As Lightroom churns through some images I’m working in PhotoMechanic on a few new portfolios for web and print. The one capturing my attention right now is the selection of images from my two trips to Dubai.

I’m still trying to figure out why I love Dubai so much. There’s something about that place and something about the people that has really caught hold of me and I can’t let go of it. I’m sure if I were to go there around this time of year it would change my ideas about the place.

More images and thoughts after the jump ::

Working on a portfolio is tough stuff. The images above are just a cross section of the initial edit. I have my main portfolio culled to about 2,000 images. That is the big messy edit. It needs to get to 20. Most likely it will be a selection of 20 or fewer portraits. Then I’m doing a portfolio of 20 or fewer Dubai images. Then there is a personal project I’m working on this year and that will be about 10 images plus narrative, video, and one audio track bundled into one portfolio. Then we are doing a kids commercial test in a few weeks and that will most likely be another portfolio of 10 images.

Entertainment/Music. Dubai. Personal Project. Commercial Kids. Four portfolios ready to go by the end of the year. That’s the goal. In print and online. That’s the goal. With the new branding wrapped up. It’s taken 10 months to filter the vision down for these.

Currently I’m most excited about the personal project and the Dubai portfolio. Those two get my blood moving around a little bit faster and little bit hotter. The personal project will have a definite narrative. The Dubai portfolio I see in my head is black and white but there are a few images that just work in color. So how do you find the right flow with color and B&W living side by side? How do you show the contrast that is Dubai? At some point I’ll get a sloppy edit together and then I have to hand it over to trusted colleagues for input, critique, and discussion. It’s a painful process but it has to happen. The only thing I hate more is working on branding. I hate working on branding.

So, here is a good example of my dilemma. I have this shot of a gentleman in his Lamborghini. It only works in color. I have a shot of two kids playing and I like the connection of the reds and blues in the two photos. There’s also a social contrast between the two images. So, I’m digging these two photos but I have this other shot outside of a shop that I kind of like as well. Here they are…

Here is the same spread but with a change to the left photo…

And now the other shot placed in…

What do y’all think?

Cheers,
Zack

PS – Then. THEN… After all that… the majority of the work is horizontal so am I going to print double truck (across two facing pages) or am I going to keep them on individual pages? The gutter can screw up a composition in a New York minute. Ugh. And do I print double sided or single sided? Blurb or Epson and a post book? It’s all of these questions that keep me from having an up to date print portfolio, but that has to change. It will all be done by the end of the year. I’ll share the process as soon as it is done.

That guy above is hip hop legend 8 Ball. I had the opportunity to photograph him about three years ago. We shot in the studio and then headed out on location in his completely tricked out Hummer. * Ball came up in Memphis with MJG. You may not have heard of 8 Ball. If you like any sort of hip hop coming from the south then you most definitely have heard his influence. Everyone from T.I. to Luda to Andre 3000 all talk about how they were influenced by 8 Ball and MGJ early on in their career.

I was, of all things, folding socks this morning thinking about anything but folding socks. There are some who look at me and say, “Wow. Zack has made it.” From my view point I will say I’ve “made it” when I don’t have to fold socks ever again in my life. That got me thinking about 8 Ball and I thought I would share this interesting personal story…

As I was steaming Ball’s 6XL shirts for this shoot I was asking him about his career. I asked one question and he told me something that has stuck with me ever since.

I asked… “When did you know your career was to the point that this was now your job? Like, you made it.”

Ball stopped rolling his “smoke” and sat back and told me about growing up as a kid in a poor neighborhood in Memphis. He lived with his mom and grandmother in a shotgun shack. He slept in the den. One of his daily chores was going around the house and collecting the mouse traps in the house, take them outside, and get rid of the dead mice. Then he had to reset those traps and put them back around the house. He told me that he knew he had “made it” when he could throw away the whole mouse trap and reset a new one. He was making enough money in hip hop that he could just buy a new bag of traps every week instead of using the old ones.

