Hands-On Photography Episode 132 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Ant Pruitt (00:00):
Today, on Hands-On Photography. We're gonna take a look at printing options for your photographs. Yes, you can print your photos. I've spoken about it before, but what if you wanting to sell your prints? That's some options for you. Let's talk about it. This is this episode of Hands-On Photography is brought to you by nomad. Go to nomad goods.com/twit and use promo code twit for 10% off your first purchase of any nomad accessory. They have apple watch straps, wireless chargers, ultra durable cables, and more limited time offer.
Ant Pruitt (00:45):
Hey, what's going on everybody. I am Ant Pruitt and this is Hands-On Photography here on twit TV. I hope y'all are doing well. I am unbelievable as always. It is another fine Thursday where I get to sit down and share different tips and tricks that are gonna help make you a better photographer and a better post processor. Well, maybe not so much today and at least not dealing with shooting photos or doing post processing. It's a little bit of a different twist today. Today, I'm gonna get into a piece of feedback that was sent to me and they said, Hey, this feedback can be used on the show because why it may be useful for other folks here in the Hands-On Photography community. So let's go ahead and get started with this week's episode. First, we'll go ahead and hit the screen switch.
Ant Pruitt (01:32):
So you can take a look at said email that I received. All right. So this message says, hi, Ant, loving the show. I'm an amateur aviation photographer, and I'm interested in selling my photos online. I have no experience with this and I don't really know the pros and cons of different sites. I know smug mug is a tool for professional photographers, but would it be good for an amateur like me? What are the other options? You have my permission to discuss this question on the show. Thanks for the help. And that comes from Thomas. Okay. So Mr. Thomas, very, very good question. I appreciate you first off emailing the show. And so if you want to send your email local loyal Hands-On Photography listener you can send your emails to hop twit TV just as Mr. Thomas did, but anyway, thank you Mr.
Ant Pruitt (02:24):
Thomas for sending that on over to me. Good question. Yeah, tho those sites are awesome for that site in particular smug mug. It is awesome for printing photographs. I talked about printing your photographs way back on episode 77 and you know, first it was the, the, the thing of, well, should you print your photos? Yes, you should print your photos. What if I only shoot photos with my iPhone? Yes. You can still print your photos, even if you shoot 'em with a smartphone. So, and then it gets into, well, how do I print 'em do I use the printer? That's on my desk here to prints out my documents in some instances that's okay. Depends on the size. You're trying to print out, but I don't recommend it for everything. And then you have the idea of, of getting a big printer for your home, a, a dedicated photo printer for your home.
Ant Pruitt (03:15):
Yeah, you can do that too, but does that really give you a good ROI return on your investment? If you will, let me speak from personal experience. I'm someone that shoots photographs and get paid for my work. Thank you so grateful for that. And people will ask for prints. And at one time I thought about buying a printer, but found that most of my work was used more so digitally than versus a physical print. So it, it wasn't, it didn't make any sense for me to invest in a printer at that time. Okay. so what I was doing was going to a local print shop and having them print out my my images and I'd go through all of the shipping and so on and so forth. And that was great, you know, it worked, but then I looked into other services and options such as like what you mentioned, smug mug, smug mug.com.
Ant Pruitt (04:12):
I don't use Smugmug, but I do have a smug mug page. That's fairly, you know, is just brand new. I just set it up here recently just to try it out and play around with it. But it, it, I highly recommend it to people, even though I don't use it, cuz they do a good job with just try to make things simple and easy. I use another service called fine art America, but we'll get into that more so in a minute. But anyway, if you take a look at Smumug at smugmug.com, they offer a lot of different things to, to the photographer, whether you're a pro or an amateur like yourself, it doesn't matter. You can set up a, a plan that allows you to store your images online. They have a lot of, you know, backup options basically even down to having unlimited storage. So they have a couple different plans and payment options on there.
Ant Pruitt (05:01):
They have the basic plan, a power plan, a portfolio plan, and a pro plan. So let's take a look at that cuz that's what that's, what's going to matter. You know, you're, you're investing into your business or your hobby, if you will, you know, where you gonna have to look at or does it make sense from a dollar standpoint, you know, is it, is it worth me spending thousands of dollars a year for a service that only gives me, you know, just a couple hundred bucks in peace of mind or a couple hundred bucks in, in printing options. That's, that's something that you're gonna have to decide on, but anyway, if you take a look at their plans, they have a bunch of them varying from $9 a month to $42 a month or $75 a year up to over $300 a year.
Ant Pruitt (05:50):
So it, you, you, you have to weigh that out. And again, I have no problems with smug mug. I know of several people that use them and they get good results. But before I got, you know, awake to or hip to the world of smug mug, I was using fine art America. And I totally dig it, you know, and I'll get into their details momentarily and why I started using it. But before we do that, I want to take a few minutes to think this week's sponsor the folks at nomad. This episode of Hands-On Photography is brought to you by nomad nomads founders met in Santa Barbara, California, and started as a Kickstarter project back in the days of 2012, with the goal of building an ultra rugged and minimalist tool for the 21st century that would seamlessly integrate into your everyday carry, you know, everyday carry like your phone and your watch and your wallet, things like that.
