Professor Xavier's Bat Caves Photographic Fortress of Solitude
The whole idea of this blog is a place where you can relax, learn, ponder, have a laugh and get inspired to suit up for the photographic battles ahead.
A one stop shop for most things photographic upcoming exhibitions, conferences, public lectures, interviews, comical stuff, tutorials and inspirational stuff leaving the rest to blogs that do it much better.
Just search for those key subjects and let the fun begin.
In the age of digital photography with ever lower and lower price points to entry into professional photography, a plethora of free Youtube tutorials that can blow the previously required learning curve to mastery of all things photography from years of hard toil assisting at the hands of jaded and underpaying veteran photogs, to a matter of weeks and free (or relatively cheap) distribution channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Wordpress, Tumblr, Flickr ) has lead to a glut of shoot-and-burn-weekend-warrior-photographers inundating an already overflowing ocean of imagery with cat and food photos. The question then becomes how does a potential client find your work, in a sea of over saturated cat pictures?
you could.....
Spend countless hours courting the editors and contributors to the gatekeepers of the digital age (Reddit [link], Upworthy [link], Buzzfeed [link] Lost at e Minor [link] Arch Daily [link], The Design Files [link], TMZ [link] et al) in a effort to get some of your work to feature in their glossy back light illuminated feeds and provide some much needed inbound link boost to ones Google rank.
.
or......
Buy a bunch of inorganic Facebook likes, Instagram friends or Twitter followers to create pseudo social proof from sketchy companies.
or.....
Create some guaranteed click bait and and include the words what happens next you won't believe!!/what happens next will change your life/what happens next will change who you look at [insert topic of click bait] forever.
or you could just......
Simply feed the Google image search beast with sizable and healthy doses of metadata in cooperation with a Google.+ account.
Why pray should I do this?
A: Google's image search algorithm loves metadata, exif data, alt tags, image titles and file name extensions.
A: It's free. all it cost you is your time which can be optimised using templates.
B: Most people are lazy, including photographers. Most photographers can't be bothered doing any of this, so simply by doing this you are putting yourself in front of all of your competition.
If you don't believe me, then believe this guy, his an expert...
Look much can be said of the benevolence (or lack there of) of Google behind it's motivations and desire for you to be be deeply ingrained in all of it's products. Personally I'm not a fan of biting the hand that feeds me so feeding more and more information about myself until Google knows you even better than I do want I'm going to purchase or search for doesn't seem like such a bad trade off right?
[Look a cute panda!]
Simply by feeding the beast I've got many of my Frank Gehry images in the top 30 images for the search terms of Frank Gehry Abstract when my blogs have less than 2000 hits and on inbound links from any notable gatekeeper let alone any other websites.
Matt Cutts from Google talks about the importance of Meta description tags. If Matt Cutts is talking about it, you know it's important. If in doubt, just ask yourself the question, what would Matt Cutts do?
HOW pray do I go about this ?
Glad you asked. Six things are key
1. Exif Data - Metadata - Key Wording
Why not spend a few minutes doing this, on top of the hours you spent retouching the finely crafted images that nobody will ever see, because you didn't give Google a reason for people to see it. Heck, you can even save yourself a lot of work and just create a template and batch process it, across all the relevant images.
How to do it in Adobe Bridge
in Adobe Light room
In Adobe Photoshop
'
Remember be sure not to tick the remove all ICC profile /data box when you save for web in Photoshop, as it will undo all the good exif data work you have done.
2. The File Name
When saving the image, make sure you include key words describing the image in the file name, using a " - " to separate each word. Avoid making the title too long have no more than six words.
3. Alt Tags, Image Title and Description
Once you import the image into your webpage, blog, Tumblr, it's time to add alt tags, image title and description to it.
How to do it in Wordpress
4. Size of the Image
As far as Google is concerned, bigger is better. Bigger images thus rank higher. Now I know a photographer's worst nightmare is to have an unwatermarked image of theirs snatched from them and plastered on everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs without receiving a cent of compensation from the clear breach of copyright. But just remember for a second you're not Alberto Korda
or this guy
so just take a chill pill. You don't need to put up a full res images just something around the 1000 to 1400 pixels for the long edge will be plenty big.