8 Ball bought his mom a house. He’s doing well. He’s influenced an army of rappers. He knows he made it when he didn’t have to use a used mouse trap.

It doesn’t take a whole lot to make it does it? He made it but still had to set those traps. He still had a long way to go before he could just buy his mom a new house. It’s such a great story. For those of you who just discount hip hop as “crap” you ought to listen beyond the ho’s and rims and hear the stories of people who came out of nothing and into something. There are a lot of stories of redemption that come out of hip hop. Not exactly your Sunday school stories of redemption but redemption all the same. Go watch Hustle & Flow. It’s one of my top three favorite movies of all time. It’s about a small time pimp coming up in hip hop in Memphis. 8 Ball, of course, is on the soundtrack.

Here’s another one…

Cheers,
Zack

I get asked a lot about where I get my inspiration. That’s a hard question to answer because there are so many things and people in my life that inspire me. Let me tell you a story about a white guy from Arkansas that raps.

More after the jump ::

.

Last night Meg and I were able to get a babysitter and go see our friend Dan Smith play a show. His project is called “Listener“.

.

.

Dan has a schtick. A persona. A presence on stage. He does this “thing” that is amazing. Dan does “talk music” and it is his own thing. Love him or hate him, when Dan takes the stage people get off their phones, stop chatting, and watch. His stage persona is mesmerizing. It never bleeds into background music. His music isn’t ever going to make the top ten on the billboard charts and I think that’s just all right for him. He’s not following. He’s not replicating. He’s not trying to find what is popular and pursue that.

I met Dan about six years ago when he was more of a hip hop artist than folksy/indie/something/talk music artist. I was introduced to him through this cat in Nashville named KC Jones. KC said to me, “You gotta hear the Listener. He’s a white dude from Arkansas that raps.” That introduction was enough to pique my interest.

The first song I heard was Train Song (mp3 download).  ”It’s my habits that make my fingers weak…” Listen closely to the story. Pretty amazing.

Decadence (mp3 download) is one of my favorite tracks from his more hip hop centric era. It also features Manchild who has a flow like no other. Yes, I do have permission to link to these files.

.

.

It’s been interesting to watch him change. To watch him find who he is. To start at one place and end up somewhere else and to see he’s not “there” yet. Dan has always been Dan, yet with each new part of his project he is becoming more true to his core. He’s walking through the shit of life and stripping off the non essentials and building back from there. It’s really an amazing process to watch from the outside.

I need to sit down with him sometime and see what it’s like from his perspective because I know for a fact it will be much different than my perspective. Maybe I’m wrong about how I see Dan. Maybe Dan is wrong about how he sees himself. Sometimes people on the outside see the real you. The “you” you can’t see. And sometimes people from the outside have the wrong idea about who you are. Hmmmm. This reminds me of something Meg is working on but that’s not for this post. (Dan, next time you’re back in Atlanta let’s talk it out)

If you listen to his older music you can hear the framework of his newer work. Meaning, you can look back and see the progression but you never see it when you are moving forward. The same thing goes for photography. It’s called personal style and it takes years to develop and you can’t really see your style until you have some years under your belt and can look back.

.

.

Dan is a huge source of inspiration for me. That inspiration doesn’t change how I look through my viewfinder but it changes how I look through the eye in my brain if that makes any sense at all… Which it doesn’t. I went to public school so trying to flowchart how inspiration works for me is a bit difficult. My brain eyes connect to my face eyes which connect to my viewfinder so maybe he does inspire how I see the world. How “inspiration” like this works for me is the music gets in my head. I listen to the stories in the lyrics. I connect the dots from the songs to the dots of my own life and those thoughts sort of lead me down a path of more thoughts that eventually lead to actions with my camera and with my business. Inspiration for me isn’t seeing one person do something and then I go do something similar to that. I think that’s more like plagiarism than inspiration.

.

.

Dan’s magic really comes through his show. He’s brave. He’s full on. He doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t care what he looks like. He just lets the f#ck go and pours it all out. I’ve seen him perform to a packed venue and to 8 people in a living room and he brings everything he has to the stage with every performance.

