Tales from the Trees

[Ben Thomas]

A Lake District based photography brand.

I've spent the last 3 months building out a beta version of a platform I have envisioned for a long time. Tales from the Trees is where my passion for photography meets my digital work skills. For the longest time I have wondered how I can share my photographic work online, and get paid for it. I thought, why not sell digital licensed copies for a small price as device wallpapers. No platform out there, so I created it.

This release is fairly straightforward MVP. v2 will be built on a much faster framework (still using WordPress) supporting physical print orders, which will have a QR code embedded into them allowing any purveyor of the print to find out the story behind it. After that, I have plans for v3 to become a marketplace platform for other Lake District based photographers to sell their images for a monthly subscription price (perhaps two plans, like hobby and professional), and charge a 10-20% platform fee on each sale.

This is my first project where I will have to actively market it, and I have encountered a lot of resistance from online marketplaces like Facebook/Insta and Pinterest, Tiktok etc who do not allow the sale of digital products.

Two things I would love from this community are:

1. Some feedback on the website, the project as a whole.
2. Some advice from anyone who has done this sort of thing before with digital products, what the best way to market this is without being able to advertise on the big platforms and vend through their marketplaces.

The website is https://talesfromthetrees.com

If anyone has anyone questions about it, I'd love to answer them.

EDIT: Brand guidelines for anyone interested.

 

[Kaleido]

Good on you chief! Nice idea and nice site The imagery is lush and the typeface is gorge. I really like the logo concept but the black is severe and incongruous for a nature focused brand IMO. I'm not keen on the hot pink for the same reason. Maybe go with the earthy palette of the hero image sitewide and make the whole thing zing with hot green? Just my tuppence worth.

 

[dee]

Really nice site in general. Only possible input would be to up the initial hit on the photography ? The initial drop in is a graphic on the hero, and likewise, as you scroll down, the images are small and on phone on a larger graphic background. You need to hit people in face with some cracking photos. The first big photo you see is a laptop on a bench.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[Ben Thomas]

Good on you chief! Nice idea and nice site The imagery is lush and the typeface is gorge. I really like the logo concept but the black is heavy and incongruous for a nature focused brand IMO. I'm not keen on the hot pink for the same reason. Maybe go with the earthy palette of the hero image sitewide and make the whole thing zing with hot green? Just my tuppence worth.

Hey man, thanks a lot! The reason I went with this colour palette is because I wanted the brand to feel more modern and contrasty. Also, I really always seem to gravitate toward green colour schemes - look at Brightwork, lol. So I wanted to move away from that. The black is actually a really deep purple. I will try it on a staging area with an Earthy palette, as I did create a concept palette last year, for a Grizedale Forest based project that may be more suitable - but I think we're settled on the colours (we've officially launched now).

Here's the brand guidelines I've created for TFTT, so you can see the other variations of the logo's and colours, you might like them better but into context like this. But you are right, I have considered changing that hero image to better suit the overall brand.

Thanks for your feedback, it's really appreciated.

 

[Ben Thomas]

Really nice site in general. Only possible input would be to up the initial hit on the photography ? The initial drop in is a graphic on the hero, and likewise, as you scroll down, the images are small and on phone on a larger graphic background. You need to hit people in face with some cracking photos. The first big photo you see is a laptop on a bench.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks Dee, I absolutely agree. I think I might either move the about section to a page of its own, or move the shop section above it, or perhaps have something else before it. I do agree and I know it's an issue. It's a bigger issue on mobile as well as it takes longer to scroll to content, which needs to be addressed.

 

[Murray]

Really nice site in general. Only possible input would be to up the initial hit on the photography ? The initial drop in is a graphic on the hero, and likewise, as you scroll down, the images are small and on phone on a larger graphic background. You need to hit people in face with some cracking photos. The first big photo you see is a laptop on a bench.

Hope that makes sense.

Yeah 100% this, maybe the photograph as the main large image and lay a phone or whatever type screen over it

 

[Ben Thomas]

Yeah 100% this, maybe the photograph as the main large image and lay a phone or whatever type screen over it

That’s actually a really interesting idea, I might play around with that a bit, thanks

 

[jasman]

Very nice looking site and I like the idea! I agree with Dee that you want a breathtaking image on the home page rather than the image with the laptop. Also I would change your profile photo (on the site) as that balaclava makes you look like a terrorist! Good luck with this project.