5. Make Images Pinnable
Whatever you think of Pintrest, there are people using it including magazine editors, architects interior designers, art directors as well as your garden variety bridezillas i.e the very people who are going to buy your iamges and purchase your services. you got to go to where your customers are.
Here is how to do it in Blogspot
6. Have a mug shot via Google +
It's becoming more common, although the odds are, if people are deciding between 10 different sites that Google has spewed up, chances are that they are going to click on the link, with a face beside it or at least goes the theory of social proof. whilst on the topic of social proof having client recommendations of you works just as well so put them up as well .
That is the theory. Here is the practice
I don't think the feature will work as well once everyone has caught onto this trick.
Here is how to make that happen...
In closing....
Remember if all else fails, just heed the dulcet and sultry tones of the SEO rapper
Recently I decided to get my butt into action and go pro (pun fully intended), turning my back on my fauxtographer/shoot'n'burn/tax avoiding brethren. Sad day indeed.
So in the interest of demystifying the transition, so that the gap between the jump doesn't seem so wide and the pit at the bottom of said chasm is filled with fully ducks -more on that later- rather that vipers, red backs and a resurgent Kevin Rudd, I'll pass on my journey step by step.
1. Reality Check, Learning from the Best's Mistakes and Business Plans
There is a saying learn from the best or teach yourself, I would add learn from the mistakes the best have made, rather than making those mistakes yourself. Case in point Zack Arias. Zack has been there and back again. Zack dropped some serious knowledge, like any good mentor in this presentation.
Do yourself a favour and plug your numbers into the NPPA cost of doing business calculator then take a few moments to process all the zeros in the expense column, that is going to have to be matched and hopefully exceeded by the income section. Once you start looking at numbers everything becomes real rather than fluffy ducks, bunny rabbits or puppies.
I'm assuming here that you already have all the gear you need (not the gear that you would want and would love to own or better yet rent it and bill it back to the client), a solid business plan (it's like catnip to successful bank loan applications), the technical skills of photography down pat and are creating some killer imagery that is standing you out from the crowd - like any good purple cow - of photographers, in your local and surrounding area. Although if you need a guide on a business plans here is a good start. All the major Australian banks also have guidelines on Business Plans.
2. Get an Australian Business Number (ABN)
As much fun as it would be, to stay in the cash economy that meth cookers, crack den bosses and tradies call home, to which party, the taxman is not invited to, I decided to take the road more often traveled because:
A: Nothing say I'm a professional, like an ABN on all your business stationary and legal documentation.
B: Businesses that even if they were willing to do business with you would be forced to withhold 46.5% of your pay.
C: If you ever want to do any assisting, retouching or other form of sub contracting - to diversify and increase your income- most of those business will request an ABN from you.
D: It's free!!!
The Australian Taxation Office have streamlined the process so you can Apply for and ABN, ACN, GST and (PayG) withholding and fringe benefits etc all in one go how nice of them at their business portal how nice of them.
Some questions you need to ask of yourself or your CPA accredited tax accountant is what business structure do you want? For me it was as a sole trader for you it may be something else depending on how big you want to grow the company or if you have partners or will require a healthy supple of lowly paid minions (hello PAYG withholding and fringe benefits tax) working offshore to do all the work for you whilst you sip pina coladas on some deserted beach in Bali.
Do you think you are going to earn over 75 grand in a year? Me hell no. Although if so then you need to apply for GST and charge it to clients and what ever you do don't blow that money on an end of year junket to the Maldives.
You need a business address so are you going to work from home or setup a studio to base yourself at (this can always be changed at a later date). So I decided to work from home (which thanks to the parents is rent free). I shoot on location and if I ever need to see a client Mohammad can go to the mountain.
If you plan to work from home just check with your local council about any potential planning laws that may involve you from parking, noise levels to hours of operation etc.
3. Get an Australian Business Name
You don't need to get one, although if you don't want to trade under your own name i.e Tim Macauley Photography, you will have to take out an Australian registered business name, through The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) website. Although this is not free :(. $AU76 bucks for three years or $AU33 for a year, if you just want to just dip your toes in the water.