You can find his new album here. Be sure to give “Wooden Heart” a listen. Buy a copy and support an artist. Don’t you want someone to give you some support in your endeavors? Pay it forward.

You can stream his new album. Sorry iPhone/iPad users. These are flash embeds.

This is his last album. It’s called “Return To Struggleville” and it’s about a traveling knife salesman and it’s brilliant.

His songs are stories. They are pulled out of his head and out of his experience. He’s living his story. Are you? Are you aware that you’re walking out your story? Are you keeping your eyes far out ahead and busting your ass to get there or are you sitting around on said ass looking backwards? How’s that working for you? I saw a great quote on Twitter yesterday…

“Don’t ask God to guide your footsteps if you aren’t willing to move your feet.”

Dan’s played more than 800 shows and he has 800 more to go. He’s doing it. He’s sharing his life. He’s changing. Growing. He’s moving his feet. Stripping it down to the essentials. He’s inspiring thousands. He’s just a white dude from Arkansas that raps and he is a really important character in my own story. Fun trivia – His 800th show was at a Mexican Restaurant. 800th show.

Where are you getting your inspiration from outside the photography world?

And…

Are you moving your feet or sittin’ on your ass? I’d rather have sores on my feet than on my ass. There’s a t-shirt.

Cheers,
Zack

I’m going to share a story about shooting crappy pictures then share a recent comment from one of y’all regarding our last critique that’s worthy of taking some time and thinking about what we do.

At the turn of the century I was photographer for Apartments.com. The image above is one I shot for them in 2001. It was shot with the then amazing Olympus C-3030. You should have seen the camera we upgraded from. My iPhone takes better pictures.

Ramblings after the jump…

I could typically shoot three apartment complexes a day. I would show up, introduce myself to the property manager (PM), explain what the Internet was (contracts were usually sold on the national level so local PM’s didn’t always know what we did.), and then take off through the complex to shoot one or two model apartments, the exercise room, the pool, the front entrance, miscellaneous property photos, the club house, etc, etc, etc. In addition to stills I would have to shoot virtual tour panoramics as well. An average apartment complex would take an hour or two to photograph and I would shoot, on average, 150 to 200 images per property.

Once I was done shooting I would sit with the PM and have them choose their favorite photos. It was not unusual to be sent back out on the property or to the model to reshoot something. Usually I was asked to make a bathroom the size of a size 6 shoebox look like it was the Taj Mahal . I would shoot the tennis court that had not seen a tennis match in 10 years and then be asked if we could Photoshop the cracks out of the surface and add some nets. I wish I had a dime for every time I was asked if we could Photoshop water into the pool. Truth in advertising people. Truth in advertising. Not that any of that mattered to folks who would name an apartment complex “Mountain View” when there wasn’t a view of a mountain for at least 600 miles.

Prior to shooting Apartments.com I was shooting this stuff for JC Penney… (sorry for the bad scans)

4×5 fo’ life!

How did I go from working in a large commercial photography studio to shooting apartments? I had a degree in photography, I had been an assistant for two or three years by this point, and I was then moving into a management/shooter position for JC Penney’s corporate studio shooting table top product, booking models, handling the best gear in the world, and interacting with amazing photographers each and every day. I moved from that life to racing around the Southwest shooting exercise rooms and horribly decorated 2 bedroom 1 bath apartments. JC Penney hit some really tough financial times and a big fat target was painted on the studio I was working in. We were all told to be on the lookout for other work because it could be closing any day. I got a call around that time about a photography position at Apartments.com. The Internet was at the tail end of being the wild frontier. The pay was good, the benefits were amazing, and the job allowed me to work from home and have time to get my freelance career started while still having a salary to rely on. What could be better? Other than the fact that I was now a photographer for Apartments.com. I was embarrassed to tell any of my photographer friends about my job. I never ever mentioned it on the forums I was active on. Pride would not allow me to breath a word of it. It wasn’t “photography”. I could train a monkey to do the job.

