Pixiq

Professional photographer Loreen Liberty has been taking photographs since her early teens, and in the professional industry for the past nine year. After many successful years as a wedding and portrait photographer, Loreen decided to turn her attentions to teaching photography full time. “It gives me more time to practice my craft and be artistic for myself.” View more tips, tricks, and photography related articles by Loreen at www.LiteWriting.com and follow Loreen on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Loreen72.

Workflow is a hot topic for photographers.  We only have so much time in a day and we’d prefer to spend all available time taking photographs and being creative.   Unfortunately, there are other things a photographer must do and well-managed workflows ensure we can spend the majority of our time behind our cameras.

In addition to our digital darkroom workflows, there is what I call the “Output and Delivery” workflow.  This is the stage after all edits have been completed, and you are ready to share your photographs with the world.  The components of this workflow are:

• Photo Management
• Sharing
• Cultivate & Clarify
• Presentation & Branding
• SEO

Take a look at each of the sites I was using and compare how I used them:

My photo management was (and is) under control.   As are the tools I use to cultivate and clarify my vision.  However, there are way too many tools being used for sharing, SEO, and presentation and branding.  I realized there was duplicate effort and excessive time involved, especially in sharing my photographs with people.

I took a hard look at the tools I was using and why.  Knowing “sharing” was a place which really needed some attention, I thought about my overall photographic point of view and the audience I was trying to reach.  I realized I was reaching out to way too many audiences.

Sharing with so many audiences was not only contributing to the amount of time I was spending on SEO work, it was also watering down my presentation and branding.

By taking a look at the components of you Output and Delivery workflow, by thinking of your overall vision as a photographer, and by considering the audience you are trying to reach, you can find places to streamline.  Invest a little time to consolidate photographs into one or two sharing outlets. Once you decrease the time you spend in your Output and Delivery workflow, you’ll find you can spend more time where you really want to be: behind the camera.