For 43 years, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center has put a spotlight on Native American students and their art.
This year is no different.
Thinking of the future: ‘Celebrating Our Pollinators’ at IPCC features work of Native students
Jacobson House Native Art Center kicks off annual holiday art market celebrating Oklahoma’s indigenous talent
On Saturday, The Jacobson House Native Art Center hosted the first of its two day holiday art market.
“Understanding the different types of arts that are promoted and just beautifully made throughout the state of Oklahoma, there’s so much that our artists can provide,” said Tracey Satepauhoodle-Mikkanen, Board Emeritus of the Oscar Jacobson Foundation.
And that’s exactly what Oscar Brousse Jacobson saw in native Oklahoma artists more than 100 years ago. Satepauhoodle-Mikkanen said the Jacobson Foundation has been holding the holiday art market for some 30 plus years in the house where it all started.
“When he built this house, he established certain protocol and classes to help the native students that he saw had a potential and taught classes out of here,” she said.
At the market, several different types of art are on sale, from paintings, to patterned fabrics, beads, jewelry and plenty more, all made by Native American artists. And Satepauhoodle-Mikkanen said the art market is off to a successful start this weekend.
“There are some people who know every year that this is coming up, so they’re very helpful and supporting our cause, so they know that there’s different artists here that are gonna be presented. And it’s Christmas time, so we’re able to help each other and buy Christmas presents from our vendors,” she said.
Presents of art that Jacobson recognized as significant many years ago, allowing the art market to flourish into what it is today.
“The art that Dr. Jacobson realized was very unique, that the Kiowa artists were able to produce was something that he saw was a very important aspect of the state of Oklahoma, the Kiowa Nation itself, and then of course the artists,” she said.
Satepauhoodle-Mikkanen said several artists signed up for this year’s market, adding that money made from the market not only helps the artists and vendors, but also helps the Jacobson House.
Jacobson House Native Art Center kicks off annual holiday art market celebrating Oklahoma’s indigenous talent
On Saturday, The Jacobson House Native Art Center hosted the first of its two day holiday art market.
“Understanding the different types of arts that are promoted and just beautifully made throughout the state of Oklahoma, there’s so much that our artists can provide,” said Tracey Satepauhoodle-Mikkanen, Board Emeritus of the Oscar Jacobson Foundation.
And that’s exactly what Oscar Brousse Jacobson saw in native Oklahoma artists more than 100 years ago. Satepauhoodle-Mikkanen said the Jacobson Foundation has been holding the holiday art market for some 30 plus years in the house where it all started.
“When he built this house, he established certain protocol and classes to help the native students that he saw had a potential and taught classes out of here,” she said.
At the market, several different types of art are on sale, from paintings, to patterned fabrics, beads, jewelry and plenty more, all made by Native American artists. And Satepauhoodle-Mikkanen said the art market is off to a successful start this weekend.
“There are some people who know every year that this is coming up, so they’re very helpful and supporting our cause, so they know that there’s different artists here that are gonna be presented. And it’s Christmas time, so we’re able to help each other and buy Christmas presents from our vendors,” she said.
Presents of art that Jacobson recognized as significant many years ago, allowing the art market to flourish into what it is today.
“The art that Dr. Jacobson realized was very unique, that the Kiowa artists were able to produce was something that he saw was a very important aspect of the state of Oklahoma, the Kiowa Nation itself, and then of course the artists,” she said.
Satepauhoodle-Mikkanen said several artists signed up for this year’s market, adding that money made from the market not only helps the artists and vendors, but also helps the Jacobson House.
Second Native Made Market brings together creators to highlight indigenous cultures
Rochester, N.Y. – Innovation Square was busy on Saturday afternoon as vendors set up for the second annual Native Made Market in downtown Rochester.
“We came because we’re from the Mohawk clan,” said Jacqueline Ryan. “So, we wanted to come and support other Native-owned businesses and shop around.”
