I wouldn’t have been worth much as a photographer in the early ages of portraiture.

I can’t pose a subject for more than a few minutes before my ADD kicks in and I have to start playing, especially if there are kids involved.

I had the pleasure to shoot with Chaz and Lindsey and their sweet kiddos during pumpkin patch time out in Medina. Once we had shot the basics, it was kissy face time.

If it’s time you adorned your Facebook in professional kissy face photos with your loved ones, just e-mail me at James@banderaoutlaw.com or call or text me at 830-688-1564.

I knew levity would be a big part of my shoot with the Chastain family. Jim and Debbie have a great sense of humor, as do their kids – they were willing sports for all my over-caffeinated ideas as we shot with their antique auto.

When Jim pulled in in this beautiful ride with a loud “oooogah” honk from the horn, I knew we were going to have a great shoot.

The fall colors are finally coming down here in Bandera County, as evidenced by the yellow and gold leaves of the cypress trees lining the Bandera City Park along the Medina River.

With the drought here in Texas and the odd temperatures going into fall, I was wondering how much color we would see this autumn, but the park has produced some beautiful foliage, if only for a short time.

Here are a few highlights from my shoot with the Chastain family:

It’s taken no time at all for the lovely Miss Shelli to break into the modeling world after finally deciding to grace us Texas photographers with her beauty and style.

Shelli has an artist’s spirit, which gives her a wonderful flow in front of the camera. There are plenty of pretty faces in the world, but I’m particularly fond of shooting with fellow artists – they immediately understand vision, concept, emotion, the affect of a pose on how the viewer will ‘feel’ and interpret the image.

We shot all over together, from Ranger’s Crossing to a subdivision entrance to some heavy equipment TxDOT so kindly left on the side of the highway for us to use.

Here are some of the highlights from our shoot together:

If there is any end to Bandera High School senior Hope’s talents, I couldn’t find them.

The girl can jump like a cat, kick like a mule, dive like a swan, flip like a frog, swing like Tarzan, cook like Bobby Flay, pose like a supermodel, and light up a room like a 200 watt bulb.

With such a multi-talented subject, I had to stretch my imagination just to come up with new challenges to put her through to make for some awesome, unique senior photos.

She rocked it, from the first shot to the last, and was a blast to work with besides.

Remember Bandera, Medina and Utopia ISD mates, it’s never too late to get some great senior photos done, for graduation invitations or for the wall – both your parents’ and your Facebook’s. E-mail me, Facebook me, tweet me, or call/text me at 830-688-1564 to set up your senior photo shoot!

Below, enjoy some of my favorite highlights from our senior shoot together.

This girl is fearless.

Okay, so she has a thing about heights, and her mom and I did kind of force her to stand on the edge of a cliff for some of her senior photos last week…but only for a moment! And her daddy was nearby to…well…watch her fall off if the wind caught her.

If one thing has been consistent in my experience as a high school senior photographer over the last 11 years here in Bandera County, it’s that every shoot is a wholly new, unique, fun adventure.

Molly is a riot, a young woman unafraid of having fun and going the extra mile in style and smiles to make the best photos possible. We did a split shoot, half studio and half location, and she rocked both to the fullest. Her joyous personality is evident in every image.

As T.I. sings, “You can have whatever you like.” If you have a vision or ideas for your senior photo shoot, I will move heaven and earth to help make them a reality. If you have no idea what you want, we’ll talk it out, come up with some fun ideas, and let the spirit of adventure carry us. Molly’s mom was an incredible help throughout our shoot, with great visual ideas and the eye for details that only a mom has.

E-mail me, Facebook me, tweet me, or call/text me at 830-688-1564 to set up your senior photo shoot – it’s never too late to make great photos and lifelong memories!

Below, enjoy some of my favorite highlights from my shoot with the lovely Miss Molly.

Good morning, mates!

