Show Us Your PhotoShelter & Refer-a-Friend

Help us learn more about how you use PhotoShelter, win a $500 Adorama Gift Card and more

*UPDATES ADDED 3/30 see below…

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that photographers use PhotoShelter in a myriad of ways. Stock photographers like the power of being their own agency with unattended sales of their rights-managed and royalty-free images. Wedding and event photographers love creating galleries and having an automated print fulfillment solution through our three printing partners. Commercial and editorial shooters dig the high-resolution file distribution capabilities. The SEO and social media features have become increasingly popular. More than just a website, PhotoShelter has become like a Swiss Army knife, nay, a Leatherman for photographers.

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A few of the photographers who have shared how they are using PhotoShelter. Top Row (L-R) Rob Tringali, Shelley Alger, Andrew Collings, Elizabeth Carmel, Chris Hornbecker, Jim Goldstein. Bottom Row (L-R) Dave Walsh, Hans Halberstadt, Lisa Dearing, Scott MacDonald, Tanya Bright, Josh McCulloch

Show us yours
We’d love to get a better sense of how our best customers are using PhotoShelter. We get to see so many website examples every day, but it’s hard to know what’s happening behind-the-scenes unless we hear it directly from you.  We want to get to know more members who are utilizing PhotoShelter in exciting ways to share it with the PhotoShelter community, and maybe even share it with the industry press as well.  So we’ve decided to make it very rewarding for you to share your story with some juicy prizes.  Welcome to SHOW US YOUR PHOTOSHELTER.  Here’s how it works…

What you do:

  1. Post a new article on your blog.  Talk about yourself.  Include what you shoot and details about your most recent work. Discuss how you use PhotoShelter and what features you find most helpful.  Feel free to include your images, graphics or even video.  Examples are welcome!
  2. Send us the link at mystory@photoshelter.com

What we’ll do:

  1. We’ll select a few blog posts that best illustrate the diversity of how people are using PhotoShelter  on March 31, 2010. Our favorites will get cool gifts like a $500 Adorama Camera Gift Card, 100GB of additional storage free for your PhotoShelter account, and a brand-spanking new copy of Apple Aperture 3.
  2. We’ll link to your story from our blog, to share some PhotoShelter SEO love.
  3. We’ll share your story with our communities on Facebook and Twitter.

Earn Account Credits with Refer-a-Friend
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Some of you have already been tremendous in recommending PhotoShelter to your friends and colleagues. We are very appreciative. And now we want to reward you with our new Refer-a-Friend program.

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We love you too. Take this paper heart…and some account credit too!

Here’s how it works:

  • When you log in to PhotoShelter you’ll see your new Refer-a-Friend code and your own referral link. Learn more.
  • Give your friends the code. E-mail it, Tweet it, Facebook it, autotune it in a rap. We even have little badges that you can put on your website or blog.
  • When your friends sign up, you’ll receive an account credit up to $40 after 30 days. (You know, assuming they don’t quit. But why would they?)

Then you can use your account credits for your PhotoShelter subscription, transaction fees, storage upgrades, etc. So get the word out, and start earning credit today!

Update 3/31: Closing day!

Seattle wedding photographer Josie Liming

Seamlessly integrated her portfolio sites, blog and archive using PhotoShelter.
Josie shares a smart strategy – using PhotoShelter’s gallery
collections feature to separate wedding client images into more
manageable
galleries, embed in her blog, and share on facebook.

London wedding and music photographer Sebastien Dehesdin of
onedayforever

Shares how he uses PhotoShelter for music clients to download hi-res
pictures after a gig, while using password protected galleries for his
wedding clients to view and order prints online.

Freelance graphic designer & photographer Brian Espinosa

Talks about custom designing his PhotoShelter and Squarespace blog to
integrate perfectly, the key features he uses like our social network
sharing tools and Flickr uploader, and coupon codes for his clients.
Brian also teases us about a project he’s doing to integrate
PhotoShelter and Google Maps…very excited to see that!