So I thought.

You know what?  I learned a lot about photography with that job. I shot 300 to 600 images a day and then had to sit and have them reviewed by the client on site. I would have to prep the selects and upload them each night so my workflow had to be efficient. Near the end of my time with Apartments.com I could breeze into a complex, knock out the photos in 45 minutes, and wow the PM’s with angles of their complex they had never seen. Even though I was never showing that work to anyone… I still took pride in what I did. Even though I felt I wasn’t doing anything with “photography”. I learned a lot about talking to clients, working with images, educating a client about photography and getting them involved in the process. I learned about being consistent and delivering on tight deadlines. I learned so much about photography with that job but I didn’t realize it at that time.  To keep from going crazy during this time in my career I spent a lot of time shooting personal work and continued to build my portfolio and get my freelance work up to the point where I could leave the Internet job. This was the time in my life when I was buying gear, going into debt, living more on forums than in my life, etc, etc. That horrible word “profitability” also started getting tossed around the home office in Chicago and the internet started to get incredibly Khaki around 2001. I had to start learning to read spread sheets. No more keggers in the kitchen.

I was really inspired by guys like Dirk Halstead, David Leeson, and Brian Storm back in those days. There was this new frontier called “new media” and these guys were at the forefront of it and they were lumped into one of two categories by the photography industry. They were either visionaries or they were bat shit crazy. I think in someways they vacillated between the two on any given day. I think they were bat shit crazy enough to be visionaries and time has proven that they were right on the money. Back when I was getting to know these guys there was another dude who had just become the youngest staff photographer for the New York Times. His name was, and still is, Vincent Laforet. Never heard of him right?

Now that I’ve dropped enough names to break my foot… what was I doing with my life?

Shooting effing apartments… but damn it all… I was trying to get my career and my craft beyond algae filled pools and mauve and teal clubhouse virtual tours. I jumped into the new media pool and started working on a project in Austin, TX about a group of homeless folks who flew signs to make ends meet. You see them on every corner. Someone holding a sign asking for some help and God blessing you as you ignore them while you pray for the light to turn green. I was shooting stills…

And shooting video…

I thought I have a lot to learn about audio and video now? I had even more to learn then. Like, check out this clip from that project of Worthless Kenny.

I’ve gone down this trip on memory lane because of a comment from reader ChrisDavid42. His comment took me back to this weird time in my life when I had more knowledge in my head than I had experience with a camera in my hands.

In the critique, I was looking at a gallery of images and I made a comment that went along the lines of, “Yes, it is a photograph but it isn’t photography.” I knew it would strike a chord somewhere with someone. Sometimes I say this sort of crap to make us all think or start a discussion. I also say crap like this to try and set a bar higher than where any of us reach with our own work. Myself included. Well, that statement did spark some conversation and this comment… (emphasis added)

This comment is meant as a contribution to the ongoing discussion, and not as criticism or dis-agreement with anyone.

First, my opinion about art vs. commercialism:
Art has always existed at a cross-roads between commerce and human expression. Artists who wish to benefit from their art will always be subject to the aesthetic of those who are willing to commission, or pay, for that work. On the other side of the coin are the artists who reject all control in pursuit of a “pure unadulterated expression of their vision.” I recently read of a photographer from eastern Europe who was discovered in his sixties or seventies. He spent much of his life in poverty and two decades in a mental hospital. I don’t want to be that guy.

I believe a key element of art is the interaction between artist, medium, and subject. Though at times this may not be conveyed successfully to the viewer, an arguably necessary component of “successful” art, the joy of the creation of art, in my mind, is as important as the result.

Zack consistently pushes his listeners and readers to strive for excellence and individual vision in their work, and I agree. And, I have been encouraged by his message. However, I must respond to a couple comments, including the comment about getting a side job rather than producing mediocre work, or as in one of Zack’s repeated quotes “competing with Wal-mart.”