Ant Pruitt (06:46):
Well, in the past nine years, nomad has expanded to offer a wide range of mobile accessories to fit the needs from iPhone cases, to apple watch straps and wireless chargers and premium Wallace and passport holders and a whole lot more. And they all are using horror leather, which is just beautiful. They use this horror tannery in Chicago that was founded back in 1905 and it offers unparallel blend of quality and consistency. The leather accessories developed a rich patina. And with time that patina just looks so good. And just so uniquely you, you know, and not to mention the leather just smells da gum. Good. I love how leather smells nomad offers convenient wireless charging solutions for the home office and bedroom with a suite of charges for whatever apple device you use as well as apple watch and AirPods nomad is now offering AC adapters too.
Ant Pruitt (07:46):
So check out their new 30 wat and 65 wat adapters. I gotta tell you there's nothing more of a headache. <Laugh> when it comes to trying to go and charge up one of your mobile devices and you get this little slow trickle charge, oh, such a pain. I highly recommend you get yourself a Noma, a see adapter, stick it on your desk where it's always nearby. It's pretty, it's small and you're gonna get none of this slow trickle charging. The crew at nomad was tired of dealing with flimsy charging cables that seemed to fall apart every few months. So they set out a set out to, to engineer a more rugged cable. So with reinforced and double braided Kevlar, outer sheathing and strong metal, all or connector, housings nomad cables have been engineered for extreme durability and heavy everyday use because you're everyday people. They're also a climate neutral certified brand kudos to you.
Ant Pruitt (08:43):
Nomad nomad is, and always will be a company that prioritizes design and quality over everything else. One of the most important aspects of nomads when designing a new product is that they use the highest quality and longest lasted materials available. They design all of their concepts from the ground up rather than white labeling existing products. You know who those companies are, that's not nomad <laugh> all right. So go to nomad goods.com/twit and use promo code twit for 10% off the first purchase of any nomad accessory that's nomad goods.com/twit with promo code twit and note that this is a limited time offer. And I think nomad for their support of Hands-On Photography. All right. So I mentioned fine art America, fine art America is another option far as hosting. Well, not really hosting your images, but offering a print service for your images. So the difference between them and, and the likes of smug mug or even flicker and other services out there for me, it just, it just came into a better value.
Ant Pruitt (10:00):
Both of them offer print sizes, varying of down to small, you know, four by four by sixes or even smaller. You can also print on accessories like coffee mugs and t-shirts, and <laugh> other random things like phone cases. But I, I just started using fine art America several years ago and I never really went, had to go anywhere else because they just, they just work. They offered metal prints and different types of print paper, and they handle the shipping and it just turned out to be an incredible value because you can use their free option and get all of that. Or you can use their paid option, which is only $30 a year. And with the, the $30 a year paid option, you basically get the ability to put more of your images out there on display. So right now, if you go on over to aunt pruitt.com/prince wink, wink, you'll see about 20 images or so of mine that I have out there.
Ant Pruitt (11:01):
But if I wanna put more in there, I can just do the annual fee and upload more personally, I found that I don't really need to do that anymore because I look at the analytics and it shows me that people are clicking more so on this and that and so on and so forth. So I don't need to upload a whole bunch of junk <laugh> to it's just gonna confuse people less is more when it comes to selling prints. So I trimmed it down and I try to focus on promoting those, those different images that are getting more eyeballs based on analytics. But again, for me, that seems to be the best way to go because of the value. You know, I can do the, the free option or I can do the, the annual $30 a year. That's redundant. Sorry. I can do the annual 30 buck fee.
Ant Pruitt (11:50):
And that's just me. I don't know what works for you, but I suggest trying either one of them out, because both of them are great far as the actual final product that you're going to get. My clients and customers that have ordered prints from me have, have done nothing but rave about the quality of the prints that come from fine art America. I have several here in my home that I, that I like to use to decorate the house because they do a good job. And again, it's a great value. So I hope that helps you, Mr. Thomas, and for the other folks out there in the Hands-On Photography community, are you using smug mug? Are you using some other print options? Let me know, shoot me an email hop, twit.tv. I'd love to hear from you. As a matter of fact, you can send any kind of feedback or comments or questions or image critiques to hop@twit.tv.
Ant Pruitt (12:45):
And I, I will get back to you as soon as I can. And if it's something that you're fine with being used on the show for an episode, please mention. So in the email, I don't wanna put stuff out there without your consent. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, shoot a message hop twit.tv. That's gonna do it for this week's episode. Thank you to everyone that joined in and listened and watch today. If this was your first time, go ahead and subscribe right now in whatever podcast application you're enjoying us on because we're on all of them. You can find us some Spotify. You can find us on apple podcasts, or if you're really nerdy, you can get into podcast and, and, and, and overcast and all of those other ones out there. I have no idea we're on all of them. Just, just look us up.
Ant Pruitt (13:28):
We're on go to our website. Twit do TV slash ho P twit.tv/ho P for HandsOn photography, where you'll see all of the subscription options. You'll see all of the previous episodes and all of the previous show notes. Okay. All of that stuff is helpful. Hey, make sure you're also following me on social media. I am ant underscore Pruitt on Instagram. Give me a follow over there, tag me in some of your favorite images. I appreciate the folks that have started tagging me in their images. It's pretty cool to see what you all are shooting y'all are pretty talented. So keep tagging me, keep following and sharing out the show. Thank you to my man, Mr. Victor, for all of his whew hard work that he does on the show to make me look and sound good each and every week. And yeah, good looking at my man. All right, folks. Thanks for all the support. We will see you next time on the show. And until then you all continue to safely create and dominate and I'll catch you next time.
Leo Laporte (14:27):
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