Elijah Goodwin, biologist & nature and animal behavior photographer

Shares the origins of his business name, Whimbrel Nature Photography
and his passion for presenting wildlife as he sees it, for editorial
and educational use.  We love Elijah’s clever, SEO-friendly URL too
http://www.bestnatureimages.com.

New York based travel stock photographer and writer Monica Goslin
Shares how she uses PhotoShelter to sell travel stock photography.  She
often blogs about the places from her travels and shares links to her
PhotoShelter galleries.  Monica also makes good use of PhotoShelter’s
online educational resources and we’re delighted to hear she look’s
forward to our email newsletters!

Nature photographer Russ Bishop
Enjoys our SEO tools and customizable websites, and found the webinars
really helpful!

It wasn’t exactly a blogpost, but we’re grateful for a very thoughtful
note from stock and travel photographer Jaak Nilson who displays
galleries in Estonian as well as English for ease of use by clients in
his home of Estonia and elsewhere in the world.

Update 3/30: One day to go!

Designer Deborah Pang Davis of CocoCello
Breaks down why she uses PhotoShelter with a simple equation: You = High quality images + Easy-to-use website + Easy delivery of images = Happy Art Director.  Deb’s also responsible for some of our favorite PhotoShelter customizations.

Czech Republic based photojournalist Carlos Lopez
Tries on a couple different PhotoShelter templates for size and brags about how easy and safe it is to share images of his son with his family in Peru.

Atlanta Based music and editorial photographer Will Godfrey
Shares how PhotoShelter’s made his dream of one image upload a reality. Now he can manage images for his entire web presence from one location.

Update 3/29: T-minus 2 days til submissions close and we’re still being wow’ed…

Outdoor sports photographer Karen Bobotas
Spends her winters photographing snow sports. She switched over to PhotoShelter last year and “could not be happier with [her] choice.”

Travel Photographer Tim Grimshaw
Can’t stop writing about PhotoShelter on OrangeBlob, his photography blog. For him, PhotoShelter is all about community.

Canadian editorial and advertising photographer and CG artist Tommy Zablan
Tells us how he uses PhotoShelter to deliver files fast and securely in his tale of two cities… we promise it’s a quick read.

Update 3/25: Just a few days left to go and the stories keep coming…

Equestrian photography specialist Nico Morgan
Shows us how he uploads high-res images from Lightroom and sells photography to both corporate clients and consumers

Travel and stock photography specialist Daniel Korzeniewski
Shows us how saves time by using PhotoShelter’s FTP to distribute images to his microstock agencies.

Europa Newswire, the only Brazilian wire service and photo agency at U.N. Headquarters

Shows us how they use PhotoShelter to organize, display, syndicate and sell images of everything happening at the U.N.

St. Petersburg, Florida fashion and portrait photographer Brian James

Says “time is money” and shares how PhotoShelter saves him a ton of it. Plus, he finds the community and educational resources helpful too. We’d never seen Brian’s images before and find his portrait style refreshing.

Cleveland wedding photographer Hunter Harrison of H Squared Photo
Shares how PhotoShelter’s tools help him deliver better service to clients of his wedding and portrait business, and how our community and resources helped him “turn pro.”

Update 3/22: Really enjoying the unique stories! Just a few more days to share too…

Wildlife stock photography specialist Daniel J. Cox of Natural Exposures
Shows us how he’s using PhotoShelter to help save polar bears from the
ravages of climate change. (This surpasses even our wildest ambitions –
great to see another unique use of our service!)

Sailing & sports photographer Chris Schmid of Eyemage Media
Shows us how he uses PhotoShelter to quickly publish photos online and
make them available and searchable for clients to purchase.  Our jaws
literally dropped when we saw Eyemage’s sweet PhotoShelter website customization.