4. Get a Business Bank Account
Another old saying goes never mix business with pleasure. I'm sure whomever said it, was thinking about setting up a business bank account, at the time. In short, it makes it easier to balance the books and come tax time know what was business expenses and personal expenses, if you are a sole trader and have to include both on your personal income tax return. Additionally having a dedicated bank account gives you a clearer sense of how your business is going financially.
This can be done through either the bank that you currently do your personal banking through or if you really want to shop around for the best range of services, at the lowest price, then by all means choose someone else. I just set my up with the Commonwealth Bank, since I already do my personal banking there.
5. Fill the Bank Account with Money and Proceed to Spend/invest it wisely...
Best part of spending money on business expenses is most of it is tax deductible just speak with your CPA accredited tax account to find out just how much. Tied into this is keeping track of the income and expenses otherwise known as accounting the Australian Tax Office is a great resource for best practice on the matter of record keeping.
6. Get a Domain, Hosting and Design a Website
I went with Go Daddy because it's a one-stop-shop and for me that makes life easier although I'm sure you could find things a bit cheaper, if you looked for the best deal on each separately. Plus some website templates are free on the interwebs so you could save some additional money there by not having to design the website.
I took out both the .com and .com.au domain and then use domain forwarding to refer from one site to the other. Given that I am operating my photography business in Australia, having the .com.au signals to clients that is where I am focused.
The Go Daddy website templates are quite varied and once I selected a template, the editor was word processor like in nature -no html in sight- and relative intuitive to use, when altering the look and content.
Some pointers with designing your website:
- Website Screen Size Resolution
Choose the screen size resolution everything you put on the page flows from this then size all your images and content relative to that. I wanted my website to look good on a laptop screen without any scrolling so sized it accordingly taking into account the screen real estate taken up by browser buttons and the windows start menu strip. end result was 1079x748 but you may want it optimised for bigger screens most creatives don't view a website on a small resolution screen.
- Resizing and Saving Images for Web
Resize all your images rather than letting the code in a photo gallery do it for you. This will greatly reduce the time required to download the image.
When saving images in Photoshop, use the save for web option. Nobody wants to be staring at a blank screen whilst your megabyte heavy images are loading. It's amazing how much you can crunch an image, before you start to see compression artifacts and image degradation.
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Listen to anything Matt Cutts has to say. He works for Google. He knows the Google Algorithm, better than anyone talking smack about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on the interwebs.
Ditto for anything Steve Souders from Google says
- Test the Website
Test it for.....
Spelling and Grammar (man my first draft was rough, as a number of reviewers noted).
Download speeds.
All the links work (both internal and external links).
Easy to use. Nobody got lost on the way.
How it renders in different browsers, on different resolution screens.More people are accessing websites through smart phones so check that out as well.
7. Setup Google Analytics
“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.”
~ H. James Harrington
Amen to that. Google Analytics is the answer to your measurement prayers.
8. Register for Google Webmaster Tools
Do this, to make sure Google will actually crawl and index your website, in a more timely manner and fashion.
9. Profile Pic as Pseudo Social Proof
It's becoming more common, although the odds are, if people are deciding between 10 different sites that Google has spewed up, chances are that they are going to click on the link, with a face beside it or at least goes the theory of social proof. whilst on the topic of social proof having client recommendations of you works just as well so put them up as well .
That is the theory. Here is the practice
I don't think the feature will work as well once everyone has caught onto this trick.
Here is how to make that happen...
10. Business cards
There is no point printing business cards, unless you have a website on a personal domain, with an associated email address for that domain, if you want to appear anything other than professional. a Tumblr/Flicker/Deviant Art/Photobucket address, with a Hotmail/Gmail email account, doesn't quite give off the same vibe.
The argument can be made, that if you have made a genuine connection with someone, you'll remember who they and vice verse, or put their details into your phone and hence no reason for printing cards in the first place. Business cards are just so impersonal. Although, given how cheap they are produce a stack of 500, when the chance, that a single sale hinged on the fact of the person trying to remember who you are, it's already paid for itself.
Associated with the business card is the elevator pitch.
Here is mine only cut down to 15 seconds and used more as an introduction that selling something:
"Hi I'm Tim. I graduated from the BA(Photography) at RMIT a couple of years ago. I mainly focus on abstraction of architecture and other inanimate objects when I'm not geeking out as an engineer."
