If you dont know who Chase Jarvis is, go find out right now. I follow Chase very closely nowadays for several reasons, one of which is that his work his just downright ridiculous. Another reason is that Chase has positioned himself as one of the new experts on using Social Media and how to integrate that into his business model.

Today, I viewed one of the videos released from the recent Sundance Film Festival about how artists are using Social Media to promote their works. The video itself is rather long, about 45 minutes, but Chase gives some very insightful comments around the 26 min marker. Feel free to fast forward to hear those. Video is below.

In this video, Chase speaks about how prior to social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc… there were so many barriers to getting your work “out there” and in front of people. Really the only options were the traditional ways of outbound marketing; cold calls, emails, promo cards, direct mail, and portfolio reviews…. IF you can even get in for a book review! We all know that these aren’t the most effective ways of showing your work and can take a LOT of your time.

Chase speaks about how those barriers are now completely removed with Social Media. Now, you can literally get your work out in front of thousands of high quality contacts in a matter of minutes! Chase bases his model off of what he has labeled “Create, Share, Sustain”.

Create, Share, Sustain - from Chase Jarvis

I have to admit that when I first heard about this idea, it really kind of scared me. Really? Im supposed to just throw my work out on the internet for the whole world to see…. and steal?! I mean, how many times have we heard of artists and photographers work being stolen from the web? I hear about it almost everyday. But as I thought about it, it really makes sense…here’s why:

In the creative world, it doesnt matter how good your work is, if it’s not seen, nobody cares. That’s the sad truth. I can be the best architectural photographer in the world, but if nobody views my work, or worse, can’t FIND my work online, it doesnt matter. That’s where Create, Share, Sustain really comes in. As artists, we HAVE to get past the fear of online theft, copyright infringement, or misuse. There are measures we can take to prevent this misuse, but as I have thought about this issue, I think the best solution is a simple watermark with your name and website URL on the image. This clearly shows who the photo belongs to and is hard to photoshop out. Most folks wont take the time to retouch a watermark… they’ll just move on to another image without one.

Kansas City courthouse viewed from the North West.

For me, I think it is completely worth the risk to place my work online, with a watermark, for EVERYONE to see. The more people that see it, the more exposure I get as an artist. Its that simple.

Now for the full video from Sundance:

I’ve been hearing more and more about how photo and video are coming together and today’s post really shows some highlights of this combination of creativity and technology. Rainn Wilson’s video was particularly interesting.

Check it out here: