title

The Coconut Grove Arts Festival Visiting Artist Program

Larry Berman
e-mail:larry@bermanart.com
Po Box 265 Russellton, PA 15076
412-767-8644  800-350-9289

Using Current Technology
to Create, Promote and Market Your Art

Download this page as a PDF file and print it out
Get Adobe's free Acrobat Reader


Larry Berman (2nd from left) and teacher Colette Stemple (far right)
Coral Reef Senior High School - 3/12/2004 
taken by one of the students with my digital camera

"It's not about how to paint a painting or take a photograph. It's about how to use that information in a real world situation to earn a living." 
Quote by Larry used on the NBC local news

Personal History
I have both a strong technical and artistic background in photography. My wife Mary and I have been selling our photography at art shows for approximately 30 years. In the mid 1970s I was staff photographer for a professional basketball team. I spent almost 20 years shooting stock photography and was represented by a large stock photo agency. Currently, besides doing art shows, I work with a partner Chris Maher doing web design for artists with a client list of about 150 sites. We also write about digital imaging and the latest technology for Shutterbug Magazine. In 2003 we coauthored a book called “50 Fast Digital Camera Techniques”. You don't need the latest and greatest digital camera to take creative photographs. My current body of work is created with a four-year-old discontinued digital camera. I believe in carrying a camera and shooting all the time. It keeps me thinking creatively.
I’m always receptive to questions sent by e-mail.
Examples of my current photography
I look for abstractions in the everyday world as can be seen on the top row. The original subject matter is almost irrelevant to the interpretation of it. For example, the triangle piece on the left is the entranceway to a fast food restaurant. The bottom row is an example of applying my unusual technique to a more commercial type of subject and producing saleable images.
Be Creative
Carry a camera all the time and use it to express yourself.
Digital has freed me from the expense of shooting film and has allowed me to be more creative and experimental in my work than at any other time in my life.
Tip – I keep a digital camera in a belt pouch by the door and every time I leave, it goes with me.
It doesn’t have to be the latest technology. You can even find something used on eBay to start with.
Example – the current body of work I create and sell is taken with a four-year old 2 megapixel camera that was discontinued three years ago.
Tip – For inexpensive high quality prints, try Costco, Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart in their one-hour photo department where they use Fuji Frontier or Noritsu digital printers. They are also starting to put them into Walgreens drug stores. Costco has the lowest print price per print but requires a membership. Wal-Mart limits the size they'll print.
Build a web site with logical navigation, good-looking fast-loading visuals, and relevant words.
This will be your base of operations for years to come.
Use “what you see is what you get” programs like FrontPage (PC only), Dreamweaver, Go Live for web design.
Use programs like Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, PaintShop Pro, PhotoImpact for graphics.
Tip - I recommend Elements as it has most of the important features of full Photoshop and can usually be found for about $50 when there's a rebate. It sometimes comes bundled with scanners or printers.
Tip – Don't use Flash because it loads too slowly on dial up connections.
Tip - Don't build a frame web site because individual pages can't be bookmarked.
Use incoming links to increase ranking in the search engines like Google.
Make it a resource site so people come back again and will want to link to you.
Example – I've built BermanGraphics.com as a major asset to people using digital cameras or interested in selling photography at art shows. It gets over 125,000 page views per month.
Example – I write for Shutterbug Magazine and eDigitalPhoto Magazine and put the unedited articles up on my web site for people to read.
Example – I create new articles on the fly about topics I’m interested in and have a “what’s new” section on the top of the contents page.
Promote Yourself
Create an e-mail signature with a link to your web site.
Join user forums that deal with specific topics you’re interested in and that your web site is designed around and offer advice on topics you understand.
Example - To share the information I've accumulated in my art show career, I wrote an extensive article for Shutterbug Magazine and started a user forum that now has over 800 members. I've even gotten some web site jobs because of the article and forum.
Create web pages to illustrate and answer questions and post links to them in your forum posts.
Tip – I save every post I’ve ever made to the user forums and many of them have become the basis for magazine articles or web pages.
Tip – I use Eudora for e-mail as it’s the most customizable and lets me save everything without letting it get in the way.
Market Yourself and Your Art
I’ve been selling my photography at Art Show for approximately 30 years.
Tip – I give out cards with my web site URL to get follow up sales.
Using my knowledge of the Internet and key words on my web pages, I get found by people searching for words related to my photographs.
Example – I just made a sale to an Advertising agency for a photo to be used as part of a full page ad in the New York Times.
I use eBay as a way to both sell my photographs and as a way to bring interested people to my web site.
Example – I had the film from my sports photography days stored away in the basement for over 25 years. In April 2003, using the latest technology, I started scanning the film to produce high quality prints to sell and built a web site. BermanSports.com to market them. I use eBay as a way to get my photographs discovered. Between eBay and the web site I have sold over 1,000 prints.
Tip - eBay doesn’t allow direct links to web sites as they can take sales away but you can create an “about me” page on eBay and link to it in your auctions.
Discover What Others Are Doing
Do searches on Google for topics that you’re interested in and look at the web sites that you find. Analyze what you find attractive in them and how they get their message across.
Bookmark those web sites so you can return.
Tip – I use a program called PowerMarks to manage my bookmarks. I have over 5,000 bookmarks and can find anything in seconds.
Look at web sites in the signatures of people’s forum posts.
Example - I discovered an amazing digital artist last year on one of the forums. Her name is Asya Schween and she takes self-portraits with her digital camera. Each is like a theatrical production. She’s now 23 years old and a Russian exchange student studying higher mathematics at USC.