I also take issue with Zack’s comment that an image can be a photograph, but not photography. I agree completely with the sentiment that there is way too much mediocrity in the industry and in the media. I cringe at most of the photos our local paper runs, especially after years of reading Zack’s blog and Strobist and knowing that 5 more minutes of effort could have improved those pictures. And yet, that tolerance for mediocrity is the what will allow me to build a small portrait business and get the experience that you can’t get from blogs, or shooting your kids and neighbors, and pay for the equipment that I can’t pay for out of my household budget.

As a photographer, I find incredible joy from making images of people. I find joy from growing in my craft technically, or, to say it differently, interacting with my camera and equipment. I find great joy from interacting with people and creating a photo with them, not of them. My goal is to someday have the skill that allows my images to show the world “my experience” or “what I see in my subjects.” However, I am still producing mediocre images, because of where I am at technically in my photographic journey. But, my skills are improving, and I am seeing more and more improvement in my images.

I have recently had the opportunity to do two evenings of “event portraits.” Setting up in a corner at a community event and doing a hundred mini-portrait sessions over the course of two hours. The blogs and videos very much informed that experience, but having to shoot successfully under pressure is something that you can only learn from experience.

And I loved every minute of it, every compromise, every success, every time that I had to sacrifice composition to a technical detail, every time I was able to show them a picture that was better than they expected; even the failures when I couldn’t overcome technical difficulties, or connect with my subjects. Every second of that was PHOTOGRAPHY.

Even if it doesn’t translate yet on my website, it was photography. Even if I spend two years competing with Walmart for customers. It was photography because it was a labor of love for the craft; even if the viewer cannot see it. Someday it will be GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY and the viewer will see it. And that is my problem with Zack’s criticism, you can’t always ascertain the process from the product. however, I think we could agree it is a communication failure, the failure on the photographers part to successfully communicate his/her vision.

Perhaps where I take issue is that I perceived an insult to the process, and I see the process as inseparable from the product. (Honestly, what is really tweaking me is that I really identify with the first person you critiqued. One of the first things you read from her e-mail was that she had been doing this for one year. I look at what I was doing after a year and think “wow. I didn’t have the guts to put together a website after a year.”)

Zack commented in earlier critiques that kid sports photography may be boring, but he will buy it because it is his kid. I totally get what he means here, it is like watching a movie where somebody’s dad dies in the first scene, you are emotionally connected to the movie whether it is poorly scripted and produced or not. Same thing with the pictures, you buy them even if they make you cringe. However, I think that the answer is not to berate the photographers for making lifeless images, the answer is to stop buying the images. Vote with your wallet, pay a more envisioned photographer to make images of your kid in his softball uniform. Keep encouraging and educating photographers and the overall level of the industry will rise.

In summary, thanks for taking the time to read my rant. Your critiques are successful because they are thought provoking. I love listening to them. I listened to your critique on Tuesday and have been arguing the ideas in my head all week. I absolutely loved your talk at Photocamp Utah; it inspired me. I will continue to cull my best images for my portfolio, and I will continue to shoot whatever people will pay me to shoot (or let me shoot for free), and i will likely display some of that in my portfolio, if that is what my customers want and are paying me for.

enough said.

Wow. Chris’ comment stopped me in my tracks and took me back to the hundreds of apartments I’ve photographed. It took me back to all the crap ass photos I’ve taken (and, um, well, still take). I thought about this music video I just put together last week. My first. It isn’t a masterpiece but it’s mine. I’m tied to it. Attached in a way that is hard to let go and I often forget about that with photography. Is my level of video work on par with the highest end of the industry? No way. I struggle with it. I fight with it. And to me, it’s still film making. It’s doing something inside of me. If it is mediocre then I need someone from higher up the food chain to call it out and call me up… And that is the goal when I do a critique. Ok. You nailed the exposure. You made a portrait that is on level with Wal-Mart. You have made it to that level but that level is a low one. You must now rise. The bar is higher than that.