Bandera High School graduation 2011 is only a few weeks away, so here’s some updated info regarding the photos Outlaw will be doing at the ceremony:

Q: What photos will I get with my order?

A: On your order form, photos listed as “Individual” are images of the graduate receiving their diploma as they cross the stage. The standard group photo in the package is the full class photo, but in the a la carte area, you can also purchase K-12 and Honor Grads group photos.

Q: Do I have to buy a package to buy a la carte images?

A: Yes – your shipping fee is wrapped into the package price and to keep the price on a la carte images down, there is no shipping fee built into their cost.

Q: Can I bring you my order instead of mailing it?

A: Not this year – because of school rules, I’m unable to accept orders at UTSA or via the Bandera ISD senior class sponsor. To place your order, simply mail it in via the address on the form.

Q: Can I mail in my order after graduation?

A: Yes, we accept graduation order forms for at least a month after graduation. The only way you pay more is if you wait and buy your images from the Bandera.net galleries individually.

Q: What if I’ve lost my order form?

A: Got’cha covered – just right-click here and ‘Save As…’ to download the Microsoft Word document. Print, fill out, mail in, and we’ll set you up!

Q: Do you photograph every graduate, regardless of whether or not they have submitted an order?

A: Yes, we photograph everyone. You can view photos from the ceremony online at Bandera.net afterward.

Q: What do I do if I have multiple graduates?

A: You can use a single form and just make additional notes as necessary, or make a copy of your form and submit two orders – the prices are all the same.

Q: Do you do senior photo shoots?

A: Indeed I do! It’s never too late to set up your senior’s photo shoot before they disappear off to college. Contact me via the methods below and we’ll get you on the books!

Q: Do you handle the advertising for the graduation special section for the Bulletin?

A: I do not – you can e-mail JT at JT@banderabulletin.com or call him at 830-796-3718 for information.

Q: What if I have more questions?

A: You can comment on this blog post, Facebook me, e-mail me at James@outlawphotography.net, or call/text me at 830-688-1564. Thank you so much for supporting The Outlaw!

Megan is a delightful, artistic, academic superhero, and no less a senior at Bandera High School. She and I had a great time touring Bandera from the City Park up through the old Cabaret Dance Hall last week and made some fun photos along the way.

Senior photos are about way more than just looking pretty for the camera. You want the location, the attitude, the style to be memorable and important to you as a Bandera, Medina, or Utopia high school senior. You want photos that capture your personality, your interests, and your hometown. The memories made through photography are about more than just what you look like your senior year, they’re about who you are.

We have plenty of time before graduation to get your senior photo shoot in for 2011. Just e-mail me, hit me up on Facebook, or call/text me at 830-688-1564 to get set up.

Enjoy below some of my favorite highlights from Megan’s senior photo shoot!

Callie can’t stop smiling.

Sometimes as a photographer, pulling teeth is easier than getting a great, natural smile out of your subject. Medina High School senior, athlete and rodeo cowgirl Callie had the exact opposite problem during our photo shoot last week – she couldn’t stop smiling.

It’s a good problem to have, mates.

Needless to say, shooting with Callie on her family property in Medina was a real pleasure. Her mom helped set up some gorgeous outfits, and we worked every opportunity for fun photos – horses, fencelines, bridges, water features, green grass, wavy grass, hilltops and hillsides, barns, and one mean-looking John Deere tractor. Callie was a supermodel throughout.

My April calendar is booked to the hilt with senior photos, but it’s not too late to set up a shoot in May and still get files and/or prints back for High School graduation invitations – for Bandera, Medina, or Utopia.

If we shoot in the evening, I can turnaround a proof album online for you within a few hours, and have your order at the lab the next day. Our professional lab, Miller’s Imaging out of Kansas, usually takes one business day to print, one to ship, one to deliver – so in as little as three business days from your shoot, you can have prints in hand ready to mail out to friends and family.

You can also purchase our digital files, hi-res and fully processed in Photoshop, on CD and make your own prints at home or at the lab of your choice – fastest turnaround you can get.