If you introduce yourself first, it shows that you are confident enough to approach people you don't know. People like confidence just ask any woman. The RMIT part shows both that I've studied and have some knowledge depth in photography. This gives people a chance to ask you an expert question they have about thier own photography to keep the conversation going). The abstraction of architecture gives them something definitive about you that they can further elaborate one like "Oh my uncle is an architect....". The inanimate objects part is ill defined and gives the respond-er an opportunity to clarify it "so what kind of inanimate objects...?
11. Insurance
Before you take a paying job, get insurance first. Work out what insurance coverage you actually need (and what you are preparing to risk, not to take), to save you money on paying for things you don't actually need. Plus if you join the, National Association for the Visual Arts, there are membership deals with insurance coverage included.
At the very least you will need public liability insurance, no matter if you shoot in a studio, or out in the field.
It's not a good look if you deliver an invoice to a client scrawled in red sharpie, on the side of a cow with your terms and conditions on the other side. Although this would be somewhat amusing, as a novelty cheque. Dido for:
Invoices (if you are not GST registered) and Tax Invoices (if you ware registered for GST)
If there is one area of advice worth paying for it's legal, preferable well before, you actually need it. Lowensteins Arts Management is a good place to start, using both accountants and lawyers who specialise in the creative and design fields. Legal documents should always be water tight.
14. Folio
You should really have had a body of work built up by the time you need to put the folio together, with each presentation of the folio varied slightly depending on the client. The general rule is only present your best work. no more than say 50 images for a printed folio and in digital no more than 15 images. the work should be varied if you only have 50 images all of the same model from the same shoot then probably time to get out there and shoot other models in other cloths in other locations.
Basically the folio comes in four flavours that can be deployed depending on the situation:
- Web Version
This will typically be peoples first port of call to viewing your work the work if they hear about you from someone else and Google your name or follow-up on that business card you gave them the day before (see tip No.10). The work you show in your physical or tablet version should be different to what they see on your website to give them some added value and can go into more depth than either of those allows.
-Smart Phone Version
The thing I love about smart phones is that you can have your folio on there and just bring it straight into a conversation, when people ask what you do for a living or what you love doing.
- Tablet Version
In relative terms the best bang for your buck based on how many different series of images you want to put on there to tailor it to the client you are showing it to. Plus if they bring up another theme you can just open up another folder on the fly not something you can do with a physical folio In my case using a iPad but there are much cheaper tablets out there that do the same job.
- Physical version
A physical folio is going to set you back some serious dough although when you see the finished product from mobs like Irwin and McLaren [link] the buyer's remorse subsides pretty quickly. Humans are both tactile and visual, so when you combine those two things, it can be a magical experience, viewing a physical folio. If you are serious about getting represented by an agent then this is the price of admission, something they can present to potential clients. Like any good book the first and last image have the greatest impact and there is no room for o.k images to slip in it should be crème de la crème all the way with a subtle rhyme and spacing that all adds to telling a story of who you are as a photographer.
15. Hustle
Don't expect the business to come to you. You have to go after the business. Now with everything in place, start to hit the pavement and meet face to face, with your potential clients. Build relationships up with the people you identified as potentially in need of your photographic services and learn to love the gatekeeper
Build your brand by winning competitions, creating or featuring in magazine articles and ads, create some visually viral content comment on social media or a flash mob. Basically be present where your customers are both in the virtual and real world and god forbid start up a conversation. So get out there and hustle.
I'm still working on that part ....
I'm sure I missed a few steps or glossed over others. So feel free to comment and fill in the gaps. Also what are other peoples elevator pitches?
Over the years I come to a few realisations, many of which were learnt the hard way (see Law No.3). This is my attempt to smooth the road for others to come, with a series of immutable laws, I've yet to be able to find evidence to the contrary, feel free to prove me wrong because that's the way science works. As with all natural laws of the universe, take what is useful and pass the rest onto someone else, who will.
Law No.1 Most people don't and some do. So make your choice, I dare you!
