Spring Cleaning of the Mind

Is it a headshot, or is it a portrait? I get a fair number of calls from people looking for a headshot. They are often business people who are told that they need to get a headshot taken for their employer's web site, or they are in business for themselves and they are working with a professional to improve their branding and on-line presence. They are often actors or musicians too, who need a headshot in order to audition. But this "headshot" thing... I think the term is complicit in the dumbing down of the concept in popular perception. If all they needed was a shot of their head, the arm's length iPhone self-portrait would do (or should I call it a self-headshot? Self-inflicted headshot?), as would scanning their driver's license photo, although there may be copyright issues there ;-) Clearly, neither approach would be acceptable to a casting director or a marketing/branding consultant.


The ease with which we can all create digital photographs of exceptional technical quality has made professional photography a difficult pursuit. Consequently, there are many photographers who, out of desperation I think, will be willing to do a $20 headshot. I will not. Art can never be a commodity. Once it becomes a commodity it cedes its place as art. A professional must value himself or herself as an artist.

Now there is nothing in the slightest wrong with a traditional approach to a headshot. In fact, many purposes for what a headshot is used have specific requirements and norms for such shots. That being said, artistry does matter. An artist will fulfill the client's requirements and then go the extra distance to make the session matter. Other artists, such as performers, are easier to convince, but it's often difficult to persuade business people of the value of really great photography, especially when they are the subject. But when you see or think of the best kinds of business branding and marketing, the photography is never mundane or perfunctory. It's extraordinary and special. It's art.

If you have read some of my previous posts you may recognise a couple of these people. Some of these "headshots" were done in the course of doing environmental portraits for them. But these headshots are portraits just the same! They are unique and in each case I have made an attempt to bring out the personality in each individual while creating an esthetically pleasing experience. A photographer who cares and who values his or her work and artistic sensibilities is worth investing in.

Location Portrait Photography That Tells a Story

I love working with professional people who understand the value of story telling with their on-line photography. This executive wanted a traditional head-shot for certain applications, but also wanted a series of location portraits that would tell a story about who he is, what he does and would present a professional, sophisticated image. Photographing at an office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the goal was to show him instructing and interacting with his clients, as well as simple portraits in an office environment that would convey his professionalism and friendliness.

What's The Difference?

As a freelancer, two of my roles in this operation are marketing and sales. I hear all of the experts: branding blah blah blah differentiation blah blah blah engaging blah blah blah. Can you hear it? Obviously that's all important and unless I or someone I hire does that for me, I will be a very lonely freelancer indeed. It's a given that exposure to the right audience is essential. There is a ton of advice out there on the tubes of the internets as to how to go about making that happen.

But what makes what I do different from all of the other photographers out there who are marketing to the same people? I have actually read articles that say things like: 'you don't have to be the best photographer to be a success'. While that may seem encouraging if you, like most of us, have insecurities about your work, it's also a really convenient excuse to let up on pushing yourself to create more and better work. The race to the middle! Is that where success lies?

If 5 photographers make themselves visible to a potential client through their effective marketing and sales efforts, and they all seem to be the same in the eyes of that potential client, which one does she choose? (If no one raises their hand I will have to call on someone!)  The answer is: they choose one at random, or one who answers their email request for a bid. Clearly, there are other factors that, in the real world, come into play such as a usable web site, as opposed to one that re-sizes the browser, plays music, has slippery, ever moving and morphing navigation controls that scream: GET ME OUT OF HERE! What other factors might make a potential client choose one photographer over another, all things seeming equal? Proximity of the photographer, referrals and references, the consistent message put forth in their web presence, etc.

Have I led you up to the precipice of the obvious yet? What's the real differentiator? Remember, if no one raises their hand...  Answer: It's the work!  Photographer Nick Onken has written a good piece here that you should take a look at, BUT COME BACK! http://nickonken.com/blog/2011/01/the-quality-diversity-of-your-product.html

People have a penchant for sameness much of the time. Kids don't want to be different. It seems to be an instinct at some point in our human development. At times it does makes sense to emulate success. That's clearly valuable as a learning tool. I think where it becomes destructive is when it is a mantra, such as the misguided conventional wisdom that standardized testing of school children is going to generate a well educated population. I can tell you that if there had been a standardized test to graduate from high school when I was that age, I might still be there now trying to pass it. But say such a methodology were to be successful. What has been accomplished? Millions of identically informed people who have never been encouraged to be different, to think critically or to be creative. There's a prescription for success...

Assuming that your marketing and sales thing has been taken care of, although it is always ongoing, and the presentation of your work is of a high quality and consistent, both on-line and in person (read: have a great book*), THE most important thing is the work and how it is better, more creative and different than all of the others from whom a client might choose. It's so important to keep pushing yourself, to keep growing and stretching, both technically and artistically. And equally important is to push yourself to do personal projects as well as the work you do for business. Hopefully, you soon will be able to see the two come closer together so that the work that people hire you to do is the kind that you love to do.