The free event, which was hosted on Small Business Saturday, gave indigenous creators and business owners a chance to share their cultures with the community.
“I’m representing the Tuscarora nation that’s located outside of Niagara Falls,” said Heather Hill, the owner of Etsy store Lilmizzred. “So originally, we were not part of the original Haudenosaunee nations. We were actually part of the sixth nation that joined in from 300+ years ago. So in 1713 is when we migrated up here from North Carolina area, escaping from slavery and we [were] brought up here and we adopted the Haudenosaunee ways.”
“My heritage is Taino, which is what inspires a lot of my artwork and the Taino people were the Indigenous people of the Caribbean,” said Rosa Vargas, the owner of Art of Guake’te.
Visitors could buy a variety of handmade jewelry, art, stickers, dreamcatchers, and more at the market.
“A lot of my work has the Taino sun, the Taino frog,” said Vargas. “So a lot of the symbolism behind their petroglyphs, I put into my artwork.”
“A lot of this stuff was actually my father’s design from 20+ years ago when he did stickers,” said Hill. “Only a few years ago, I revamped up all of his old designs and redid them myself.”
Angelina Hilton founded the market more than a year ago as a small business restaurant owner.
MORE | Celebrating Native American Heritage month with Native Made Market
She said there is a gap in native representation in the area.
“This area is so rich with Indigenous heritage and history with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, but when you look around, the visibility was nearly zero,” said Hilton. “So, in order for us to increase the visibility, we thought that it’d be easier for us to bring in people instead of trying to push all the people out of Rochester to reservations and to the different communities.”
Artists said they were glad events like the market are providing a platform for them to preserve and amplify their history, art, and culture to diverse audiences.
“It’s a great opportunity to kind of let everyone know that we’re still here and that we have a lot to say and a lot to show,” said Vargas.
Winterfest Market supports small businesses ahead of holidays
LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Julietta Market and Art Inc. Kentucky are collaborating to have a Winterfest Market every Saturday leading up to Christmas.
Connie Bruce and her husband, John, started Spectrum Crafters eight years ago. The couple set up a table at the first Winterfest Market event on Saturday.
“This was such a good opportunity to come back out into Lexington and show our stuff and support, especially Julietta Market because we’re passionate about their mission,” said Bruce.
She and her husband have been vendors at the Julietta Market since 2020. Bruce said it has helped their business.
“It was great,” said Bruce. “It was so good to have because we are not the kind of business that could really go into like a brick-and-mortar store.”
However, the Julietta Market closed at the end of October. With the holidays around the corner, Bruce has been concerned about the impact the closure would have on her business.
“We’ve been scrambling to find pop-ups around the area and actually, we even went out to Owensboro a couple weeks ago for a show just to try to make up that loss in business,” said Bruce.
That’s why she is happy to sell items at the Winterfest Market since this time of year has always been their busiest time. The couple had several items for sale Saturday, including oven mitts, kitchen aprons and glass bottle wind chimes.
The markets will take place every Saturday until Dec. 16 and will go from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at The Met in Lexington’s East End.
Indigenous creatives use Small Business Saturday to highlight culture
According to a new survey by American Express, 55% of small business owners anticipate Small Business Saturday will make a significant contribution to their overall holiday sales this year. One group of small business owners gathered in the Rochester area as a way to also contribute to educating their community about their culture.
For small businesses and creators at the Native Made Market, Small Business Saturday has a bigger meaning.
“Saturday being small business Saturday and us being a small business, we decided to shift people’s perspective and focus on indigenous visibility where we brought in Native creatives and entrepreneurs from all different nations,” said Angelina Hilton, founder of the organization Native Made.
That includes Native creatives like Clifford Redeye III, a Seneca artist who grew up on the Allegheny territory.
“You’re telling a story and passing it on, so a lot of my art pieces are that,” said Redeye, the owner of Redeye Leather Co.
He specializes in handmade leather pieces that mix pop culture with a little bit of the Seneca culture.
