Interview by Photo District News

Photo District News interviewed me for a short piece about my photography and how I use my website. The article is sponsored by Photoshelter, the company that hosts my online portfolios, image archive, and client delivery galleries. To read the PDN interview, click on the image ⬇︎

Update: Two of my answers were not transcribed clearly. Corrections below:

PDN: What California projects are you working on now?

JW: Currently I’m working on editing down selects for a portfolio from over 15,000 images of coverage from an on-going race series. A client hired me to shoot a car race series. It’s a “gentleman’s race”—F3 racing—and coverage of this sport is growing. I’ve gotten incredible access at a couple of tracks where these races have happened, which has given me a lot of cool images that other motorsports photographers don’t necessarily get. One summer, I had to shoot about ten days over five weekends at the same track. You have to push yourself in these situations: How am I going to make this work look different from each race so the coverage doesn’t become formulaic? It’s not a “California project,” but I’m trying to apply this mentality to all of my shoots.

PDN: How else does your website figure into your business?

Besides proofing and delivery, I have galleries on the back-end of my site of certain categories that I don’t necessarily market to. For instance, if people call up and ask if I shoot products, I can send them a gallery on the back-end of my website that’s all products. I get a couple of apparel jobs in this way, too. I want to have different examples of work ready, but I also don’t want to water down my website trying to show everything: automotive, editorial, lifestyle, apparel, sports, corporate, and product. It would be too much. I have a couple things I’m focused on, my specialties—the galleries that are always visible, and I have galleries of secondary work that are ready to share on the back-end. PhotoShelter is great for managing both. The secondary work is still searchable, but it’s not published on the main website. With PhotoShelter, you can choose if an image is going to be searchable on Google or not.

Thanks for viewing. If you have any questions about Photoshelter, feel free to get in touch. I’d be glad to give you more info. Pros and cons.

 

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