*If you are not sure of what I am referring to at the asterisk, please call my friend Selina Maitreya, or read one of her books!      http://selinamaitreya.com/

I have sprinkled this post with some recent work that I like, for no other reason than to show it. Plus getting it out there will force me to go out and create more :-)  So here are even more!

Worth Waiting For

I love shooting for magazines. One of the tough things about doing this kind of work though is the waiting. Creating a magazine that has lots of interesting, fresh and original content takes time, money and personnel. So waiting for a magazine that you've worked on to hit the streets can be difficult for those who participated.

In early December I was asked to do a cover story photo shoot for a brand new magazine, published by EH Publishing, in Framingham, Massachusetts. What made it really nice was that the cover that I was to do was for the premier issue of a new publication that they were creating, Commercial Integrator. It's a specialty magazine for "Professional integrators who design, sell, service, and install commercial integration products for small and medium size businesses".


Commercial Integrator Magazine - the Premier IssueThey had a very specific look in mind for the cover, which would feature Brad Caron, president and owner of Signet Electronic Systems, also located here in Massachusetts. The shoot was a blast! I have been waiting to talk about this cover shoot for weeks. EH mailed me some copies for my tear sheets, which arrived Today. The wait has been worth it!

Brad Caron - Signet Electronic Systems

Video - Everyone is Doing It!

If everyone was doing <insert your favorite bad activity>, would you do it too? How many times were you asked that as a kid? Or maybe you were the asker. Don't make me stop this car!

I have been reading for a year or so how, thanks to the great video capabilities that are now available in DSLRs, still photographers really need to do video. I guess my reaction was, I don't NEED to do anything. The comments made were to the effect that we needed to do this, or else give it up. I have a visceral reaction to statements like that. All television will be in 3D pretty soon. Um, no. I'm all set in the glasses department, and I generally don't watch "action" shows. So my feeling was no, I don't need to do video; unless I want to.

So here we are. I have been experimenting with video production. You can see my YouTube channel here. My first attempt was to do a walk-around through the building where my studio is located, taking still shots every few feet, and streaming them all together with the Windows Movie Maker to the strains of Flight of the Bumblebee. Wee! It's kind of entertaining, but probably of little practical value. It therefore boasts my biggest hit count. My second was another stop-action video, this time telling the story of an in-studio portrait shoot. While not the blockbuster that my first one was, it is pretty cool and well liked. The music is better too!

Well finally, a real "motion" picture to my credits! I was doing an environmental portrait shoot for a client of mine who happens to be a marketing and branding professional, Anya Downing of Engage Marketing and Design, of Georgetown, Massachusetts. We started to talk about possibly leveraging her photos for more than just her own professional branding, creating a video and a white-paper. So off we went. The shoot was actually months ago, and I have held back showing the photos until now. We worked on the video during the Christmas/New Year break, with Linda Williamson, who did the actual videography for us. I played Cecil B. DeMille.


Anya Downing - Engage Marketing and Design

The video is a presentation in interview format, by Anya, in which she discusses branding and what she calls, Profile Branding. The latter being the use of the type of imagery that I create, and created for her business, in branding a professional or their business, and how it can be an important element. Please take a look at Profile Branding.

While I have no intention of being "the video guy", because my passion is for great still photography, this is something that I will continue to do, to perfect and to offer clients.

While not originally part of the set that Anya chose from the shoot, I really liked this shot and have been really anxious to share it. These were shot at The Space, in Lowell, Massachusetts, and the art in the background is by David LeBlanc.

People at Work - Part 10 - The Power of Flowers

When I started to think about this blog I felt my "People at Work" theme was appropriate, and that it had only been a short while ago that I had pushed the pause button on that theme. So this morning I looked back and found that installment number 9 was posted on May 19th, 2009! Not possible... Anyway, here goes with number 10. Finally!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to photograph Joyce Bellefeuille, for the Merrimack Valley Magazine, along with some of her volunteers as they worked on her Power of Flowers project. Joyce is the owner of Belle Feuille Floral Design in Dunstable, Massachusetts. I would encourage you to check out the Merrimack Valley Magazine article, written by Anne Broyles.
Joyce Bellefeuille

You can read lots more about it on Joyce's web site, but the project delivers free flowers, donated from funerals, weddings, banquets and church services that would otherwise be discarded, to deserving recipients chosen through community outreach programs, friends, home care organizations, elder services, senior centers and cancer clinics.


The Power of Flowers ProjectI think creating photo essays like this to go along with editorial environmental portraits, that are the basis for the articles, gives the reader a much better connection to the subject.

The magazine went out to subscribers this week and will be on newstands on September 15th. See the magazine's web site for locations.