William H. Danforth in his book I Dare You![link] said that 95% of people will be "content to go along their own way". 4% will move into the "higher leadership level" and 1% to the "kingly" level (granted the book was written in the 1930's when women were pushed aside and written out of history (I'm sure he would have used a different term in our modern times)). The 1% been those who 'will never be held down until every unused capacity has been marshaled for service'. Danforth argued it was the habits and hard work of the top 5%, that separated them from the other 95%, who reached a comfortable plateau, with no intention of rocking the boat any further. Danforth dared people to become one of the 1%. Yes, yes I understand mathematically if everyone took up his challenge, then we would be more like the 100%, much like if everyone went squirrel suiting all the time, it would seem just pedestrian, instead of insane.
As the old saying by JFK goes [link], "a rising tide, floats all boats" (that don't have leaks in them and which have yet to sink from said hole). So, by everyone upping their game JFK style, it forces the 5% to up there's and to stand of the shoulder of meta-giants [link], so the cycle of self perpetuating social stratification towards a beneficial Utopian society continues (anomalies such as Miley Cyrus twerking [link] not withstanding but having said that, she certainly one upped Madonna in those stakes, so the theory still holds tight). Sometimes it takes a unwavering self belief to be in the 5%, even when the odds are against you.
"The 95% see the obstacles the 5% see the objective." ~ William H Danforth I Dare You! was published back in the 1930's and little has changed over the intervening to years, to disprove the 95/4/1 law. Why? Because most people are lazy, choose the path of least resistance or have a crack, but quit when things get tough, as Steve Jobs put it well.
On the subject of underused potential Gandhi put it well " The Difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems." I guess it's the same as saying 'just think! you could feed the world a few times over just from the food that we let go to waste and throw away.
If you apply the 90/9/1 approach to social media [link], roughly 90% consume content without ever creating it, you know all those people stalking you on Facebook.....9% make some contribution to the discussion i.e they may comment or join a thread on a forum and the rest generate the content. Thus, the 1% of people who generate the content become the ones people consume. Yeah I know, cruel world. That person just wrote that tutorial and doesn't have any clue about what they are talking about but people are taking it as gospel. This raises issues of whether those who are creating, are really the best people to be doing so (refer to law No.3 learn from the best or teach yourself). Hopefully through, in the sea of mediocrity, the cream will rise to the top or as they say in the digital age, the signal from the noise.
So long story short, if you want to be consumed then you have to create, rather than trolling online forums, flaming the living hell out of it's inhabitants, having a go at those, who are. Which leads me onto the second law.......
Law No.2 Do stuff. Do great stuff and put it out there.
I have found opportunities do not come to those who wait. They are captured by those who attack.........Start something! Break a window, if necessary ~ William H Danforth.
Maybe Mark Zuckerberg picked up a copy of I Dare You! a few years back, before he came up with the Facebook Motto 'move fast (which also feeds into the 80/20 rule [link] but I digress) and break things', although the Nike slogan of 'just do it', puts it a little more succinctly, with less criminal overtones.
There is no better time in this world to be creating stuff and getting it out to a global audience. Whilst there are still gatekeepers (although who the gate keepers are have certainly shifted (hello fashion bloggers getting front row seats at Paris fashion week [link])) to pass, to get wider distribution, the time is now, as Moby puts it, so play rather than procrastinate.
or a more photographic take by Zack Arias
A college friend of mine Marita talked about the approach of her organisation Robogals to getting things done.
"There is no secret sauce to our program. We just go out there and do it." ~ Marita Cheng
Enough Said.
Become makers, rather than just consumers. I realise the paradox will arise that to create we have to consume and if all you are doing is creating then at the same time one must be consuming, so I guess we'll have to come back to that one at a later stage, but you get the point.
So do stuff. But what stuff pray tell? Stuff that you find engaging and are good enough at that will help ensure that it's of a high quality (following laws No.3, No.5 and No.10 ) and keep you pushing through all the rejection you are going to face (law No.7). Vincent LaForet had to ask seven times, to be rejected six times, to take the yet as unreleased 5D mark II out for a spin. What would have happened had he taken no for an answer the first time (Note: there are definitely times when no means no but that is an issue for another blog post)? Reverie [link] probably would have still been made, but would had been the 400th indy cinematographer to post up their short, shot with it and gotten lost in the digital noise. He was at the right time (video was easily and distributed on the Internet by that time), he had access to equipment few had (so he was one of the the first in the door) and had a quality video to show as a result with a small team of three people including himself. All that combined and the rest is history. Canon within a week, had more hits on that video, than the whole hits on their website had for the entire year.