Vancouver travel photographers and writers David & Anna Smith of Interface Images
Talk about their large and growing bucket list of travel destinations,
and how they use PhotoShelter to display and sell the images from their
adventures.

Food and travel stock photography specialist Paul Williams of Funkystock
Shows us how PhotoShelter enabled him to create four separate online
businesses – and his very creative design approaches for each.  Lovely!

Update 3/15: You guys are on a roll!
More photographers show us their PhotoShelter…

Boston wedding & portrait photographer Doug Levy
Talks
about embedding PhotoShelter slideshows on his blog, using our Graph
Paper Press WordPress blog integration, and our SEO resources.

Western Canada stock photography specialist Dave Pattinson
Shares
how he joined PhotoShelter for the archive, then added e-commerce, then
went for the full website integration. We couldn’t help but notice his
awesome PhotoShelter site integration was designed by fellow
PhotoShelter member and Colorado web designer Warren Diggles.

Ramon Lepage of Venezuelan photography agency Orinoquiaphoto
Shows us how he uses *three* separate PhotoShelter accounts – 1 for his agency of images from Venezuela using our Graph Paper Press integration; 1 for Istmophoto, a specialized archive of images from Panama and Central America; and 1 creative asset library for client Farmatodo.

Kansas City nature and wildlife photographer Glori Berkel
Discusses how PhotoShelter’s SEO helps her drive traffic to her online business – Kansas City stock photography – and her other web properties’ traffic has improved as well.

Czech travel photographer Filip Molcan
Shares how he decided to use PhotoShelter to host and backup his photos.

Van Cleave, shooter of hot rods, motorcycles and models
Talks about the benefits and features he finds helpful in using PhotoShelter

Update 03/04: We’re blushing.

Nature and Wildlife Photographer Mike Cavaroc
“I’ve seen my sales grow and it’s helped me to spend more time outdoors with wildlife and less time on the computer.”

UK Sports & Editorial Photographer Gavin Ellis of TGS Photo
“PhotoShelter is the power behind the TGS web presence and my subscription consistently proves to be the best money I spend every month.”

Asia Cultural Photographer Craig Ferguson
Craig talks about how he uses PhotoShelter to juggle everything he needs to do to keep his name in front of buyers, attract new clients, display and share new work, and generally create a buzz…while freeing up time for shooting new images.

Los Angeles editorial and corporate photographer Todd Bigelow
Discusses how he explains his job as a “photojournalist” and how PhotoShelter helps him get the job done.

Portland Oregon wedding, commercial & editorial photographer Craig Mitchelldyer
Shares how and why he uses PhotoShelter as the “backbone” of his work online.

Birmingham UK based photographer Craig Holmes
Shares how PhotoShelter provides day-of file delivery to his clients, their design team, PR’s, the press (if the client grants access) and anyone else who needs them.

It’s not too late to Show us Your PhotoShelter, get your blog some sweet sweet SEO love and get yourself some even sweeter gifts. See complete details above

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This article was written by

Allen Murabayashi is the co-founder of PhotoShelter.

There is 1 comment for this article
  1. Alex Vita at 10:32 pm

    Your new refer-a-friend feature is a great idea. I do have some questions/notes though: 1. I currently have a free/starter account and if I want to upgrade I can use my own referral code. How come? (or so the page for choosing the plans said. I haven’t gone to the final billing stages to see if the code still stands). 2. If I were a new user wanting to sign-up (for a monthly plan), I would now have 2 choices: a) use a referral code from a friend to get a one-time discount or b) use no referral code and get the $1 for 14 days offer. Option a) seems to deactivate option b). So if you think about it, option b) is better, giving me half of the first month (almost) free instead of just a $5/7/10 discount. (For annual plans, this is not the case, of course). If I’m right, sorry for leading people into spending less 🙂 Anyway… my own website is in the works (and after upgrading to a standard plan I’m going for the best integration and html+css customization possible) and a “Powered by PhotoShelter” badge will be there sitting proud. Keep up the great work!

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