Being successful in photography is, well, objective. We all have different definitions of success and we all have different goals. Am I a successful photographer? Some people think so, but if you put me next to Annie Leibovitz or 1/2 of the photographers out there, I pale in comparison. I don’t know about you, but I get tired of seeing my own work. I look at other photographer’s work and I’m just amazed. Sometimes it inspires me, sometimes it just puts me in a funk, not the type you wanna boogie down to. Over the course of time, I’ve learned a few things that has helped me with my success and happiness. I’m not saying this will work for you, but it has worked for me.
1) Everyone shoots shitty images. Everyone. Your job as the photographer is to be the gate keeper. If you’re going through and making selects of your shoot, don’t even show the client the images you don’t like, because they WILL pick them as the hero shots. Trust your eyes, they came to you for your expertise, if they were capable, they would have shot it themselves.
2) Do not throw pictures up on the internet and include a disclaimer (images are unretouched, straight out of camera). What is the f’in point? It’s not your best foot forward, so take the freaking time to edit the photo. Let’s say the model grabs the image, throws it on her site and gives you credit, next the makeup artist does the same, what happens in the end is that your image is going to be floating around the internet with credit to you and some potential client is going to see it and think, “Wow this guy doesn’t pay attention to the details, like that big zit on the model’s nose.” You think they will want to give you the $10k gig? Probably not.
3) Association. You hang out with crappy photographers, you will remain crappy. Just like anything else in life, you hang out with thieves, you’re most likely a thief. If you want to grow and improve as a photographer, surround yourself with photographers who inspire you, produce great work, people you can learn from. If you’re the top dog in your group, you won’t grow.
4) If you’re just starting out, don’t watermark your photos. No one wants to steal them. You think your images are great but just know that your taste will grow and your images will improve. What will happen is 3 years from now, you will do a google search on yourself and all these shitty images will pop up with your name on them. Once you start producing great work, people will know that it came from you.
5) You need a GREAT team. You can’t do it by yourself. If I gave you Annie’s team, including set design, do you think you can create stunning photos? I bet you could. Find these people, feed them, keep them happy.
6) Let go of your ego. No one likes working with know-it-alls or divas. Be humble, be hungry. Help other photographers, mentor them, assist them, it’s rewarding.
7) Make the money, but don’t forsaken everything else in chase of the paper. The best way to be happy is to live in the present. Don’t put things off til the future, the future may never come.
I went and saw Henry Rollins last week. That guy is intense. Talked for 2 hours straight, nonstop without a sip of water. What I really enjoyed about him is that he’s in high demand and tours all over the world, yet he tells us that he takes the time to reply to anyone who writes him. I’m going to have to test this out and actually write him something. It may take him a while to respond to me, but I’m sure that he will eventually.
Which brings me to today’s topic. Nothing bugs me more than when people start to get such a big ego that they think they’re too good to respond. What’s that about? Did you forget where you came from? Did you forget that you were once an ordinary person trying to climb the ladder in your industry? Remember the doors you tried to knock on? What’s worse is when they reach out to you when they needed something and then when you reach back to them, it’s crickets. I would understand if you were an A list celebrity, if so hire a staff to answer those letters/emails. I’m a normal guy, I have a little niche of about 10 people, but any time I get an inquiry/email, I make sure that I respond at least once. If a person comments on my photo or page, I make sure I take the time to thank them. If I can’t thank them individually, I at least acknowledge the whole string of comments in one reply.
Maybe you’ll feel differently one day when you’re washed up and no one really cares about you or your work, then you will start treasuring the love and attention that’s being showered onto you. I try to live my life and treat people exactly the way I want to be treated. In a world of “ME ME ME!” it’s refreshing to see someone of Henry’s status give back, even if it’s just a simple “Thank you.” note.
When I saw this photo by Thomas Egan of Arke One, it kinda creeped me out but it also drew my attention. It’s like one of those nasty insects that you get goosebumps over but you can’t help but get a little closer so you can see how gross the thing is.
This image is probably his best one in his portfolio, you can see the rest here.
Not celebrities. These are brighter, from millions of light years away. I came across a local photographer’s work that I thought was cool, his name is Ben Canales. He focuses on shooting the night sky. I’d love to do this, but I prefer being inside by the fire with a cup of hot toddy. Check out some of his photos below.
His a video tutorial from Ben on how to capture photos at night:
“Growing up, most of us had that scary house down the street that we all knew was haunted. And when Halloween would roll around, you’d dare your friends to knock on their door, peek inside…or at least touch foot in the yard. So for October, we thought we’d try to evoke some of that spooky fun nostalgia with our photographer Quavondo’s haunted house image on our promo. Printed by Modern Postcard, our card should take you back to that old house in your childhood neighborhood…”
Check out the rest of the article and my interview with Peter Clark on Wonderful Machine’s blog to see how the image came to life. This printed mailer was sent to 2000 clients and agencies.
I wanted to start off this post with an image because words couldn’t describe the image above when I first saw it. “HOW IN THE HELL?!!!” I have many creative visions in my head, but I only go forward with my ideas if I feel like I can execute it. It’s not the retouching part that I’m concern with, although I probably couldn’t pull this off…it’s the tracking down the right pieces to photograph to composite together the image that’s in your head. I’ve been sitting on a couple of ideas for over a year now trying to find that perfect location. I guess the photographer part in me wanted everything to be as real as possible, but then I see something like this and I wonder if I should just try and composite my image together.