In the sea of mediocrity (if anyone knows the term for that which is ruled by the one who publishes the most let me know as mediocrity doesn't quit hold work as well), only that which is rises to the top. Everyone is searching for the next viral hit for procrastination purposes (see Law No.1), so if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it did it still fall? Much like Schroeder's cat people have to see it or else your fine work is going to live in the fuzzy world of superpostition.
So where do you put it out to? It depends on what your ultimate goal is, as to the destination of your finely crafted work. Half the battle in life is finding those people that your work resonates with. You don't have to have everyone in the world enamoured with your work, just enough so that you can live the life that you want to (refer to Law No.11).
The process of getting your stuff out there will typically involve getting harshly judged/flamed (if by anyone else other than you family (which will most likely do it behind your back anyway)). Haters gonna hate [link] (see law No.7). So once you figure out your various target markets, hangout where they hang out, both online and offline. Create genuine connections, feed into their desires. basically network (see Law No.11). and over time you will build up a loyal following if you remember to align you personal goals with that of theirs. A friend once told me that everything is done out of self interest, when I went on a tangent about altruism. I had a think about it and couldn't come up with an argument or example to disprove it. If what you care about, is what others also care about, then it's a win win situation.
In summation, make stuff, make great stuff. Find people who like your stuff, such as to purchase it from you and then repeat.
Law No.3 Learn from the best or teach yourself
Never trust the middle person. Take everything with a grain of salt, then combine it all together in a way that rings true to yourself. Take what is useful, then pass what remains onto someone, who would find it of more use. Another way of putting it, is a smart person learns from their own mistakes. A wise person learns from the mistakes of others.
Here are just a few:
Chase Jarvis Live [link] whatever you think of his interview skills, the quality of his work or the motivations for doing what his doing you can't deny the quality of the people he is interviewing so soak it all up.
Many a book. I'll refer you onto my previous articles on the must read books in photography [link]
Somewhat contravening Law No.4, the seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey works so much better in musical form
Whilst Guy Kawalski isn't Steve Jobs, he knew Steve Jobs and that is more than enough for me
If you wanted to start up a business here are a few guiding principles sans Tony Robbins' NLP inspired state transference inducing enthusiasm via Zack Arias
Tied in with this, is the old saying, that an education is something that nobody can take away from you. Once you have read widely, studied hard, then stop, so that you can do. which leads onto law No.4.
If you are motivated enough to walk down the street to your local book store to buy a book on motivation, then you probably don't need it in the first place. If you purchased it off amazon, then read on. It was probably a wise investment.
Tony Robbins [link], every pickup artist that followed Mystery [link], all gyms and many photographers who are now diversifying the business into the educational realm via podcasts,DVDs and workshops rely heavily on the same common denominator for capital generation, underutilised memberships and buying into their product that has you as the willing linchpin. If they made a dollar from everyone that actually followed through on their advice and used their services, they would be driving around in second hand, 3 door Toyota yaris' [link] instead of Porsche 911's [link]. They rely on the fact you'll rather not stop watching, compared with actually making the effort to take action and hence have no reason to buy the next latest and greatest product, they bring out, because you are too busy actually doing and making shit.
The economists like to call it opportunity cost, i.e the cost that one incurs by choosing to do one thing over the other. If you spent all day watching/reading/listening motivational videos/books/podcast then you fore go the opportunity to create stuff.
You can watch motivational videos until you are blue in the face, but at the end of the day, you have to get off the couch (unless of course you have a tablet, with a relevent creative software on it, in which case stay right where you are).
So in a nutshell No more....
or.......
or........
and sadly also no more Kid President pep talks :(
because the answer is within yourself not in some 'guru'.
Law No.5 It takes time and concerted effort
Nobody was born out of the womb a world beater. It takes time. Had Lance Armstrong not even been on the juice, it still involved putting in a shit tonne of miles. He couldn't lay off for three weeks before a race, eating enough In-N-Out cheese burgers [link] to make Elvis circa 1975, look like a catwalk model, whilst vicariously living through reruns of Welcome Back Kotter[link], then proceeding to spend idle hours in the wee night discussing on Internet forums, if it had indeed jumped the shark [link], have a blood transfusion the next day, then rock up at the starting line, before proceeding to smash it up Mont Ventoux [link]. It just doesn't happen.