So as much as I stand by my comments in the critique and will continue to push buttons I also have to say that Chris’ comment opened my eyes. You made me stop and think Chris and I thank you for that. You made me remember the strange struggling times when you are fighting for your first jobs. I mean, I’m not so old hat around here that I forget but sometimes I do.

Yes the picture may be somewhat boring… but it is still photography.

My favorite part of Chris’ comment is this…

And I loved every minute of it, every compromise, every success, every time that I had to sacrifice composition to a technical detail, every time I was able to show them a picture that was better than they expected; even the failures when I couldn’t overcome technical difficulties, or connect with my subjects. Every second of that was PHOTOGRAPHY.

Pretty amazing quote huh? I want to print that and hang it on the wall.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Zack

Want a sneak peak into the life of a successfull commercial photographer?

I made this for a few reasons. I’ll go into that later.

Want some more?

HQ QT version of the video here.

Cheers,
Zack Arias. Sucksessfull Commercial Photographer

PS – In addition to thanking the academy I would also like to recognize Jeremy Cowart, Chase Jarvis, and Joe Effing McNally.

The Setup ::

Last week we assembled a crew to help us on a three day shoot in an old abandoned mansion. I set one day aside for everyone on set to have time to grab some gear, grab a model, and shoot for themselves as payment for helping me on the other two days of shooting.  Knowing that competition can bring the best out in a person I decided we should have a shootout. I posted the images here on the blog and had you all vote.

Before shooting we decided to pick one word that we all had to shoot an image for. The first word that came up was “pain” but then someone said “fear” and we decided that would be a good one and off we went.  Each photographer could interpret that any way they wanted and what happened in the comments of the original blog post has been an interesting conversation of whether any of us actually shot an image that communicated fear.  I feel that some of you wanted far too literal of an interpretation. Fear can go a lot of ways. I think we all gravitated toward the “horror’ish” route based on the location we had to use but it doesn’t have to be the ONLY way to interpret it. More in the discussion.

The Results ::

The winner is… (after the jump)

Photographer B, Dave Martinez, won the GOYA shootout! He spanked us all with a total of 1,148 votes (45% of the total votes calculated). Dave wins a $50 gift certificate to B&H Photo!

When Dave emailed the image to me to put on the blog I knew immediately that his was going to be the winning shot. Dave said he worked on a number of different interpretations with the models but he felt that he wasn’t getting the emotions out of them that he wanted. Part of this, Dave says, was his inexperience directing. Keep in mind that Dave was part of this crew because I met him at our Photo 101 course about six months ago. He’s new to photography. It’s a great example of the student kicking the teacher’s ass! Great job Dave!

During one of his first attempts of the day he turned around and saw that panel of glass and wondered what it would look like lit from behind. Since he didn’t really feel he was getting the emotion he wanted from the models he turned to a more simplistic interpretation of the theme. He says he felt like he was copping out by going this route but at the end of the day, he felt it was a lot stronger than his other attempts. He shot a number of variations of this scene and felt the pulled back, wider shot worked best. Yes, the image is a cliché but it has a good spin on it by NOT cropping in tight to the hand. Again, when he emailed it to me my thought was it was the winner. It’s just so simple and effective.

I really appreciate the fact that Dave recognized he was struggling with the direction of the models so he went a different route, kept it simple, and beat us all by a large margin.

The Discussion ::

2,500 votes have come in for the contest so, to some viewers, each photographer interpreted the word enough to illicit a vote. Some folks commented that they could not vote for any of them because they felt the word was never interpreted correctly. Let’s talk about that.

What is fear to you? There is the fear of death, pain, disease, etc. There is also the fear of not being smart enough, good enough, pretty enough, wealthy enough. Fear of taxes, kids getting in trouble, pregnancy, etc, etc, etc. Fear can go in a lot of directions. Here is what we were all thinking as we were shooting for this assignment.

