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This morning, my wife, Natasha, forwarded to me an email she had received from my mother who had received it from my step-father. The “forwarding chain” for this email stretched back through hundreds of people. By the time it reached me, the email was beaten up and a complete mess. But when I scrolled down below the fold I saw four breathtakingly beautiful photographs from Clark Little, a professional photographer from Hawaii.
Clark Little is probably very well known to surfers around the world. I bet my friend, Andy St. Onge, who lives and surfs in Hawaii has known of Clark Little for a while. But…. I had never heard of him and if not for that ugly email perhaps neither would you. So, I was a bit surprised to see that Clark has an old school slide-show tour planned for this Summer. A slide-show tour? Why bother?
There are so many tools now available for free or for little cost that it just seems crazy that Clark would feel the need to stuff himself in an airplane and travel thousands of miles to share his passion and art with a real live audience in a dark theatre. The thing that really drove this point home for me was the following video:
I understand the perceived economics of how Clark Little, and other professional photographers, make a living. Their product is reprints of their photos for high prices ($450). There is nothing wrong with this revenue stream but rather than build the whole business around it, I would suggest that there is a lot more money to be made by selling derivative products. Five products come to mind immediately:
computer desktop wallpapers
posters for a wall
screensavers
Twitter background image (already formatted correctly)
iPhone slide show app
While the price point of each of these four products is much lower than a single reprint at $450 the potential volume of sales is in the millions and the total revenues from this add-on revenue streams much greater than the traditional ones.
Clark Little could be, himself, out there in the Web 2.0 world creating buzz and building a much more authentic business. I would guess that Clark is a person with a passion for surfing, the ocean, photography, and nature. The traditional business model pulls him away from these passions and requires him to sell his art to folks who may have money but not necessarily a passion for the things he cares about.
I would love to see Clark using Twitter much in the same way as did Lance Armstrong so that people can “tag along” with him on his photo shoots. Clark does have a Twitter account but, like David Beckham’s, it’s a bit stale and displays none of the passion found in his art. Clark Little’s video on YouTube is awesome and inspiring but ultimately, too little. I want more.
As a fan of his photography, I want Clark to create a community around his art where I can be part of the conversation and actually, Clark’s Facebook fan page is proof that he could be making a lot of money off the derivative revenue streams. Check out his FB fanpage here and you’ll see that he’s got over 8,000 fans!!!! That is really really powerful and needs to be better leveraged.
Clark Little is a dream client for a social media agency!! Enjoy his photography and share it with your friends.