Examples of Asya Schween's self portraits that I discovered on the Internet

Links
Larry Berman's web sites and related articles:
BermanGraphics.com
A resource site for my web design business, digital photography and art shows.
BermanSports.com
1970s sports photography from my days as the staff photographer of the ABA New York Nets.
BermanArt.com
Fine art photography by Larry and Mary Berman that we’ve sold at art shows for years.
LarryBerman.com
A retrospective of 30 years of shooting photographs professionally including a list of recently published tear sheets and clients.
AlternatePhoto.com
Infrared photography with a consumer digital camera. My latest body of work which I’m also using to apply to art shows with.
ArtShowPhoto.com
A companion web site to the forum I host for people interested in selling photography at art shows. Includes an extensive resource section of suppliers that sell wholesale so you can afford to resell your work.
Selling Photography at Art Shows
The unedited article that ran in Shutterbug Magazine.
Using the Fuji Frontier (or Noritsu) digital printer
Tips for getting excellent prints from your digital camera files.
Preparing images for the web or e-mail attachments
Using Photoshop or Elements - the principals apply to any graphics program.
Other Related Links
"50 Fast Digital Camera Techniques"
Our book listed on Amazon.
eBay.com
My "about me" page on eBay
Google
The most important search engine to be listed in.
Dpreview.com
Active forums for all different manufacturer’s digital cameras and digital camera reviews
Steves-Digicams
One of the best web sites to read consumer digital camera reviews.
Groups.Yahoo.com
Home of the Yahoo Groups user forums. Do a search for the forum topics you’re interested in.
Photoshop Elements
Adobe's inexpensive but useful graphics program.
Photoshop
The best and most comprehensive (and most complicated) graphics program.
PaintShop Pro
An inexpensive (under $100) graphics program.
PhotoImpact
An inexpensive (under $100) graphics program.
FrontPage
Microsoft's web design program.
Dreamweaver
Macromedia's web design program.
Go Live
Adobe's web design program.
Kaylon.com
PowerMarks (PC only) my recommended bookmark program.
Eudora.com
Eudora, my recommended e-mail program.

Web site contents copyright
Larry Berman
e-mail:larry@bermanart.com
Po Box 265 Russellton, PA 15076
412-767-8644  800-350-9289