“People put so much work into it,” he said. “So, a day to highlight that is, I think, so important.”
The day allows him and other indigenous creators to educate the community through their small businesses.
“Leather is a huge part of our culture, and the tooling is something that I kind of was drawn to,” he said.
“The fact that we’re on Haudenosaunee land, which is home of six different nations, what’s more local and small than the original inhabitants of this land?” Hilton said. “So helping to again, bring visibility to the cultures from around this specific area is truly important.”
The day celebrated not only small businesses, but where they come from.
“Every booth you go to you’re going to learn something about each person’s nation and a little bit about them,” Redeye said. “Even if you don’t get anything I think you come away with something.”
3 Photography Business Tips I Learned Consulting $1,000,000 Companies
As photographers, we just want to photograph. But if you want to make a living in the world of photography, you need to know how to work the business side of things as well. This often means dealing with clients, understanding marketing concepts, and learning how to create and optimize websites.
Today, I’ll be revealing three tips I learned from my time as an Enterprise SEO Consultant working with multi-million dollar companies such as Allstate and Bill.com.
In fact, these exact tips have been pivotal throughout my career as both an SEO consultant and photographer, consistently earning the trust and loyalty of clients and coworkers alike.
Let’s dive right in.
3 Photography Business Tips
Here are three tips you can apply to your own photography business:
1. Settings Expectations: The Early Delivery Advantage
Have you ever ordered something online that you really wanted, and it was expected to arrive on a certain date, but it arrived earlier by a few days? You know that surprise and joy you feel when it arrives early? That’s the early delivery advantage. It’s a concept rooted in expectation management and customer satisfaction.
You see, people act based on their expected outcomes. If you have a client that expects a certain delivery date and they receive their product or service earlier, their positive outcome is exceeded, leading to increased satisfaction, and a positive perception of you and your business.
As a consultant, we used this trick all the time. My boss once told me: “What is offered as a surprise doesn’t have to be very much. It just has to be unexpected.”
If I had a report or audit I needed to complete that I knew would only take me seven days to finish, I would tell the client it takes 14 days to complete. After seven days, I would tell the client I finished early. This surprise element enhanced client satisfaction and loyalty. I have used this exact same technique in my photography business as well.
Do you have a lot of photos you need to retouch and send to a client? Figure out how long it would take you to retouch them and tell the client it will take 3-5 days longer than it will actually take. Do you have a photo package that states you only take a certain number of photos on the shoot? Take a few more photos over the limit and tell the client they can have them free of charge. These are just a couple examples.
It’s the little positive surprises and impact of exceeding expectations that will reaffirm your client’s decision to choose your service, gain your trust, and lead to positive word of mouth referrals. Now, there are two things I wanted to note on this tactic:
- The product or service still has to deliver value and be of high quality.
- This will not work if you do it all the time. Sprinkle this tactic out throughout the lifespan of your client relationships. If you do this all the time, the client will come to expect that you deliver early all the time.
2. Craft Your One-Liners: Clarifying Your Market and Niche
The second photography business tip I learned from consulting is to craft your one-liners. And no, I’m not talking about jokes. I’m talking about one-liners in terms of how you can succinctly communicate your product and service for effective market positioning.
Working with multi-million dollar companies, they had refined and reworked their one-liners numerous times. Everything these businesses do and offer, from sales, to marketing, to accounting, to HR, revolves around that one-liner.
You might be thinking: “what’s the big deal with having a one-liner?” Listen, if you don’t know what you offer in terms of value, how can you expect potential clients to know? Crafting a one-liner will allow you to succinctly communicate what your photography business specializes in, your approach to the business, and what your clients can expect from you. The clarity will make it easier for potential clients to understand and remember what you offer, making it easier for both your marketing efforts and client communication.