It’s never too late, mates! Drop me an e-mail, grab me on Facebook, tweet me on Twitter, or call/text to 830-688-1564 to get your shoot booked. As always, we have no session fee, no minimum order, you just buy what you love.

Below, enjoy a selection of some of my favorite highlights from my shoot with Miss Callie.

Forgive me if I gush.

My daughter Athena Corinna was born Nov. 1 – it’s been a wonderful week of welcoming her into mine and Jacklen’s lives.

Thanks to the wonderful folks at St. David’s Hospital, besides delivering all three of my children, I was also able to photograph their births. Below, I’m happy to share my daughter’s birth story, in photos, with you guys.

Thank you to friends and family for all the prayers and well wishes – they are always appreciated.

If you’ve ever considered taking photos yourself, or having a professional photographer document your child’s birth, I obviously can highly recommend it. It’s a beautiful way to share the story with friends, family, and generations to come. Photos only grow in value with time – those baby photos today may cost you $20 an 8×10, but what will that image, that memory, be worth when your baby turns 18 and moves off to college? What about when they’re welcoming their own babies into the world, or their babies’ babies? Can’t be measured.

Thank you for sharing this wonderful experience with my family.

Bruce Robison at The Broken Spoke

First of all, thank you to all the musicians who attended the More Gigs for More Money workshop at the Silver Sage Corral tonight! Lanette Pennell put together a great educational event, and I hope she’ll make it an annual get together.

Here are my expanded notes and comments on how social media like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter can help you make more money as a musician.

If there’s any way I can help through my photography services or helping you get set up with online marketing, please don’t hesitate to call me at 830-688-1564 or e-mail James@outlawphotography.net.

Thank you again!

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA?

Sick Puppies at The White Rabbit

Almost all of my new photography clients who don’t come via word of mouth find and contact me through social media. Specifically, Facebook.

Social media is very geared toward multimedia content like photography, music, and videos. So for a photographer or a musician, it’s fertile ground for growing a loyal fan base.

If you have a good product, if you make good music, if you engage and entertain your fans, nothing will spread your name faster than social media. Facebook for example is purpose-built for users to share stuff they like with their friends – music, videos, news, articles, photos, etc.

Some folks think only teenagers and geeks use social media – very untrue. The largest group is 18-24 year olds – second largest is 25-34 year olds. The fastest growing segment? Ages 55+. The second fastest growing segment? Ages 35-54. So look out at the faces in the audience of your next concert, and see how many people you could be reaching with your music online. At least one in three is very likely to be an active, daily user of Facebook alone.

And don’t think social media users are limited to the big cities. In Bandera County, The Bandera Live Music Facebook page has 598 fans; the Bandera Music Hall of Fame has 340 fans; Brick’s River Cafe has 362 fans; Gunslinger of Bandera has over 2,400 fans! John Arthur Martinez, a prolific Texas touring artist, has over 1,600 fans and is an active user of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube.

Over 90 million Americans use Facebook. On average those users spend around five hours per month on the site. Your goal with using social media is to make your music a memorable part of their time online.

SOCIAL PROOF

Lee Ann Womack

“What are you going to do for me, the venue owner? Are you going to bring a lot of people in? Are they going to dance and drink?”

Independent musicians are facing similar changes as the book publishing industry. Now, authors are expected to have an established fan base – via a Facebook fan page, an e-mail newsletter list, etc. – and a guarantee of how popular they’re going to be long before they get a book deal. You have to market yourself and show that you’re able to build and maintain a loyal fan base who will spend money to see you perform live.

If you tell a venue owner “I’d like to play on your stage, and I’ll be bringing 5,000 friends with me,” you’re going to get their attention – quick.

It’s called social proof – like when you pull into a town and you see one restaurant has an almost full parking lot and the other has no cars in the lot – which one are you going to assume has the better food?