So fluid in his retouching!
Some times it's all about the X's and the O's
Meet this week’s Artist Spotlight, Erik Johansson, the 26 year old talent that’s blazing the industry.
The Artist himself.
Some of the bigger brands he’s worked with are Google, Microsoft and IKEA. Oh, and he also did the big illusion in Stockholm, sponsored by Microsoft. If you don’t know what I’m talking about? Check this:
Holy crap! Imagine riding a bike here, I would freak the heck out!!!
“I’ve always been quite fascinated by perspective illusions and some time ago I got an idea of trying to realize one in a public space. My idea was to put up a photo in an environment and actually trick people that it would have depth. Street illusions aren’t new, but I wanted to try and make it as a photo instead of a mere drawing” – Johansson
Here’s how he did the above illusion! How much ink and paper did it take?
The Interview with Erik Johansson
I got a chance to sit down with Erik to dig a little into his mind. Perhaps he’ll reveal some great secret!
Q-How long have you been a photographer?
E-I’ve been photographing all my life, but professionally for just a few years.
Q-Were you a retoucher before you became a photographer?
E-I learned retouch myself when I was about 15 years old, I thought it was a lot of fun and I experimented a lot. That is how I learned and became good.
Q-Did you go to schooling for this?
E-No, I am all self taught, except from some tutorials on th web.
Q-What did you do before that?
E-I’ve always been very interested in computers and I have been studying computer engineering. But photography felt more fun in the end so that is what I wanted to work with.
Q-Do you do all your all your work or do you collaborate with other artists?
E-Sometimes I help other photographers out with the retouch part. But otherwise I usually prefer to work on my own, I actually think it’s hard to show something that isn’t finished yet, I think that is why I find it hard to work with others. The process til perfection can be quite ugly.
Q-Your stuff is amazing, how do you come up with such magnificent ideas
and how much planning does it take to execute it?
E-Well, I don’t really try to look for ideas, they usually just find me. I get inspired by all things around me and things I see. The planing part is what takes up most of the time, that is very important to produce high quality work.
Q-Would you mind telling us the process and perhaps show us step by step
creation of one of your pieces? I love the fish image, maybe that one?
E-In general:
Simplified the process it’s divided into three different parts. It always starts with a sketch, as simple idea. Not many ideas get realized, but if I think it’s good enough I decide to realize it.
The first part is planning. Once I’ve come up with an idea that I think is good enough to realize I need to find the places I need to shoot to put the photo together. This can take anywhere between a few days to several months. I’ve had some ideas on hold for a few years before I found the perfect spot. This is the most important step as it defines the look and feeling of the photo. This step also includes problem solving, how to make reflections, materials etc. realistic.
The second part is shooting/collecting the photos. I never use stock photography in my personal projects, I always want to be in complete control of my photos and feel like I’ve done everything myself. It limits me in a way that I can’t realize all ideas I have, but limitations are good sometimes to define the work. I usually shoot places close to where my parents or I live. The light and perspective is extremely important to create a realistic result.
The final part is putting the photos together. This takes anything from a few days to several weeks. This is actually the easiest step, if I did a good job in the first and second part. This part is like a puzzle, I have all the pieces, I just need to put them together.
The fish took about 6 months to create as it was winter and I had plenty of time to plan where to shoot the different parts, it’s composed of images from about 10 different locations. I’m afraid that I don’t want to show too much from the source images, it takes away a bit of the magic. But I can show you the original fish image at least.
The original fish!
Q-For your pieces of art, do you just use photoshop?
E-Yes, but I would like to learn some more 3d and video softwares
Q-For your personal projects, are you a one man team? Or do you have assistants?
E-I usually work on a tight budget on the personal stuff so it’s often on my own, shooting friends and their friends as models.
Q-Do you use strobes or just available light for your photography?
E-Usually soft light, either available light or sometimes my elinchrom flashes.
Q-I see that you don’t use stock images for your personal work, how do
you find all the missing pieces?
E-That is the big challange and what limits me! I like limitations and I like to feel like I’ve done everything myself in the photo.
Q-I see that people can purchase your art, how much?
Ok, maybe this isn’t exactly the behind the scenes video that you’re hoping to see, but don’t fret, that’s in the works! The video below might be more entertaining than the real behind the scenes. This is what happens when you have a well oiled crew, you finish setting up way before the model is ready, then you kinda have to try and entertain yourself.
The Challenge So I’ve been trying make a conscious effort to film my photoshoots for those of you who are interested in seeing what I do and how I do it. Some will be great, some will be boring, some may take forever for me to edit because I have so much free time on my hands right? =) Anyhow, for you film editors out there, you may look down on me for using iMovie instead of Final Cut Pro, I say this to you, my movies never need to “render.” Saving on that extra time is priceless for me. I’m not trying to make a Hollywood short, I’m just trying to make a homegrown behind the scenes video. =P
*Video is rated PG-13. Kids, only shoot people using a camera, not a gun.
Safety On-set First! Safety is the number one rule on-set! Unfortunately there was a casualty, it could have been worse…we dodge a MAJOR bullet! We’ll leave that for the behind the scenes video that we’re working on for you. Special thanks to Darren Utt, Linzy Slusher and Eric Wainwright. You guys kept me smiling all day long.