How to Craft a One-Liner for Your Photography Business
I’ve found there are three steps you can follow that will help you craft your one-liner:
1. Identify Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
Marketing lingo. Gross. I know, just bear with me. The first step is to identify your Unique Value Proposition, or UVP if you want to sound like a fancy marketing exec. You start with identifying the core service or product that you offer. Think about what makes your service or product unique. It could be your approach, style, or particular benefit that sets you apart from your competition.
2. Focus on the Benefit or Outcome for Your Client
The second step is to put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients. Think about what they would be looking for or what problem they need to be solved. Why would they be coming to you to solve that problem? Figure out what that is and highlight the positive outcome or benefit your clients would experience from using your service or product.
3. Combine These Elements Into a Concise, Memorable Sentence
The third step is to combine these elements and make your one-liner.
A formula I like to follow is: What You Do + Unique Aspect + Client Benefit
For example:
[Photography Service] + [Unique Approach] + [Emotional Benefit/Outcome for Client]
Here are a couple examples in real-life:
For a Family Portrait Studio:
- What You Do: “Family Portrait Photography”
- Unique Aspect: “using natural light to create warm, candid moments”
- Client Benefit: “capturing your family’s love and bond in every photo”
- One-Liner: “Capturing Your Family’s Warmth in Candid Moments with Natural Light Photography”
Here’s my one-liner as a photographer focusing primarily on providing SEO and marketing tips:
- What I Do: “Provide SEO education and services for photographers”
- Unique Aspect: “Full-time experience as Enterprise SEO Consultant”
- Client Benefit: “Grow business and brand through SEO”
- One-Liner: “Providing Enterprise-Level SEO Expertise to Accelerate Photography Business & Brand Growth.”
Try using this formula to craft a one-liner for yourself. Start with the service or product you offer, then try to think of a unique benefit you have over your competition. If you can’t think of a unique benefit, use these points to help you brainstorm:
- Specialized Industry Knowledge
- Professional Background
- Personal Approach
- Innovative Techniques
- Comprehensive Services
- Educational Component
3. Discoverability: The Power of a Website
The third photography business tip I learned from consulting is the importance of discoverability and the power of your website. Throughout my career as an SEO consultant, I’ve always had a mantra I told my clients: “You can have the best product or service in the world, but if no one can find it, is it really the best?” This quote revolves around the power and importance of discoverability in our digital-first world.
So how do you become discoverable? Well there are many ways, such as through social media, paid ads, speaking events, referrals, radio, TV, billboards, existing platforms like Reddit, Quora, and Pinterest, and through search engine optimization.
I’ve always been a strong believer that as photographers, our website is our home base and foundation within the digital world. Our website allows us to create a photography portfolio, list our pricing, create a personal brand, list our contact info, display our products and services, and allow us to create thought leadership content.
While you can make a living as a photographer on social media or through other platforms, you have to remember that your profiles on these platforms are owned by another company. At any moment, they can decide to shadowban you, change their algorithms, or remove you. And all that hard work you built on that platform is gone. With a website, however, it is yours. Your little home on the internet.
Now, the strongest way to drive traffic to your website, is through search engine optimization (SEO). In fact, around 70% of online experiences begin with a search engine. While new platforms have come and gone, search engines like Google and Bing have stood strong. It’s why multi-million dollar companies are willing to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars each month to up their SEO game.
I could spend hours talking about what SEO is and the different strategies, but I’ll save that for later posts on Fstoppers. For now, you need to know that SEO revolves around ranking for certain keywords and optimizing your photography website to have the best possible chance of ranking for those keywords.
Why should you care about keywords as a photographer? Let’s do a little math exercise. Let’s say you are a portrait photographer in Manhattan and you rank #1 on Google for “portrait photographer in Manhattan.” To keep it simple, let’s say that keyword has a monthly search volume of 100 searches a month. You need to know that the first ranking spot on Google receives about roughly 30% of all the clicks.
Doing the math, that would mean about 30 people are finding your page every month organically (for free). This means that by effectively optimizing and ranking for that specific keyword, you could potentially secure bookings from these 30 people for your photography services every month. And the best part is that traffic would be only from one page. Imagine you had multiple pages targeting multiple different “money” keywords.
