I spent the first four years running my portrait studio doing solid work and waiting for people to find me. I had a decent website, a growing Instagram, and a referral network that trickled in just enough work to stay busy. But I had a ceiling. The clients I really wanted, the ones with bigger budgets who understood the value of professional photography, didn’t seem to know I existed. The problem wasn’t my portfolio. It was my visibility. I wasn’t showing up anywhere outside my own channels, and that meant I had no credibility signal that could reach people who’d never heard of me.
That changed when I started treating media coverage as a marketing strategy rather than something that happened to photographers who already got lucky. In this The Slanted Lens tutorial, Jay P. Morgan and Adelaide Lawren break down exactly how Jay built his public profile through local television and press, and more importantly, how any photographer can replicate the approach without a publicist, a book, or a major budget. Watch the full tutorial on YouTube and follow the steps below to put this into practice.
The core insight from this video is deceptively simple: producers and editors need content every single day, and they are actively looking for local experts who can fill that space. Your job is just to make it easy for them to say yes.
Step 1: Understand What Producers Actually Need
JP explains that producers need content daily to fill air time
Morning show producers are not sitting around waiting to discover you. They’re scrambling to fill segments with content that is timely, visual, and useful to their audience. When you understand that their problem is a daily content shortage, you stop thinking about a TV appearance as a favor they’re doing you and start thinking about it as a solution you’re offering them.
The segment ideas that work best are practical, seasonal, and locally relevant. Think “ten ways to photograph Christmas lights,” “how to take better family photos at the holidays,” or “what to look for when hiring a photographer for your wedding.” These aren’t glamorous pitches. But they solve the producer’s problem, which is giving viewers something genuinely useful.
Step 2: Identify the Right Contact
JP says “call the producer of the show” as the key contact
Don’t call the station’s general number and hope to get transferred to someone who cares. You want the segment producer for the specific morning show in your market. Most local stations list their production staff on their website, and a quick LinkedIn search can confirm names and titles. In some markets, a morning show will have multiple producers covering different topic areas, so look for whoever handles lifestyle, home, or community segments.
Write down the name, the show, and the station before you reach out. You’re not sending a mass email. You’re making a targeted, personalized pitch to one person who has a specific job to do.
Step 3: Build Your Pitch Around the Audience, Not Around Yourself
JP describes pitching a Christmas lights photography segment as an example
The mistake most photographers make when pitching themselves to media is leading with their credentials. Producers don’t care about your awards. They care about whether their viewers will stay tuned for your segment. Your pitch should open with the benefit to the audience, not your bio.
A pitch that says “I’m a local portrait photographer with twelve years of experience” will get ignored. A pitch that says “I’d love to come in and show your viewers three simple ways to take better holiday photos on their phones, no special equipment needed” has a real shot. Keep it short, make the value obvious, and offer to bring a simple visual element, a before-and-after, a quick demo, something that translates well on camera.
Step 4: Prepare a Simple Script and Rehearse It
JP advises writing a script and memorizing key talking points
You don’t need to memorize a word-for-word script, but you absolutely need to know your three to five talking points cold before you walk in front of a camera. Nerves are real, and live television does not give you a second take. Write out your key points in plain language, practice saying them out loud until they sound natural, and time yourself so you know you can cover the essentials in the window you’re given.
When I started doing local press, I would practice my talking points in the car on the way to shoots. By the time I was actually in front of a camera, I’d said those lines enough times that they came out conversational rather than rehearsed. That matters more than you think.
Step 5: Extend the Strategy to Print and Online Press
JP recommends writing press releases and sending photography tips to local newspapers
Television is not the only door. Local newspapers, community blogs, and regional lifestyle publications are all running on lean editorial teams and thin content budgets. A well-written press release about something genuinely interesting, a project you completed, a community event you documented, an unusual or visually compelling story, can get picked up with very little effort on your end.
The standard press release format works fine: a headline that reads like a news story, a short opening paragraph that covers who, what, where, and why it matters, a quote, and your contact information. Send it to the editor of the relevant section, not the general inbox. Follow up once, briefly, about a week later.
What I’d Add From My Own Experience
The long-term value of media coverage isn’t the spike in website traffic after your segment airs. It’s the asset. The day after my first television appearance, I added a small “As Seen On” line to my website with the station logo. That single line changed how new clients described me when they called. I started hearing “I saw you were on the news” from people who had never actually watched the segment. The logo itself communicated credibility in a way that client testimonials, no matter how good, simply don’t.
Keep a folder of every media mention, every published press release, every article. Screenshot the pages, save the PDFs. These compound over time and they become some of the most persuasive material on your website.
The single most important shift in this tutorial is reframing media exposure from something that happens to successful photographers into a strategy you build deliberately, one pitch at a time. You don’t need a publicist. You need a timely idea, the right contact, and a clear pitch that makes a producer’s day easier. Start with one morning show in your city, one seasonal angle, and one email. That’s the whole first step.
Watch the full tutorial on YouTube to hear Jay P. Morgan walk through how he built this into a real business development strategy, including the mindset behind positioning yourself as a local expert rather than waiting for recognition to find you.
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