Photography

Isolation in the Modern Age: Green Bubbles

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This might seem like a weird thing to blog about, but it was so traumatic for me that it needs to be done. This entire blog will be to tell you about my horrible experience switching to a Galaxy S9+ recently. The funny thing is, it’s a great phone, and it has a great camera (which is big reason why I switched) but man, I didn’t know how terrible it would be to go back to Android after being with Apple. Let me tell you why.

Warning: This next paragraph might be offensive to Mac users.

Photo Credit Adam Andres Pawlikiewicz

Photo Credit Adam Andres Pawlikiewicz

Let me start with a little backstory and some interesting facts you might not know. For starters, I work on PC, almost exclusively, in fact I am writing this on a PC (I know, I know, just take a deep breath and keep reading). My laptop is a PC. I have a MacBook Pro, but I don’t use it and it’s old. I actually bought a Mac out of peer pressure, because that’s what “creatives” use, but I realized quickly that it didn’t matter, and I could build a PC for way cheaper than a Mac. That being said I might have just lost a ton of readers, but oh well, that’s the long and short of it. I think Mac is great, but I’ve never had a problem with my PC, and with all the stuff I have in this PC it would cost me over $4k with Mac, I haven’t even hit $2k with all the upgrades.

OK, let’s get to the meat of this blog. A few years ago my wife and I decided to try iPhones, everyone said they were awesome, and so we decided to give it the ol’ college try. They were great, I have nothing against iPhone…they had been really reliable as far as things go. Recently though, I became a little tired of the lack of compatibility and flexability that iPhones have. In a brash moment of stupidity, I researched phones and bought a Samsung Galaxy S9+. Really cool, and as I said earlier the camera system was getting great reviews, which is what I use it for most. It seemed like a win win, but there was no winning involved, it was very much lose lose.

Frankly, getting the phone going was rough. I bought an unlocked phone, and the SIM card from my iPhone didn’t work (shocker). I ordered another SIM card, which actually took a while to get. Once I got the new SIM card I switched everything over and had the horrific realization that if someone had an iPhone and I texted them I would not get the return text. It was going to my iPhone, on iMessage. The solution? After calling the phone company and researching online, I was told to text everyone who had an iPhone and switch my phone to text message only. That’s where it started, sending out a shameful little green bubble to hundreds of people publicly proclaiming that I don’t have an iPhone anymore.

Photo Credit Adam Andres Pawlikiewicz

Photo Credit Adam Andres Pawlikiewicz

Great, text message problem solved. I was good to go! Wrong. After that came some really bad realizations. First of all, I send images to people all the time, and I have people send me images and videos regularly, especially BTS from my assistants. I also send my wife a lot of photos and get a lot of photos/videos from her. I couldn’t do any of that any more, I didn’t get most of the photos, I couldn’t send photos or videos to iPhones because they were to big, and videos from other people came through as tiny pixelated movies that you could barely see, if they came through at all. On a positive note, there is something called Samsung Share (which is like iMessage for Samsung) so you can share stuff with all your Samsung pals! Oh wait, I only know three people who have Android phones and only two of them are Samsung.

That was the beginning of the end for me, I completely took for granted how many people have iPhones and what that means. There is an actual end though. It happened when we realized my wife couldn’t have the kids send me voice messages, and as I was walking her through downloading something in place of FaceTime while I was trying to say good night to the kids on set. I was getting ready for two big trips and this was definitely the straw that broke the camels back.

This might sound dramatic, and frankly this whole blog post is just a giant 1st world problem rant about how a big baby had to buy another phone, but it was genuinely isolating. It was as if I couldn’t communicate with people, especially my family and other people in my industry. It was terrible, and never once in all of my research did I see it mentioned that switching to Android would make it so you really can’t communicate the same way.

You could think of this blog as a review for people thinking about switching from iPhone to Android, I mean, A LOT of people said they were thinking about it when I switched. I can tell you now with great certainty that you shouldn’t switch, not if you’ve been on iPhone for any length of time. I was literally discovering things almost every day that either wouldn’t work or need a new app to work so I could do seemingly normal things.