The Creative Process - A Constant State of Agitation

If you're like me, you enjoy the times when things are happening; those times when things are getting done and when you are creating things. But if you are really like me, you also have a tendency to look ahead to the quiet times that follow the storm. A little of this is OK, but I think being creative and productive, and interesting to others requires us to be in a constant state of agitation. We need to be thinking of what to do next, how to create, how to do something better than the last thing that we did, and how to continuously reinvent ourselves. That restlessness is what drives the creative process.

It's a little like brewing beer. Huh? Well, when beer is brewed, the wort (pronounced like dirt), which is the mixture of grains, hops and water, is inactive until the yeast is "pitched" into it. Soon after this happens, the wort becomes very active and "agitated". My analogy is about to breakdown here because the Lowell City Councilor Franky Descoteauxcreative process doesn't involve turning sugar into alcohol, but never mind :-)  My point is, the introduction of that yeast causes some pretty violent agitation which, in turn, results in the creation of beer. Very productive indeed! Without the introduction of that yeast, no beer will result. In fact, the inactive wort will turn into something very nasty after a few days.

OK, so my analogy is a little out there, but I can feel the pulls in my own life that cause me to be creative and productive, or not. We all have times when we are doing things that we don't want to do and wish them to be done with. But don't wish away the good stuff. And don't avoid the chaos. Put yourself into challenging positions and places. It really took me a long time to get the confidence to ask people if they would pose for me, for no other reason than that I wanted to create a portrait of them. People almost never refuse. People are not going to come to you to create something for them until you create a body of work that demonstrates your ability to do so. You craft that by putting yourself out there, by challenging yourself, by getting restless, by thinking about the next thing to create. As tempting as it can be to be complacent and satisfied with your work to this point, don't. Pitch that yeast.

One of These Things is Not Like The Other...

One of These Things is Not Like The Other...one of these things is not the same (Apologies to Sesame Street!)  This bit was always a favorite at my house when my son was little. But I was thinking this morning about photography (there's a shock), and how applicable this verse is. When we get started creating photographs the normal path to learning the art is to focus on technique and to imitate and emulate the masters. When I was a teenager my parents bought that great Time-Life book series on photography for me. I remember waiting anxiously for each edition to arrive and would get inspired by every page. The contemporary photographers at that time had a huge influence on me. My mind is still firmly rooted in the look of images created by Arnold Newman, Pete Turner, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. But there's a time when you need to be yourself. Imitation, emulation and outright copying are fine for a while, but whatever your art may be it has, at some point, to stand out from the crowd; to be unlike the others.

I read a blog recently in which the writer interviewed Set Godin about his latest book (http://www.digitalweddingforum.com/blog/our-interview-with-marketing-guru-and-author-seth-godin). This quote sort of jumped up and demanded notice:

    Seth: When everyone has a camera, and everyone thinks they are a photographic artist, it’s clear that access to the device is not a scarce resource. If that’s all you’ve got, I’m not going to pay you. The art isn’t in the taking of the picture. The art is in what you do the other 21 hours in a day.

    If you don’t like that, you should become an amateur and do what you love, but don’t expect to get paid for it!

Independent portrait photographers who are consistently creating images that could be mistaken for those from a retail studio should take notice. Of course there are always clients who want a basic, "school picture day" portrait, but even there, it's really important to raise that bar. If some potential client is comparing a handful of photographers and, absent any referrals to or prior knowledge about them, they all present the same style and quality, and one is the Mall retail portrait store, then the only thing these photographers have to differentiate themselves is price and possibly location. Google the portrait store at your local Mall and you will come to a very quick conclusion as to which one wins on price. In fact, lowering your price will not even help, unless you make it $0. If this sounds familiar you are selling a commodity. Wikipedia, (which knows all :-), defines commodity as "some good for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is fungible, i.e. the same no matter who produces it." Sound familiar?

Seth Godin goes on to say:
    Seth: Stop looking for more business! The most important thing is to reinvent what it is you sell and to overwhelm your current clients with the experience they encounter when they engage you. This is what word of mouth will come from. Not from better photos, not from a better brochure, not from a cheaper price.

I am not sure that I agree with him concerning "better photos", both because I think that is ultimately where you differentiate yourself, but also because I feel he is contradicting his earlier statement. But if he means better photos, technically, I would agree, at least to a degree. In some future blog I will go on a rant about photo gear and its relationship to great photos (or lack of a relationship...), but I would interpret "better photos" to mean all aspects of your portfolio, including your vision, body of work, consistency and style, and in that case I feel that it matters a lot. But bringing that experience with which you will overwhelm a client, along with your vision and uniqueness is really what will make potential clients want to hire you. If you are the same as everyone else, nothing will do that; not even price.

