Capping the Lens on Shoot! the Day

Here's a picture AdWeek took of my panel making awesome faces:

Gotta love the awkward.

I just posted a fairly complete synopsis of my Shoot! the Day thoughts on Adrants. A few things I didn't say for lack of space:

• PhotoShelter's got passion behind it, including friendly employees and PR people you genuinely want to know. Not to mention good online outreach (they kept hitting Adrants up even when we talked shit, which we like to do), and social media savvy. (I overheard agency peeps and photographers confess to reading PhotoShelter's blog; plus, all panels will be podcasted. Not even ad:tech does that. The irony.)
• I don't think anybody in the audience was Twittering. Okay, totally different world.
  
• The vibe was way casual. Couldn't work out whether it was a freelance thing or a PhotoShelter thing; they probably feed into one another.
• Not much mention of Flickr or Creative Commons, which I thought was odd given the licensing concerns. It's possible nobody really knows about compfight, which enables users to search Flickr specifically for Creative Commons-protected work. It's also possible that most Flickr stuff is hit-or-miss, and most Flickr users simply aren't professionals.

Onto the next project: ad:tech Chicago in less than two weeks!

Interrogating Agency Art Directors and Buyers for Shoot! the Day

Hello, Bessie. Via RoyaltyFreePhotos.

Tomorrow I'll be moderating a panel for Shoot! the Day, a stock photography conference put together by PhotoShelter. (See a recent study related to the topic.)

My panel is at 12:15pm. It will include:

• Belinda Lopez, Senior Art Buyer, Strawberry Frog
  
• Wanda Lau, Senior Art Director, Greater Than One
  
• Jen Santiago, Managing Art Buyer, G2 Direct & Digital
  
• Molly Aaker, Art Buyer, Unit7
  

My two biggest fears: 

1) making a Twitter joke

2) boring my audience, which will consist of professional photographers. I'm clearly not one of them, and I won't do justice to their angstiest stock photo/ad agency concerns, so I'll be leaving plenty of room for Audience Questions!.

Read about other Shoot! the Day panels at the PhotoShelter blog. And if you'd like to come watch me make awkward jokes and commit cheesy faux-pas, here's how to volunteer for a free pass.

I realize this is extremely last-minute. That was intentional, to minimize attendance and reduce the likelihood of damage to my id. (She is vixeny, but sensitive.)