No. It takes according to Malcom Gladwell as part of his 2009 book Outliners (and pretty much anyone else if you ask them(excluding Tim Ferriss)) 10,0000 hours to get towards some stage of mastery of any given skill. If you want to do the math, spending one hour a day for seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, that would take 27.5 years to master something (the number does tend to look a bit better when you are talk 4 hours a day (only 6.9 years), besides raising the whole question of choosing wisely in what you want to master in, as time is kind of a limiting factor in life.
and Tim Ferriss tearing it all apart in less than 4 hours....
The harder I practise the luckier I get. Whilst the origin of the adage is hard to determine [link] the take away is not.
Breaking it down even futher, just doing something each day that moves you further towards your goal, as Drew Barrymore said is sage advice (go to around 41:00)
If you want a photographers take on it, Zack Arias puts it well in his transform video "well Avedon sucked. Karsh sucked. Adams sucked. Mary Ellen sucked. Coward sucked. Jarvis sucked. Every photographer in all of history, was a horrible photographer at some point in time." The point is they sucked, but they got good, because they continually worked on it, in a way few others did. They were not super human, they put in the 10,000+ hours.
In a world where instant gratification and validation is only a button away there seems to be a focus on appearing or projection of actually doing stuff rather than focusing on doing the hard yards many of which will never get a . Forget been and focus on doing the hard yards. This is clearly explained in the great 'Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy[link]' article. Basically we want it all and we want it now, rainbow spewing unicorns included. It's kind of like the difference between William H. Danforth's version of daring and the Double Dare version . One takes hard work, over an extened period of time. The other slight levels of physical exertion, over a short peroid of time and in the process aquiring 15 minutes of national syndicationalised fame and the associated instrant gratification ( well as least as the live audience was concerned) which upon returning to the school ground -after the showed aired several months after taping- resulted in high fives all round. The fastfood, of the processed food spectrum.
Law No.6 Fear exists. Deal with it
Fear can stop one from doing any number of things, that one has anxiety over, from actually making work, showing work, talking to people about your work or striking up a conversation with clowns.
Overcoming fear is easier said that done because often it is irrational, unless in reference to clowns. Really what's the worst that can happen? Take a bit-o-honey and ask yourself what's the worst that can happen? If the answer is, I have to hack my wrist off with a small pocket knife because it's jammed between a rock and a hard place ala Aaron Ralston, then maybe it might be a bit harder.....
although most other things, the perception of the risk is actually greater that the actual risk. This once again is all fine in theory but another thing to put into action. Let me know how that goes. Tim Ferriss has a good way of dealing with it here are his tips
Law No.7 Welcome to the world of rejection. Population you and the other 5%
If it doesn't happen tomorrow, it will happen. Thankfully you are not alone. You can't change the reaction of others, if in the negative, only your reaction to their reaction. Often you'll never actually get the chance or courage to find out why your work or proposal was rejected, but don't take it personally, it's just business. Unfortunately the only videos I could find with dealing with rejection was in relation to relationships, so feel free to replace [potential female/male partner with potential art dealer/art director]
This isn't to say that the 95% have not faced rejection, only that the 5% have faced a lot more of it (and we are not talking on a per capita basis).
As mentioned previously Vincent Laforet faced it, as has every other photographer or anyone else who wanted to get permission, or showed their work. You can take it one of two ways; haters gonna hate and move on, or This is just a rejection for now but not a forever rejection come back in a month with some new work and maybe things will be different. Alternatively you could just sending them passive aggressive emails for the next three or so months in the hope that they will change there mind. Guess how many movie studios George Lucas was rejected from when he pitched Star Wars or how many book publishers J. K. Rowling visited before Harry Potter, was a house hold name? In answer in both cases, more than one.You know what? Vincent, Lucas, Rowling and yourself are in good company......
