ACME Photography

For the third year we are pleased to be a part of Zoofari, the Annual Black tie fund raiser benefit  for the Phoenix Zoo.  Last year our partnership helped raised over $2K which directly benefited the Phoenix Zoo.

DATE/TIME
Friday, October 3, 2008
VIP Early Admission at 6:30pm
Event Hours 7:00pm-11:00pm LOCATION
The Phoenix Zoo
455 N. Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, AZ 85008
602.273.1341

If are planning on attending Zoofari 2008 please stop by the Photography Booth and have a portrait created.  A photo of you in your “monkey suit” will help to Save the Orangutans as we are again donating proceeds back to the Phoenix Zoo.

2 FREE TICKETS Giveaway:

($450 value)

We have a pair of tickets which we will give away to a client or online friend.  If you are friends with  “@AcmePhoto” on twitter Just reply “@acmephoto” I’d like your tickets to Zoofari 2008″ and You’ll be automatically entered in the drawing.  No catch, it’s that easy.  You can also drop a note on my facebook page, or a comment below if you don’t quite “get” these other social media websites.   If you are a friend on twitter you will loose 10 cool points however if you only comment here on not on twitter.  Do both and you get 10 points however.

HURRY…. because we’ll be picking a winner for the two free tickets late Tuesday night, or possibly Wednesday Morning.

Good luck and I hope to see you at Zoofari this Friday!

Adam Nollmeyer
Photographer in Phoenix AZ
acmephotography.net

Speaking in Tempe on Thursday September 18th, 2008

YOU CAN WIN FREE TICKETS on this blog post!

Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell and Vice President at Forrester Research is speaking in Tempe Arizona on September 18th, 2008.  She will present practical consumer based strategies for companies to harness  the power of social media technologies.  Blogs, facebook, youtube, &  twitter will be sure to be on the agenda.

• Strategies for surviving the groundswell.
• Social media best practices and pitfalls.
• How to get started.

This event is being sponsored by Sitewire an interactive marketing agency.  Last year they helped bring Seth Godin to the Phoenix Area to speak about his book book The Dip.

When: Thurs Sept 18th
Where Tempe Center for the Arts - Lakeside Room
700 W Rio Salado Pkwy Tempe, AZ 85281

Cost: $60  If you don’t win my free tickets. Info / Purchase tickets here.
Group discounts (save $10) available info here.
PRweb Press release.

*UPDATE* -  Wed meetup Because I’m a great stalker social media guru, I read on Charlene’s blog about an  Informal Wednesday Meetup at Borders store in Tempe.  The address is 699 South Mill Avenue.  5-6pm.

FREE tickets?

More good news… I have TWO extra tickets and I’m going to give them away.
Follow these easy steps.

1. You enter by picking a number between 1 and 100.
   I’ll use  a random number generator from random.org  to pick.
2. Post a comment on this blog post (below) using this format,
   ” I choose the best number which is  ___”
3. You may enter TWICE,  Once on the acmephotography.net blog  as well as one time on the Acme Photography’s Facebook fan page . (anywhere is fine, on the wall, on the imported note, etc

Contest will close at TOMORROW, end of Tuesday Sept 16th at midnight local Arizona time.  If you are going feel free to enter and use the ticket to invite a friend.

Adam Nollmeyer
Phoenix Arizona Photographer
acmephotography.net

PS: I’d put some fine print here but you wouldn’t read it anyway!

Open Invitation to Photographers and Photo Studios near Phoenix Arizona!

9/2/08 - Airport Hilton [map] 47th Street, Phoenix AZ, 85034  | 6PM Networking, 7PM meeting.
(Aspiring / student photographers are encouraged and welcome to attend as well!)

I’ve been invited to speak at AzPPA’s - Arizona Professional Photographers Association meeting next Tuesday, September 2nd and I wanted to personally invite fellow photographers and friends to attend this meeting.  I was asked me to talk about the photography that I create.  I spoke on this last year at AZPPA so I’m going to touch on this a bit then describe the process in making creative photography, showing lighting setups for available light photography as well as studio lighting (strobe) for on location work.

THEN…

I’m going to share about something that I’m very passionate about: Social Media.  If the word “social media” confuses you it’s a fancy word for “playing on the internet”.  You know “what the kids do”  Facebook, Twitter, Flickr Myspace,  Viddler, LinkedIN, Friendfeed, etc.  The news is you don’t have to be young to do this, and if done properly it can help your business.   Do you blog?  This is great, however  there’s more to the game then blogging.  Learn how you can:

• Keep in touch with existing clients while creating loyal “fans” for your business.
• Obtain  higher search engine rankings simply by being active online and sharing content.
• Generate web traffic without spending money for paid Goggle Ad Sense or Yahoo campaigns.
• Meet new friends who you can help and who will gladly help you when you are in a jam.