Plan, plan and plan some more

The great Boston photographer, Louis Fabian Bachrach Jr., known as Fabian Bachrach, passed away last week at the age of 92. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/arts/design/02bachrach.html)

He came from a family of photographers, most of whom worked and still work in the family business. His grandfather, who started the studio, photographed Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg!

According to the NY Times article, when John F. Kennedy was a US senator, he sat for a portrait with Bachrach. The results were what Bachrach considered unusable, which, in the words of his son, "ate on my father for months and months and months". Any commercial photographer can relate, although most not at the same level as that of photographing a US senator. But when Kennedy became president, Bachrach convinced his office to let Kennedy sit for another portrait. This time, Bachrach was kept waiting for 8 hours only to be told that the session had been cancelled. Pleading to be allowed to go ahead with the session, he was given 10 minutes, "from start to finish", as the Times article says. This 10 minute session resulted in the president's official portrait, which is arguably the most well known portrait of Kennedy. See the NY Times article and the gallery of Bachrach's work to see the photo.

There are so many lessons here, for people photographers especially. When you screw up, the first thing is to admit it to yourself and to your client, and then to get over it. Easier said than done. But you can! I have a quote from Joe McNally on my wall. You can find it in his blog post, (http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/2008/09/10/cant-get-no-respect), look for the paragraphs that begin with "I’ve shot a lot more bad pictures than I’ll ever shoot good ones". That I read his quote periodically is closely related to one of my blogs from last week in which I talked about being the photographer you want to become. Even that phrase is a quote from another great photographer, Craig Tanner. But when you doubt yourself, step aside! Try to step away from your own person and ego for a minute and ask, what would <a photographer that I admire> do in this situation? Obviously, that person could be anyone that you admire, not necessarily another photographer.

Another lesson that I took away from the Bachrach anecdote was how necessary it is to plan. Plan, plan and plan some more. Try to envision what the situation will be like, how you will feel and how you will act and react. You need to be reacting to the environment and to the things that could not have been anticipated. You should already have thought about all of the things that you knew about beforehand. Clients don't want to wait for you to have a happy accident. The art, creativity and imagination that you bring to a commercial job begins where your technical knowledge and experience leaves off.

Business, Art and Dealing with Change

This morning I was reading a post on a Yahoo group that I follow, and I found it both interesting and disturbing. I don't normally contribute to these interest-group discussions because they usually bore me, to be frank. The photography groups often focus on photo gear talk (yawn), rants about how microstock is killing the stock photo business (stick a fork in it?), advice about legal issues in which you realize, in the end, if someone wants to sue you you're screwed anyway, and ones like the one that I read this morning that bemoan the state of the photo business today. Now being older than dirt, I think I have a particular perspective on some of this. When I first learned how to use Dektol, Ansel Adams was still in his 60s :-) [Use The Google Luke!].

But I had a bad reaction after reading this particular post, in which a very well-regarded photographer, whose work I like very much, announced that he was going to lecture to some high school students and inform them of the "realities" of photography as a career. The implication in his words was that he was not going to be very encouraging.

I think reality is a good thing. It's very underrated :-) My response in the forum was: please don't go overboard!

A little story... Out of high school, I was hot to become a musician. I attended a music school in Boston, one that is very well-known as a Jazz and Pop music institution. There was nothing out there waiting for me when I got out. I was a trumpet player, and the gigs consisted pretty much of playing in a road band, doing local society gigs, getting one of the much-envied NY studio gigs, or one of the 4 seats in a hand full of symphony orchestras around the world that payed. Each year, that school was graduating around 100 trumpet players. You can do the math! I never remember being bitter or feeling that what the school did was unconscionable. I ended up playing Boston society gigs for a couple of years until I realized that I needed, and at that point, really wanted a change. As it happened, a change in the music business was happening then that is very much like what is happening now to media arts. Rock was overtaking the music niche that once was occupied by that which required brass. And then, thanks to digital technology, the music business experienced a total upheaval, as we all know now, although this latter event happened well after I was out of the biz.

But today that school is larger than ever, turns out more graduates than it did in my day, and is thriving, but in a very different space than it did then. It's still a music school. It's still commercially oriented in its approach, which differs and always has from the more traditional conservatories. It has evolved.

But I never looked at it as a trade school whose purpose was to train me for a business. It is and was an art school. When did we become so focused on college being useful only if it trained one for a trade or the business world? But that's another one of my rants... What's wrong with kids studying the arts? Yes, please do tell kids of the realities, as you see them today, of the business of photography, but please do not discourage them from studying the art of photography! Please have a larger perspective on the art of photography. That photographers could build a business around this art can really be seen as a recent phenomenon; recent being the latter part of the 20th century. The early greats of photography were not making big bucks at this. It was the advent of photos in print publishing and the explosion of other visual media that led to what we have come to know as "the business". We are currently somewhere in the middle of another revolution, and hopefully, in some way, the art will survive and we along with it.