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Dilip Bhoye is a portrait and travel photographer from Taiwan with extensive experience working with editorial, corporate, and fashion clients. He spends a lot of time working in the studio and often shoots personal projects in and around Taipei. His passion, however, lies in Travel and Social Documentary photography. To strengthen his commercial fashion portraiture and improve his travel projects, Dilip recently signed up for our Creative Coaching service. Fortunately, Dilip lives in a top destination with high travel photography demand and fewer commercial photographers to compete with.
As a marketing specialist and creative consultant, I collaborate with photographers on a wide range of projects. In Creative Coaching, the conversation becomes the heart of our process. A “listen first” philosophy allows the photographer to share their business challenges before I offer guidance. I then engage in constructive critiques to support them as they begin to integrate personal projects with their commercial work. To push Dilip’s career toward travel photography, I wanted to improve his gallery presentation and develop a consistent marketing program. This would help him to begin building relationships with clients who need travel imagery.
The first step in improving Dilip’s travel work is to enhance its editing and presentation. We started with a thorough website edit, dedicating several sessions to refining Dilip’s presentation, galleries, and quantity of images. I often refer to these sessions as a “guidebook.” It’s our chance to find the standards in portfolio and website presentation that work best for each photographer.
With the right edits, a photographer’s website can represent the projects they are working on while showcasing the type of work they’d like to produce more regularly. It’s important that the galleries are well organized with a tight edit to quickly grab the attention of potential clients. Metadata plays a key role here — tightening gallery options to target specific clients also boosts SEO, helping the site rank higher. While each of Dilip’s galleries presented compelling images, there was simply too much to consume. Most people spend about eight seconds on a website, so it’s important to only present the most effective images for each specialty. Over several meetings, we combined fashion and cosmetics into one gallery and corporate and editorial into another.
Next, we needed to address the overview page. This acts as a hub to show the variety of Dilip’s work at once. I felt it was important to represent each of the different galleries in the first couple of images. This way, anyone taking a glance at his website can make the connection to his specialties without needing to scroll further or click on a gallery.
Like many photographers, Dilip used a “waterfall” display for the overview page. This is a great way to create visual interest and present a variety of images, but for a waterfall to have the desired effect, the images need to be of different sizes and orientations. Dilip’s target clients, however, tend to prefer vertical format. Many fashion brands prefer to see full-sized images to feature their products. Similarly, editorial travel publications need images that can translate to two-page layouts or even detailed cover shots. We narrowed down the selection to hit these target areas and Dilip was excited to feature his work in a new and effective way.
I’m really satisfied with how the portfolio turned out. It now presents a cohesive and consistent look, aligning perfectly with the type of clients I want to work with.
After tightening up all of Dilip’s past work, we shifted focus to future projects and new images he could showcase. During one of our sessions, which coincided with the Lunar New Year celebrations in Taipei, I asked if he had ever documented the ceremonies. Despite living in the city for years, he had never considered capturing these unique and enchanting cultural events of Taiwan.
As Dilip considered how he could display these images on his website, we discussed the importance of crafting an artist statement. When putting together a personal project, sometimes the theme is obvious whereas others take a more subtle or conceptual approach. While each person brings their interpretation to the art they interact with, I wanted viewers to better connect with Dilip’s interpretation of his work.
Since Dilip regularly posted on Instagram, we noticed a disconnection between his Instagram images and his website. To create consistent brand presence, we aligned his Instagram highlights with the gallery titles on his site. We also ensured the key images from his website’s overview page were pinned to the top of his Instagram feed.
To help Dilip reach new travel photography clients and establish new relationships in fashion, he had to move away from word-of-mouth networking to a consistent email marketing plan. I showed Dilip how to do market research and look for the right type of clients for his style. We also discussed the importance of organizing correspondence with these contacts in a way that is manageable. Targeted outreach with a steady flow of campaigns is a long-term approach that bears fruit over time.
Working closely with Dilip over several months was a rewarding experience. After careful edits, I feel confident that his new website optimized his visual presentation and would create more searchable meta-data. Clean layouts, minimal text, and a strong style are qualities that appeal to well-versed creative directors, art buyers, and client reps across the photography industry. Dilip and I both felt satisfied that we had developed a presentation that targeted his ideal markets and unified his brand across all platforms.
Dilip and I built a strong and friendly working relationship, and I valued the perspective of a like-minded creative living half a world away. Although meeting times were a challenge due to our 11-hour time difference — our meetings would start at 7 am in Philadelphia while he would be winding down his day at 8 pm in Taipei — the energy never betrayed tiredness on either end. We both enjoyed collaborating on this project and were energized by the positive results. After months of dedication and creative realignment, Dilip is on the path to working with his ideal clients and producing the photography he’s most excited about.
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Further Reading
Case Studies: Creative Coaching
Specialty: Travel Photography
Expert Advice: Self-Assigned Projects
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