Same with musicians – when a venue owner or party planner is looking at the MySpace and Facebook pages of potential bands, they want to see an active, engaged fan base.

What’s even better? When your fans are re-posting your songs, videos, and upcoming shows, and venue owners see that your fans are your biggest promoters. I know when a friend recommends a CD to me, I’m much more likely to check it out than if I see a commercial advertising that CD. I’m more likely to listen to the endorsement from someone I trust.

YOUTUBE

Steve Holy at 11th Street Cowboy Bar

Online streaming video is the biggest entertainment draw for internet users. I love watching music videos on YouTube, especially by up-and-coming artists, and if I like them, odds are very, very good I’ll buy their music when it comes out on iTunes.

There so many ways to draw fans in using streaming video: behind the scenes in the recording studio, backstage videos, concert footage, special acoustic performances, on-the-road travel diaries, etc.

Here are just a few musicians who got their start on YouTube:

Justin Bieber (that little brat)
- Started on YouTube, got 55 million views singing Aretha Franklin’s RESPECT, and is now a regular Twitter user, interacting with his fans there. His “Baby” music video has been viewed nearly 300 million times.

Lady Gaga
- Broke out on YouTube and MySpace – her manager, Troy Carter, said in May that they no longer create music videos for MTV, they “create music videos for YouTube.”
- Carter: “It’s about discovery. Fans have been watching musicians now for years on YouTube before they become famous.”
- Last night, Monday, Aug. 23, Lady Gaga became the queen of Twitter, beating out Britney Spears. She now has 5,777,492 followers.
- On Facebook? 16,456,600 fans. Her Facebook posts garner between 23,000 and 75,000 “Like” clicks and comments. That’s tens of thousands of fans waiting to interact with every single note she posts online, and millions more who are exposed to her messages.

Greyson Michael Chance
- Momma posted a video of him performing a Lady Gaga song at a school concert. He was immediately booked to the Ellen DeGeneres show, and now is on her recording label.

Jay Brannan
- A skinny white gay guy from Texas who moved to New York and sang sad, beautiful songs on YouTube. He now has two CDs out and is in the middle of his first world tour. Recently eclipsed Tracy Chapman as the most popular singer/songwriter on iTunes.

These are just a few of the big-time examples. While having a million fans and doing world tours may be the ultimate goal, there are many, many profitable milestones along the way – your first 100 fans, your first YouTube video to get over 10,000 views, your 1,000th e-mail newsletter subscriber, your first major gig booked through Facebook, your first live radio performance, etc.

NETWORKING

Boys Like Girls

You don’t have to only talk about your own music on your Facebook or Twitter profile. Share links to music and videos of other local musicians you like. Odds are, if you like them, your fans will too, and soon those other musicians will link their fans over to your music as well.

Any marketing that benefits one local musician benefits all local musicians. You’re not so much competing with each other for fans as you are competing for people’s attention at all. The radio programs people to only listen to the most mass-produced popular music in the country. Your challenge is to break through that programming and show people how much fun local artists and their concerts can be.

Again, the first challenge is to get folks to stop and listen at all. Then you use your music and the experience you give your fans to hook’em and get them on your e-mail list or Facebook page.

THE VELVET ROPE

Billy Joe Shaver at the Bandera Saloon

Treat your fans like they’re in a members-only club. Post special acoustic recordings of your songs for your Facebook friends to listen to. E-mail your newsletter list a secret link to a YouTube video that takes them behind the scenes in the recording studio, or backstage at one of your concerts, or on-the-road video diaries where band members get to talk about where they’ve been and where they’re headed.

Make your fans feel like they’re on the right side of the velvet rope – give them exclusive goodies that others don’t get to see – at least not first, not right away. Show them the VIP treatment.

Encourage fans to post their photos and videos of your concerts to your Facebook wall.

Do giveaways of CDs or Swag, even if it’s just random giveaways to folks on your Facebook page or your e-mail newsletter list.