 

[Ben Thomas]

Hahaha, thanks Jasman, I'm trialing a few ideas out at the moment but I agree. I am out in the Lake District very often, and in Winter it is very cold sometimes, so balaclava is a good way to keep warm. But I will take your advice on board and change it to a less threatening picture, perhaps

 

[diablo]

Hahaha, thanks Jasman, I'm trialing a few ideas out at the moment but I agree. I am out in the Lake District very often, and in Winter it is very cold sometimes, so balaclava is a good way to keep warm. But I will take your advice on board and change it to a less threatening picture, perhaps

Think you used to have one of you and your dog. That would work much better than the bally.

I think the biggest problem you have is that most businesses are successful because they satisfy a want or need. You seem to have launched it to satisfy your own need to sell photos. It might still work, but selling phone wallpapers isn't going to be easy because they are typically free. A quick search even throws up free Lake District ones:

https://davemassey.photography/lake-district-lockscreens/

This photographer makes money by selling prints as wall canvases, etc., where the margins are huge. This is a far better business proposition and I see on your site you are looking to do this too. This would be my main focus going forward if I had your talent as a photographer. Even give away the device wallpapers and then upsell place mats, canvases, etc.,

Personally, I think Dave misses a trick. Anyone who downloads an image must like it and so might buy it as a canvas or similar. He should be upselling (even gently) his paid work with every download to increase awareness of his products ("did you know this photo is available on canvases up to...") and sales.

 

[Ben Thomas]

Certainly, you're not wrong at all. The original idea was to sell my own photography, I have thousands of images nobody will ever get to see otherwise. But I have since developed the idea further and want to bring that functionality to other photographers. I did do market research, and there aren't any other places in the market that offer such a unique thing. I think our USP is that we tell a story with each image, and include bits and pieces about how the photo was taken. The want is that this is fine art, which is affordable, but the market is perhaps tourists who want to take a piece of this home. They may buy it as it's something for them to cherish, "We bought this image from a Lake District photographer". But also toward local people, who may find it enjoyable to look at each day. If you visit Bowness-on-Windermere in Summer, you will see just how crazy the tourist industry is. Granted the stories, and details etc are nice, for free, but I wanted to develop this idea into other areas. I have planned for functionality to upsell prints of each image at checkout, with a checkbox type of selection for a few chosen size formats, you know, "Add 8x6 print to your cart?" check yes, it adds it to your cart and ship that off, which would be great for revenue, but the reality of it is that without your own printer (upwards of £1000) there isn't much margin for profit, after shipping etc. is accounted for, and to buy a printed image, you're talking upwards of £150 at the lower end. With the digital images, yes, I agree there are thousands of places out there you can get an image from for free, the idea here is that Lake District photographers have put the work in, to bring these to your devices for a very marginal cost, much less than buying a print, and you get both desktop and mobile formats to use on unlimited devices, which I think is better, and we display it in a way that is attractive.

I didn't go into this thinking it was going to be easy, it's a hard sell. You have to remember this is just the MVP, a couple of planned features going forward which may turn a corner in your mind are:

• Print functionality - Buy a print of any image, upsold on basket/checkout.
• Subscription service aimed toward photographers, allowing them to sign up to a monthly service (not sure on price yet, probably starting at about £14.99 and having two plans) which enables them to send in their own photography, and have them up on the site for sale. 10-20% platform fees, 80-90% profit each sale for the customer, possibly depending on plan.
• QR codes somewhere, perhaps on prints, that take the viewer to our website to view the "tale" behind the image.
• Merchandise geared toward Lake District
• "Giving Back" type of program where a percentage of profit is handed over to local green Lake District businesses, or conservational causes.

I also want to expand the brand into other areas within the Lake District, to become a sort of HQ for entrepreneurs and business owners that live here. Maybe do interviews with them, and have some sort of directory maybe, I'm still hashing out ideas.

EDIT: Also I will be cold approaching photographers soon, when the functionality is built out and Dave will be on the list, it will be interesting to see his response given he is giving them away for free.