How does this story end? With me shamefully walking into the Apple store and buying another iPhone. Let me tell you, if you think new cars don’t hold their value (which they don’t) new phones are even worse. I sold my Samsung for $340, after using it for 2 months, I lost almost $400. On top of that, I had to spend almost $900 on the new iPhone…I’m not great at math, but it wasn’t good. My advice, just be happy with what you have: I have an iPhone and I’m happy with that.



Defy Burnout - Part 1

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INTRO

Hopefully you’ve noticed by now there are a couple new taglines floating around my brand: “Defy Mediocracy” and “Visuals for the Victorious”. My reasoning behind Defy Mediocracy was simple, I’m tired of people settling for good enough. We all know the saying “everyone gets a trophy”, well I don’t agree with that. Some people get trophies, the people who actually win. Before you log off this blog thinking “this guys a dick, I like getting free trophies” let me explain. Our market, photo/video, is saturated with crap. Scroll through Instagram, there is a lot of really bad imagery out there. If we’re being honest with ourselves, those people will not get hired. No trophies. If you don’t care about your clients you will not get hired. No trophies. If you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, and don’t deliver a high quality product in the timeline you were given, you won’t get hired again, or you’ll get fired. You get to polish one trophy forever, have fun with that. No matter what our culture tells us, we don’t all get trophies, and if someone gives you a trophy for nothing, you should give it back…you don’t want trophies like that.

 
 

Wow, that was a long intro, well it’s my set up for a series of blogs I am calling DEFY. I want to take a look at certain things that hold us back and talk about how I DEFY them. I don’t want you to settle for good enough, or getting meaningless rewards. I want you to WIN. Despite what people say, there are winners and there are losers, the first time you bid a big job and another photographer gets it instead of you, I won’t need to explain this. It sucks.

Let’s get started!

DEFY BURNOUT!

When I first started working in the photo industry I remember my boss at Sugar Digital telling me this was a “high burnout” industry, and they did everything they could to keep people happy and refreshed. In my naive inexperience I thought “I’ll never burn out, this is my dream!”, like I said, naive. It wasn’t more than a year later that I was hurting to do something else, anything else! It wasn’t my boss, or the job, it was that I felt uninspired and lost. I ended up going back to my career in scuba diving (that’s another conversation) and I kept doing my own photo/retouching work on the side. I did this for a while, often working 70-100 hrs a week to meet all my deadlines and manage a store. It’ll come as no surprise I found myself burned out again, and finally was able to quit my scuba job to become a full time free lancer.

There you have it, I quit my job, became a full time freelance photographer and I never struggled with burn out or inspiration ever again! JK, it was worse. Shortly after I quit we found out we had another kiddo on the way (we already had a 1 yo at home). I can’t totally explain the pressure I felt, scratch that, the pressure I feel. I’m the sole provider for our family, if I don’t make money we don’t have dinner, we lose our house and other horrible things that I don’t like to think about!

This is what you call a petri dish, a place where you grow bacteria…not the good kind. It’s the environment where burn out grows. As a result of the self imposed pressure I was working 70-100 hrs a week consistently, often working 7 days a week. This leads to my first point for fighting burn out: DON’T WORK 7 DAYS A WEEK. It’s soul sucking, it’s scientifically proven and it’s just not good for you. Lez be honest, I still have to do this sometimes, but after the crazy schedule I build in time off to compensate. It’s a different kind of tired, it’s exhaustion, and you will not be the creative person you always dream of being when you feel like this!

