1. Go, make something happen.

2. Do work you’re proud of.

3. Treat people with respect.

4. Make big promises and keep them.

5. Ship it out the door.

When in doubt, see #1.

Seth Godin’s Simple five step plan for just about everyone and everything.

Translation for photographers’:

1. Decide on what you want to photograph and why.

2. Go and photograph it and do it really well.

3. Don’t be one of those photographers who is hard to deal with. Keep it light and real.

4. A big promise can be to yourself or to a client.

5. Shipping it out the door is imperative. Connect with the right people and get your work in front of them.

When finished, repeat.

——

Photography

Jeff Hutchens

If you haven’t seen or heard of Jeff Hutchens, do check out his site. APE described his work as a ‘new aesthetic’, and I’d have to agree. Love Jeff’s ‘China, Dreamt’ series.

Jay Reilly

I came across Jay’s work via Aurora Photos. I love his lifestyle work, which just feels so genuine and original.

Dan Winters

A great article and video interview with Dan Winters, about his portrait work and the challenges of creating a long lasting body of work.

Mentoring

Photographer Craig Ferguson has set up a Twitter account to connect aspiring photographers wanting pro photographers’ advice. Great idea Craig! It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out. Want to join? Then check out http://twitter.com/togmentor or for Twitter folk familiar with Twitter language, @togmentor or #togmentor

Seth Godin has a new and free e-book titled ‘What Matters Now’, which is going like hot cakes. Get a copy here

—–

The problem is no longer budget. The problem is no longer access to tools.

The problem is the will to get good at it.

Seth Godin

I have a lot of time for Seth Godin. He writes a blog post everyday and is an incredibly astute thinker.

——

“It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.” Harmsen.

This quote above and the comment below, come from a NY Times article titled Facebook Exodus.

“Unless Facebook begins to offer something real, something tangible for both its users and business clients; unless it begins to offer something that makes a measurable impact on user lives and fills more than just a need to be noticed, it will always be the plain number 1, no mayo, no mustard, no ketchup, no cheese, with a small fry, a small coke and a cheap plastic toy inside.” John, NY, in the comments section.

For the record, I did try Facebook. Twice to be exact. The second, and last time I tried it, I wasted 30-minutes of my life doing…not much.

If the only reason you are using Facebook is to get noticed; to prod someone or to kill some time, then it’s time to disconnect. Go buy a postcard for a friend and write it in a park. Radical idea I know, but receiving a postcard is cool, for the simple fact that so much of our communication with friends, family and colleagues is done via the Internet.

If you are using Facebook to network and grow your business, then make sure it’s real. If it is fake, then to paraphrase Seth Godin, it is nothing more than “a useless distraction”.

My Facebook account is schedule for deletion in the next week or two. RIP.

—–

This is a direct quote from a blog post over at Seth Godin’s site titled: Should this be about school or about learning?

Let’s take this quote and replace ‘learning’ with the word ‘photography’.

School was the big thing for a long time. School is tests and credits and notetaking and meeting standards. Photography, on the other hand, is ‘getting it’. It’s the conceptual breakthrough that permits the student to understand it then move on to something else. Photography doesn’t care about workbooks or long checklists.

When I was studying photography at college, all every one seemed to worry about was getting good grades for their subjects. The rationale being that if you produced good photography, then you would receive a good grade as a result.

The problem though is this: some times as a student you can play it safe, meet the requirements of the brief and still get a good grade.

This is a problem because a big part of studying photography should be taking risks and trying new techniques and new ways of shooting things. Photography courses are the ideal place to do this, because there is no client that you are producing the work for. It is essentially risk free.

Getting great marks is one thing. Experimenting, making mistakes and learning more about photography and technique is something else. It is the ‘getting it’ part of the quote above.

While passing your subjects is important, remember that no client will ever ask for your report card.

A client will ask you for your portfolio.

—–