celebrity photographer Carty, represented by Hermann & Audrey spoke about his career including highlight sessions with Sandra Oh, Kanye, Pharrell and Kardinal Offishall. ET Canada joined Carty’s shoot for a Studio 54 inspired Rethink Breast Cancer campaign in conjunction with promotion for their annual fundraiser the Boobyball. The event will be held on October 16th and tickets go on sale on August 31st. Carty was one of five photographers who contributed their creative prowess to creating a collaborative fashion photo exhibit for the event. The photoshoot also attracted the amazing creative talents of Hermann & Audrey producers, Judy Inc, Lotus Leaf Style, Sutherland Models, Marben restaurant and designer labels such as Andy the Anh, Harry Rosen, Jules Power and Jenny Bird.

“It was a pleasure having ET Canada on set for the studio 54 inspired shoot in support of rethink breast cancer. We had over 50 volunteers donating their time and talent to raise awareness for breast cancer, I was happy to be a part of it and it was great having ET Canada here during this particular shoot.”

watch Carty’s ET Canada spot here:

Other amazing photographers who contributed to the boobyball photoshoot include Javier Lovera, Caitlin Cronenburg, Babar Khan and Jalani Morgan. Also, it would not have been possible without the support of Rethink Breast Cancer and the over 30 volunteer extras.

I recently shot Nicole from Next Models Canada with an amazing crew. Nadia Pizzimenti styled the fall fashion and Tami El Sombati did an amazing job on makeup and hair. Nicole is great fun and i knew i had to shoot her after seeing her in person during my casting for Separated. I submitted this fashion story of Nicole to over 50 magazines, so we will see if it gets picked up. Either way, it’s an great addition to my book.

People often ask me how i choose my locations. The answer is pretty simple, i look for locations daily during my travels around the city. i make mental notes of spots i’d like to come back to. Sometimes i shoot images of special spots, mark them on my iPhone’s GPS and use them to show my stylists and clients. For larger productions, i do a location scout, shoot images and put a package together of different places and send them to the client. They choose the spot they like the best and that becomes the location for the editorial.

I like to keep my locations secret or i try to shoot certain known locations in a way that i haven’t seen before. Here is a short Behind the Scenes of Under the Bridge. See the full Spread at SteveCarty.com

“i was hired to shoot the legendary novelist, margaret atwood for third way magazine in london england. this was shot at her home in toronto. we were treated with an amazing story about the past owners of her place, ‘mr and mrs christie biscuit’, and an interesting anecdote about a person who’s head was inhabited not with multiple personalities but with an ‘alien’ that lived permanently inside. ms. atwood was elegant, warm and a pleasure to shoot with.”

the magazine will be published at the end of august with margaret on the cover.

This was shot at the Doug Coupland designed ‘The Terry Fox Miracle Mile’ in the heart of downtown Toronto. I recently moved into the nearby condos and often I would spend time in my mornings before I go to my studio relaxing on the red canoe. I knew instantly I had to shoot a story at this canoe, the juxtaposition of a canoe in the middle of a downtown condo complex completely intrigued me.

Story Name: La Canot Rouge
Stylist: Claudia Da Ponte
Make Up Artist: Carmelle Da Roza
Model: Alexis (Sutherland Models)

From the desk of Steve Carty
Where do ideas live before they are revealed to us?

There is so much research into how the brain works, yet it still mystifies. What interests me most about our brains is the source of creativity. I question whether creativity actually lies within us. I believe that creativity lives easily, without us, we just have the ability to use it, to tap into it. I had a chance to shoot, and converse with Abbey Lincoln, a jazz legend about this. Her take was that creativity is a stream of consciousness that lies just above us, and the lucky ones can tap into it and harness it.

That talk goes back 14 years now and since the moment I heard those words from her, much about creativity and ideas made a bit more sense to me. All these amazing talents the world has seen. Singers and musicians and artists, as well as those in the sciences. The truest talents seem to be god given, although it’s also easy to believe that these people can just tap into the stream.

Some can write, sing, play and instrument or create works of art. My gift is, I can see. This is how I tap into that stream of creativity. Delivery via photography and motion is the most natural way for me to save those things and deliver them back. I’ve always called myself a mirror, nowadays, I’m a content provider.

So what about Ideas? Where do they live? For me it’s really simple. The idea is like a voice that is heard inside our heads that we must answer. An external inspiration heard internally. Ideas live in that same stream, side by side with creativity, waiting to be tapped into. Anyone can tap into this stream. Although it seems once one claims ownership to creativity, that creativity seems to elude them.

Are you tapping in?

back in january, the talented jason o’brien came to the studio and worked with jalani morgan for a series of portraits to coincide with the launch of his new web presence and 4th consecutive year showing at the ROM for caribana.

recently, jason collaborated with the h&a group to develop his new website and blog experience to showcase his artwork. jason’s web presence allows the audience to have access to his work for an up close experience.

we adore this site, see for yourself here

alongside with the launch of his website, jason is also promoting the introduction of DUO with a familiar face, kwame delfish. DUO is the alter-ego brand of the two artists for their collaborative art. “the goal is to invite audiences to see art as more than just canvases on walls. art has no boundaries, therefore an artistic experience is equally limitless,” commented kwame & jason. to learn more or visit their newly designed blog by hermann & audrey at www.duo2.ca.

for the 4th year in a row, the collab of o’brien and delfish will be participating in the annual scotiabank caribana art exhibition at the royal ontario museum. this year’s event, entitled “from the soul”, runs until friday august 13th. we hope you can come out and support them along with the other talented African-Canadian artists.

below the original post from jason o’brien’s portrait session with jalani morgan:

artist jason o’Brien was in the studio for a series of portraits with his impressive repertoire of work. working with jalani, jason was able to begin telling the story in photographs about who he is as an artist and a deeper narrative of his process and connection to his pieces.

the bold themes, rich textures, vibrant color and deep shade of each piece help create the drama used to hint at his own perspectives on the highly emotional issues the work is based on.

“my art is an extension of me. with it i transcend thought into action onto canvas and with each brush stroke i am inspired” – jason o’brien

jason graciously lent us ‘black cotton’ and it looks mighty fine on our wall.
http://jasonobriencollection.com/ is his current site where you can view and even purchase his pieces (if at all possible, choose-not black cotton, we do love having it).

the final images from this shoot will be incorporated into o’brien’s incredible new web experience being developed by H&A, www.jasonobriengallery.com

see the final images now, visit www.jalanimorgan.com

behind the scenes shot by Cory VanderPloeg (www.coryvanderploeg.com)

Check out the quick peek into the technology:

Contact 2010 — Javier Lovera & Simon Rojas — Interactive Installaltion from Hermann Audrey on Vimeo.