 
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This leads me to my next thought, and that’s to HAVE SOME SORT OF SCHEDULE. I fought this for a long time, I thought “there’s no off hours when you’re a freelancer!”. Being honest again, that’s kind of true, but you also have control over how available you are. I tend to work from around 7 am - 6 pm Mon-Fri, and as needed on Saturdays. I try to avoid working on Sundays like the plague, that’s our day, that’s my time. I don’t even do social media on Sundays, and I try really hard not to use my phone as little as possible. I would also highly recommend letting your family know those hours, especially if you work from home. Let them know that “if daddy can focus on his work he will be able to be done faster and hang out!”. I use this kind of language all the time with my kids, that way they understand that I can be more efficient with my time if I’m not bouncing my attention from one thing to the next.

Bouncing…that’s a good segue. I grew up with this idea that “you need to learn how to MULTI-TASK”, that’s wrong. I still struggle to overcome this idea. It’s not multi tasking, it’s called inefficient. I have learned a lot about this over the years, and in a nut shell you’re brain is struggling to jump from one thing to the next, therefore making everything mediocre. It also trains your brain to under perform, so don’t do that. How does this relate to burn out? Two reasons. First, if you multi task you’ll get half as much done in twice the time. It’ll feel like you’re SUPER BUSY, and you are, but not in a good way. You’ll feel like you’re always behind, and you never finish what you start, these are very defeating emotions. Secondly, it makes for a messy brain. When you’re mind is always jumping around and can’t focus on something it’s very hard to be creative. When you can’t feel creative it’s easy to feel discouraged, which leads to faster burn out…because you’re busy all the time doing things you don’t want to do…and you’re doing them poorly!

This is a long topic for me, and I think I will make this a two part blog in the name of digestibility. I want you to know that this is a long because I have a lot of experience with burn out! Mine is greatly self inflicted, and I still struggle with it all the time. I just hope that in some small way my struggles can help you find the light in your own. Next week I will finish this blog with a few more tips and thoughts!

Until then I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR HOW YOU FIGHT BURN OUT IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

DEFY MEDIOCRACY

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Behind the Image - Lisbeth Splawn

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We recently had the pleasure of working with Model and Actress Lisbeth Splawn. The goal was to create moody, vintage portraits with a Dan Winters meets Aaron Anderson look. If you aren't familiar with Dan Winters work I would highly recommend you take a look at his website: www.danwintersphoto.com
 

One of the great and unique parts of this shoot is the DIY aspect. Both the background and table were made specifically for this shoot, and I'll talk a little bit about how it's done in the video. Check out the videos below and see how it's made, then keep scrolling to see the final images from this shoot! 

Thank you guys for following and if you have any questions don't hesitate to shoot me a message...until next time, be awesome!

New Tutorial Series!

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I am happy to announce the launch of the first video in the beginning of a series on composite photography! I am starting with the basic tools that you will need in Photoshop and in the studio, and then taking you all the way through an actual shoot that we'll turn into a composite. They'll be in bite size pieces that you can use independently, but you will also be able to watch them in order to learn each step of the process. 

Without further delay here is the first video on the pen tool and creating paths in Photoshop!

If you have any questions just shoot them over in the comment section, either here or on YouTube and I will do my best to get to them! These will be launching over the next couple of months, and our next video will talk about selections and refining masks. Stay tuned go be awesome!

Ideas on Social Media

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I recently had a conversation with a friend about social media, in fact it wasn't the first time I've had this conversation in recent history, so I thought it might be of use to talk about some of the things I am doing to grow, maintain and use the following I have. Let me be the first to say these probably aren't original ideas, but they are compiled ideas that seem to have worked for me. I'll try to keep it brief and useful!

1. Brand yourself - If you went to Art School you probably had this rammed down your throat, like I did. If you were anything like me you said it was stupid and a that you could do ANYTHING! Well, turns out I was wrong. People (especially agencies and art directors) want to see who you are, and that's really hard to do if you don't have consistent branding. All I can say is find your style, your look, your feel, whatever you want to call it, and hang on like your life depended on it! I should know it's you, they should know it's you...we should all know it's you, without having to check the name.