…. All for FREE, or dirt cheap.

Understanding how to leverage the “cool websites” to help build your brand is not as simple as signing up and spamming a message to people in your network.   Using social media properly involves understanding normal human relationships.  I’ll break this down with some simple examples to help you understand how relationships work, then apply it to online activities.

FINALLY…

Why your website sucks (and how to fix it)
If you rely on people typing your website into the web browser from the business card you personally handed them then your website is failing.  If the only traffic you get is from paid directories then you need help.

Learn some simple tips to improve your search engine ranking and make your web site your primary source of leads, instead of a compliment to your other marketing efforts.

I’ll see you at the AZPPA Monthly Meeting September 2, 2008

First meeting is FREE if you’re new.
(Tell ‘em if it’s your first time, along with where you heard about AZPPA and it’s on me!  )

Non-members $25
Phoenix Airport Hilton 2435 S. 47th Street Phoenix, AZ
Social Hangout: 6PM
Meeting - 7PM
Autographs - 9PM

Drop a comment below if you are coming.
See you!

Adam Nollmeyer
Phoenix Arizona  Photographer
http://acmephotography.net

My friend Leila is in Beijing China competing in the 2008 Summer Olympics. We grew up in eastern Montana and know each other through track and field. I went to school in Savage MT, a small class C school, she went to school in Sidney, Montana. We would often practice at their school before District and Divisional meets because they had a rubberized track and ours was a crummy dirt track. Sometimes different class schools would compete against each other because there’s not a whole lot of schools in Montana to start with.

About six months ago she asked me for some photo advice. Some of her fellow Stanford track & field friends were thinking about doing some fitness modeling. I’ve been to California several times this year for photo assignments and we both hoped that I could get to the San Francisco area on assignment and also photograph Leila and friends.

Fast forward to the other week. I thought I had a last minute wedding south of San Francisco, but the job fell through. I knew that Leila had made the trials for the Olympics and still needed some photos. She wanted to document her physique and have, “Something to show the grandkids someday.”

I messaged a friend and fellow photographer Gene X Hwang of Orange Photography - San Francisco to see if he could help.

Gene was able to help Leila and here are two of his studio photos:

Check out Gene’s blog post on the Orange Photography Blog to see some other photos. While I would have loved to photograph Leila, It was nice to connect two people I know and Gene did an awesome job at photographing Leila.

Gene met me while searching for a photographer to help with an assignment in Scottsdale Arizona. He googled and found my flickr photos and website. After meeting Gene in person at the corporate event we have keep in touch online as well. Gene has hired me several times to cover some Orange photography projects in the Phoenix area.

If you’re watching the Beijing Summer 2008 Olympics look for Leila. She’s representing Tunisia. I guess she’s was too good to make the USA team!

I’m off to goggle for “gym membership in Phoenix, AZ”.

Adam Nollmeyer
Arizona Photographer
http://acmephotography.net

I’ve talked about bloggers stealing photos belonging to other photographers. Usually the thief will go to flickr.com thinking the photos to be royalty free stock photos because the website is promoted as a “photo sharing” community. Sometimes the blogger does not know better. Other times they know it’s wrong and just don’t care.

When I read that Orlando wedding photographer Niki Hartman was dishonest in her business practices I was a bit shocked compared to other infringements. I’m sure every business owner makes a mistake now and again, so why the concern now?

The problem is that a photographer ripped off another photographer’s work and passed it off as her own. New York / Brooklyn based wedding and Boudoir Photographer Sherri Jackson [lasadh on flickr] was the creator of the image stolen by Nikki Hartman Photography to promote Nikki’s photography business - http://www.artbynikki.com.

The stolen image was on her blog as seen in this screenshot.

© Sherri Jackson - All Rights reserved - I was granted permission to use for this post

On Nikki’s blog she posts an apology.

This summer I have had a young and upcoming high-school photographer interning with me and had asked her to find me a stock photo to post on the blog because I did not want to use a client’s photo. Unfortunately she was under the impression that flickr was for stock photo…”

This excuse is weak at best. If my photographer, assistant, intern or anyone acting on behalf of my business does anything (good or bad) it is MY responsibility to know what they are doing and oversee their work.

Nikki’s blog post is dated June 12th and today is July 20th. Nikki let an her intern write an advertisement for an intimate boudoir photography, setting prices and and publish this on line without OK’ing it? I don’t think so.

Do you really think that her “intern” made this “mistake”? Drop a comment below and let me know what you think.

Adam Nollmeyer
Phoenix Photographer
http://acmephotography.net

PS: Soon, I’ll be releasing a new “tool” to help photographers deal with this problem. RSS this blog for more info.