There is a lot of mystery and confusion around SEO for photographers that we hope to demystify and clarify. For right now, just know that if you have a photography website, you need to be prioritizing SEO, or else your competition will. If you have a specific question you need answered or have any questions, feel free to write us at Fstoppers or send me an email.
Final Thoughts
Those are my three photography business tips I learned from consulting $1,000,000 companies. I hope you took something valuable away from this guide. If you have any questions or comments regarding any of the tips, drop a comment down below! Or, if there is a certain tip you’ll be using in your own photography business, let us know in the comments!
North Battleford man wins top prize in provincial photography contest
In addition to winning the contest, the photo will be used to highlight Saskatchewan online and in Tourism advertisements. The photo also took home top prize in the ‘Prairie’ category of the contest while another one of his photos received an honourable mention.
Katerynych said with his first place finish, he wasn’t the only one to win in the contest.
“As much as it is a win for me, it’s also a win for the community as well,” he said. “It shows the underappreciated beauty of the area I live in, like with the North Saskatchewan River running by and all the wildlife, it’s a great place to be.”
He added that winning the contest came as a surprise.
“I was standing in line at [the store] and I was scrolling through my emails and I went into my junk folder,” he explained. “There were two in there and at the time and I didn’t notice the second one at first. I opened the first one which was one for an honourable mention then it my turn at the till. I went back to the second one and opened it and realized it was for the Grand Prize so it was really quite a shock.”
The winning entries and honourable mentions were selected by an external panel of judges. The aim was to capture the province’s natural beauty and dynamic spirit.
Each of the photos shows extraordinary landscapes, winter scenery, diverse experiences, magnificent wildlife and the unique character of Saskatchewan people.
The competition opened in June and received over 4,200 entries by the mid-September deadline.
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loganc.lehmann@pattisonmedia.com
The Nasher Sculpture Center presents Michelle Stuart: Voyager
Director Karen Bellone and cinematographer Jim Hershleder will present a special cut of the forthcoming feature-length documentary, Michelle Stuart: Voyager. Reflecting the artist’s longstanding interests in nature, perception, memory, and our place in the cosmos, the film weaves a path through Stuart’s life and art.
The Elk’s Eye Art Market gives a homey feeling to small businesses – WHIZ – Fox 5 / Marquee Broadcasting
ZANESVILLE, OH- In honor of Small Business Saturday, we take an inside look at The Elk’s Eye Art Market, an art retail space, here in Zanesville, Ohio.
The Elk’s Eye Art Market opened in July of this year and is ran by Carol Bridwell alongside her two daughters, Stephanie and Alicia. The buisness is inside of a building with a lot of historic signifigance in the area. The Elk’s Eye Art Market was a team effort, with the whole family coming together to repair the building for use.
“Elk’s Eye Endeavors was formed to provide opportunities, specifically for artists to get their work out where it can be seen by an audience all the time, instead of just occasionally at shows and that sort of thing, many of the artists that we have here did shows and it’s too sporadic, it’s not a very good way to sell your art, and you may find a customer who loves your work but they aren’t going to come find you at your home, or your workshop, so we were looking for a space to provide that, to provide it in downtown Zanesville,” says Carol Bridwell.
There are currently over 20 different local artists featured with their unique works for sale in the space. They also hold fun events throughout the year and invite the whole community to come and enjoy the atmosphere.
“The local businesses, they are our community, they are us, we need to support each other to make our community stronger, to make our businesses more successful and it’s unique, you go to a chain store, or whatever, whether it’s a restaurant or whether it’s a retail store, it’s just the same all over the country, here, this is our personality,” says Bridwell.
To find out more about The Elk’s Eye Art Market, or the history of the building their located in, you can visit them at 22 South 4th Street, or on their Facebook and Instagram pages at Elk’s Eye Endeavors.