2. Post Consistently - I have found that posting between 7 am and 8 am every day is the best time for me. If I miss that window then I will typically wait until the evening to post, all those tired people getting off work like to scroll through an endless sea of photos...it reminds them of the desk job they left. Please notice that I said EVERY day, and yes it's a lot of work. Sure, I will miss a day from time to time, but for the most part I wake up and post first thing. (I woke up at 4:30 today and I started getting my posts ready, no joke.) You might be saying "What the heck am I supposed to post every day?!" That's kind of dependent on your brand and what you do, but there are a million ways to post stuff, like BTS, Gif's, Videos, your work or work in progress...the list goes on and on, and yes you will need to be creative. I find that I am typically either creating work, planning work, shooting work or retouching work...all of those can be posted with an image. When I am planning work I typically will find inspiration to use in the mood board, this can also be posted (see point #6) Sometimes you might even throw a selfie in there...or not.

3. Have a Purpose - I think the black hole of social media happens when you don't know why you're there, and I'll give you a hint, it isn't to waste time and avoid work you should be doing. Social media is a tool that should be used to gain exposure to the people you want to work for and with. If you really think about it, we have access to an audience that the photographers before us never had, EVERYONE! You used to have to pay thousands of dollars to put your pictures in print so that Art Directors and Agencies would see your work, now you can send them a tweet for free. It's said that it takes more than 7 times having your face/work in front of someone for them to have a chance of remembering you, today it's way way easier, but I would say you need to be in front of them even more than 7 times because of all the noise. 

4. Know your audience - This point is definitely not original, but it ties directly into the point above. One of the most depressing thoughts is to send out a tweet, instagram, etc and just be hoping that someone special might see it. I spend time researching and following potential clients, even creating work just to send their way. It's a lot of work, it takes a lot of time, but it's worth it. One of the most pertinent sites for this is Linked In, and I will give you a cheat for that in a minute.

5. Don't buy them, earn them - I am not a fan of the whole "buying followers" idea, and while I do use Crowd Fire to control who I am following (which is a paid service), I also use it to follow specific people and the people who are influenced by them. Think about the people you want to see your work and who they are following, the photographers you want to be like, the agencies you want to work with, and start to grow your list. Then make sure you are posting things that are relevant and they will notice.

6. Be Social - I know this is cliche, but you should be engaged with the people that follow you. They took the time to follow you and look at your work, and it isn't that hard to say thank you. Also, and this is especially for Twitter and Facebook, don't always just post your stuff. If you see things that are helpful, especially pertaining to your audience, then SHARE it! Don't be afraid to share awesome work, it all comes back around.  

This last part isn't a point, but it has been one of the most useful tricks I learned as a photographer. This is specifically for Linked In, which I strongly believe every serious photographer should be active on...at least for the moment. When I started Linked In it seemed impossible to reach out to the people I really wanted to connect with, that is without paying gobs of money every month to send invites and e-mails. So here is what I did. Start connecting with photographers who work with the companies you want to work with, and yes you will need to research that. Photographers tend to be much more welcoming then many other professionals when you are first getting started, especially if you have posted some rad work. Once you've connected with those people then you have access to the people they are connected with, and while it's never a guarantee, it will most definitely start helping you to connect with and network inside of the companies you want to work for. I have grown my Linked In network to thousands of industry people, and yes it has turned into clients. I have found that the mobile app is a little more friendly when connecting with new people...so you might want to try that, wink wink.

Ok, so those are 6 things and a bonus that can help get things going. Just so you know, it takes time...or at least it did for me. Maybe you are a social media phenomenon and I would love to hear if you have any radical tricks that have worked for you!

Until next time...be awesome!

P.S. The image below is of actual human interaction...and yes, it can be used on social media.

Dragon Alliance

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Hello Everyone! I apologize for the gap in bloggin, it's been a crazy couple of months. In fact I am taking a break from retouching over 800 images just to write this :)

Recently my images for the Dragon Alliance Floatable sunglasses came out, and I wanted to give you a little behind the scenes look at how those were created. When the client came to me they wanted something that was epic and showed off the glasses, while implying that they floated (which they do and it's awesome!). We ended up shooting the glasses out of water so we could control the lighting and perspective more readily, and then shooting the water and glasses in the water separately to pull from for the final composite. All said and done this composite is well over 100 layers and was shot in the studio in pieces to create the exact shape and look that the client wanted.