Crossover – at your shows, give away X number of CDs to the first folks who sign up for your e-mail newsletter list. Do a contest where everyone who signs up will get a chance to win a T-shirt or other swag throughout your show. Make it fun.

Personal attention is the new little black dress of marketing. Thanks to social media like Twitter, fans have more access than ever before to their favorite musicians, actors, companies, even individual products like that damn Snuggie. They love to feel like they’re interacting with a star.

You may not feel like much of a star sometimes, but in your fans’ world, you’re a star in their eyes. Giving them personal attention only solidifies their loyalty.

You can do this through simple Facebook posts, wishing folks a happy birthday or congratulating them on a new baby in the family, but what if you took it up a notch? Have fun with your fans. Pick a random fan from your list and write a song about them, recording it on the spot to video, and post it. Put away the polish and let fans feel like they’re getting to interact with the real you.

ACCESS

Cinder Road

This also works in reverse – while your fans may want your attention, you want both their attention and the attention of venue owners / booking agents.

I know in Bandera alone the guys who book 11th Street Cowboy Bar, the Longhorn Saloon, and the Bandera Saloon are all on Facebook. Brian Black from the Longhorn Saloon is also on LinkedIn.

Going up the ladder – MySpace to Facebook, Facebook to LinkedIn, LinkedIn to Twitter – there are fewer and fewer users, but those who do use the more exclusive social networks are also the most influential among their peer groups. A thousand musicians might try to connect with Brian Black on MySpace, but only a handful may be savvy enough to reach him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

It’s a lot easier to get their attention when you’re playing in their back yard.

This goes for media folks as well. Journalists are some of the most prolific users of Twitter, and whereas you may never have access to a big city editor or TV producer by walking in their door or calling on the phone, on Twitter, you can read their posts, respond to them, and build a rapport directly. This buys you enough familiarity to pitch an idea for a feature.

Social media can give you access to newspaper writers, radio hosts, DJs, party planners, television producers, booking agents and a lot of the other influential people who are in a position to help expose your music to a wider audience.

The goal of your marketing should always be to differentiate – to show folks why they should spend their time and money to listen to your CDs and to go out and see your concerts.

There are so many great ways to do this, as we learned about tonight at the workshop – logo and web site design, branding, wardrobe, press kits, press releases, group and association memberships, networking, videography, photography, studio recordings, and social media.

If you add any one or two of these to your marketing mix, you’ll see marked improvements. If you add them all, you’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

Again, if there is any way I can help, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

James Taylor
The Outlaw Photographer
OutlawPhotography.net
830-688-1564

RESOURCES

God Forbid at The Back Yard

- Social Music: 5 Essential Tools for Marketing Your Band: http://mashable.com/2009/02/19/musician-marketing-tools/
- Celebrities Who Got Their Start on YouTube: http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Entertainment/Celebrities/10-YouTube-Success-Stories.html
- Lady Gaga’s Manager: We Make Music Videos For YouTube: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/26/lady-gagas-manager-we-make-music-videos-for-youtube/
- Lady Gaga Topples Britney As Queen Of Twitter: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/24/gaga-queen-twitter/
- Social Media Demographics: http://www.imakenews.com/cppa/e_article001800121.cfm
- Time Spent on Social Networks up 82% Around the World: http://www.briansolis.com/2010/02/time-spent-on-social-networks-up-82-around-the-wrold/
- YouTube sets its sights on independent musicians: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/17/business/la-fi-ct-youtube17-2010mar17
- 10 tips for bands using social media: http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/10-tips-bands-social-media/
- 5 Twitter tips for Bands & Musicians: http://scottmeis.com/2009/04/01/5-twitter-tips-for-bands-musicians/
- Using YouTube to Promote Your New Album: http://www.musicmarketing.com/2009/07/using-youtube-to-promote-your-new-album.html
- How Your Band Can Use YouTube To Promote: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1554945/how_your_band_can_use_youtube_to_promote.html?cat=35