If all else fails, just remember you can always just be f**king awesome as Julian Smith would say [link]
Associated with and often accompanying rejection, is a sense of failure. So onto law No.8
Law No.8 Failure is acceptable. It's called trying
There is an old saying good news travels fast. The flip side of that idiom coin is that bad news typically doesn't. Remember that time you were curled up, balling your eyes out, in a foetal position, because a girl rejected you (Note: this in no way reflects my personal experience I have had. Clearly I'm a stud)? Yeah, I remember that. Why does nobody else? Oh that's right I never updated my Facebook status relating that fact to the rest of the known world (i.e my cirle of freinds and friends of friends (as I can't quite remember as of writing what my privacy settings are in relation to my status)). Plenty of people have failed, but kept going and persevering through self belief and hard work (see Law No.5).
Failure really needs to be reframed, as something that is positive, rather than a negative. Hell, it should be celebrated! Bring on the I-just-dropped-10-million-on-the-stock-market-with-money-that-wasn't-mine keg party!
"There is no such thing as failure only opportunity to learn" as Mark Sparks would say [link]. Solid reframe Mark, Solid Reframe.
Law No.9 Know your limitations
Dirty Harry put it best, when he said a "mans as got to know his limitations."
Know the limitation of your camera and other gear you are using, know the limitations of your printer, the software you are using, the screen you are softproofing on, the paper you are printing on. Know their limitations. How do you find their limitations? Read the instruction manual, then push it 20% or until failure (see Law No.8)
Get to know yourself. What are your limitations? What buttons do you have? What are you prepared to do? What are you not prepared to do? Why think about all this? So you can surround yourself with people who fill in those gaps and love doing the things you don't enjoy doing. If post production sucks, balancing the accounting books is like a visit to the dentist, creating a smick looking folio is like learning a foriegn language or shopping it around to art buyers directors is sucking the life out of you, hand it off to someone who loves it. A cavet on this; make sure they are smarter people than yourself. People, who push you to be a better person and see those things that you can't and enjoy the feeling of been humbled.
Jim Rohn coined the phrase you are the sum of the 5 people you interact with the most [link], I think that is pretty right. If you want to be better and grow, then surround yourself with people better than yourself. Having said that, why would someone better than you want to hang out with you in the first place once again a catch 22 situation another unsolved paradox (see Law No.11)?
Once you know the limitations, that is when you can begin to hack the system.
Law No.10 Think Different
"People will dress differently, think differently, live differently. Are you leaders going to sit back and wait for yourselves to be adapted to these conditions? Or, are you going to be one of those who help bring about these changes" ~ William H. Danforth.
Once again, I think maybe Steve jobs also got passed a copy of I Dare You!, when he asked us to think diffently
This was something that always applied to me.Whereever all the other photographers were, I would find another position, because if nothing else, I had a shot that nobody else had.
Think differently as Steve Job would say or be like a purple cow as Seth Godin would put it [link], or a more Jarvisian take "don't be better be different."
Law No.11 Network, Network, Network
"I dare you to develop the fine art of finding, making and keeping friends by genuine giving of your time and personality to others. Look for the best in people . learn to like people. Find out what they are interested in." ~ William H. Danforth
I went a lecture series at the NGV that Julia Zamiro [link] was MCing and giving the opening talk. What I took away from the talk, was an anecdote about her time working as an actor in the States. She was at a party and was surprised how superficial the world and interactions were around her as well as the ones she had. everyone was doing something but doing noting but virtue of looking busy as if talking on there phone to a non-existent person on the other end. Everyone was talking about what they were doing, how busy they were and the next big thing they were doing. To break through the facade she decided to just state the facts. When it came around her turn to talk saying something along the lines of 'well actually I don't have any work and the moment and I'm a bit worried'. It broke the ice from which a real friendship could be built and often people could then relax and say that the case was the same for them.
Another book published in the 1930's alongside I Dare You! was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie [link] until neuro linguistic programming took over with the likes of Tony Robbins
Zack Arias take on networking is well worth the investment in time
Figure out who your customers are, then get to know your customers. Go to the places where your customers hangout online (forums, facebook pages, twitter) and offline conventions, association meetings etc
Find those who are the decision makers, the gate keepers, the people who the gate keeps seek advice from and then the people who know the people who advise the gate keepers. Basically 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.....
These days instead of following the yellow brick road you need to follow the pulse [link].
Law No.12 Remember the Sunscreen
If all else fails just remember to wear sunscreen.