Couple cool tricks for shooting this type of image in case you want to try something similar!

1. You can pick up a large fish tank at most pet stores for relatively cheap, no more than $50, so getting all the splashes and water images doesn't have to break the bank.

2. When you are making the splashes have your assistant use a squeegee on the inside of the tank, as they pull it across you get some great waves and the glass stays clean!

3. Make sure you light your background and the background is white! For these images we had a white seamless lit from behind to reduce any kind of lens flare.

4. Use Hi-speed flash or hi-speed sync. To really freeze water you need to have hi-speed flash (meaning the flash duration is short). You can look at the Elinchrom ELB 400 with HS heads or Action heads. The HS heads are hi-speed sync and the Action heads have a very short flash duration. I know there are other brands out there that can do this as well so start your research!

5. Plan! I've said it before and I'll say it again, Plan! Make sure you have a shot list for a project like this. You want to know what you are going to need in post production so you don't have to go back to the studio and do this huge set up more than once! Make sure you shoot WAY MORE than you think you'll need, I mean we're not shooting on film anymore :)

Alright, enough typing, let's look at the final images. Below is a simplified animation of how the file was made and the final images with the graphics from Dragon. You can also head over to their web page: www.dragonalliance.com to see it in real life :)

Until Next time...be awesome!

Dragon Alliance Final
Dragon Alliance Roadblock

Slow time

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Well, it's almost Christmas, and that usually means things are slowing down in commercial photography for at least a little bit. I wanted to take a second to talk about some things that can help during the slow times and how to stay busy.

Most photographers go through ebbs and flows of work, and I would say it's more about how you handle the ebbs then the flow. Not only that, but it's important to remember that after a really busy period you will probably have at least a few days without work. Here are some thoughts on how to handle it and some things to remember.

1.  It's not a vacation. Yes you should take vacation sometimes, but it should be something you schedule not something that happens to you. My first thought is to treat photography just like any other job, you go every day no matter what. Most bosses would agree that there is ALWAYS something to do if you look, and you are your own boss, so you can figure it out.

2. Start making contacts. PICK UP THE PHONE. When was the last time you called someone and set up a meeting? Our industry is a very large one, full of really cool people that can help you in your journey.  Do some research, find some new people to meet, and get out there! A few good places to look would be Linked In and Agency Access. I am sure there are more, but that's what I use the most.

3. Take a creative day. This is very different from a vacation. My last creative day consisted of me sitting in a coffee shop looking at websites and re-writing my business plan and direction. I'll also walk around department stores and look at images to get inspiration or go walk around the city. Do what inspires you, and do something different than you do every day, this is a day to break the mold and step outside.

4. Personal Projects. I have so many personal project ideas that I can't actually keep up, which is great because that means we are really busy! But as soon as I see a lull in the schedule I book a personal project, this will help keep you sharp and growing as a photographer. Over the holidays my team and I are shooting over 10 personal projects and I am completely revamping the web page. We work on new lighting, find new subjects and make new contacts, all at the same time! If you are lacking inspiration then look at what other photographers are doing and try to copy it, I guarantee it won't look the same and you will learn something in the process.

5. LEARN! Photography is always evolving, and you should be too. There are incredible, not to mention free, resources out there now that can help you grow exponentially. Even just watching short videos that show behind the scenes lighting can be so helpful.

To finish this blog I am going to post some videos that I have found really helpful so you can watch them and maybe be inspired by them as well. As a side note, if you enjoy stuff like this I tend to post the videos I find on Twitter, so follow me there if you're interested :)

This is just a few to get your juices flowing...go out and find more, would love to see them! Until next time...be awesome!