I was really impressed with Luanne Dietz’s interpretation.  She is Photographer A. Her image is this one…

Luanne approached this theme by asking her subject, Mych, what he was fearful of. Mych responded that he is afraid of death so Luanne ran with that idea. Her approach was to create an image for the subject. She thought the rectangle box in the carpet on the landing could represent a casket. Add to that the creative framing of the broken spindle on the bannister as an implement of pain or destruction and I thought her interpretation was successful for what she was trying to achieve. I would like to see a little more direction given to Mych to create a pose that says “death” more than “sleep” but overall, good job.

Luanne says that if she had to do it again she would stay with the same concept but put more time into directing the subject to convey more of an emotion from him. She showed the image to Mych on the back of her camera and he couldn’t even look at it so in that way Luanne was very successful in interpreting her subject’s fear as a photo.  She also feels that she would have worked with lighting a bit more instead of going with the available light.

Luanne’s thought was to create something that wasn’t completely obvious. She wanted to find a different way to convey fear than what you may stereotypically go to first as an idea of “fear”.

In speaking with Luanne after the results have been tallied she made an excellent point that all of us forgot to think about the viewer in some ways.  You see, all of us had three days in this place and it was very creepy and strange. There were strange sights, sounds, smells, things, rooms, etc. Our experience being inside of the place for a number of days probably insulated us from thinking about how viewers who have never been in this old mansion might feel.  Good point Luanne.

Photographer D is Megan Case. She shot this image…

Megan says that anytime she has a nightmare it is of someone chasing her trying to harm her. She decided it would be kind of funny to go with a B Movie poster idea. What’s interesting is that some folks commented that they didn’t like this image because it looked like a B Movie poster. So in some ways, she was totally successful with her idea.  I would like to see the model only casting one shadow on the wall. That would mean spending more time feathering the light creating the shadow off of her enough to get rid of the second shadow but still cast the shadow of the arm. That arm belongs to her super awesome husband, Rob (AKA Scrim Bitch).

Megan says that if she had this assignment to do again she would have made an image that was more vague in context and subject so that it could have more of an open interpretation by viewers of the photo. That’s probably an aspect to Dave’s winning shot that helped him win this contest.

Photographer E was our business manager, Sherri.

Sherri wanted to use the elements of some sort of disaster combined with loneliness. Fear of being alone. Fear of what ever crazy predicament is going on. Etc. Sherri says that if she were to do it again she would stay with the same concept but spend more time directing the subject in order to convey the feeling better. In Sherri’s defense, she was in charge of a lot of logistics and did not have much time to get something thrown together.

Photographer F is our new studio manager, Dan Depew. Dan is currently in Bangkok so I have not had a chance to talk to him about his shot. His shot was this one…

She’s holding a telephone handset FWIW if you didn’t pick up on that before.

Lastly, I was photographer C with this image…

I shot four specific set ups for the concept. Two of them involved screaming. One of them involved being trapped. And finally the image above. It started out as another “screaming” attempt but Bonnie, the model in the photo, was such a sweet girl that getting fear out of her was nearly impossible to do. She would scream and then start laughing. It was funny. So, I had to take it a different direction and I decided to go in a horror movie direction with fear being more of an emotion I would want the viewer to feel than the subject to convey. I had directed her through a number of emotions and this one translated as the most believable. I then liked more of a quiet solitude of the trapped mirror image. I’m still not sure if I made the right decision to lighten her eyes in the main part of the shot.

If I had to do it over again I would have gone darker and dirtier, and like Megan Case said, more vague as to subject matter so that it could be interpreted differently for different people.  I am happy with my image above and for all of the images I shot that day I feel this is my best one. To do it all over again I would go a different direction though yet I do stand by my photo and I do not regret my editing choice for this shootout.

The common thing that ALL of us struggled with… directing our subjects. As a photographer you are also a director. It’s a learned skill. If you don’t like working with people or if you find yourself to be very shy, then portrait photography is going to be a challenge for you.

So…

I figure there are three audiences to speak to with your photographs.

A) Your subject / client

B) Yourself

C) Anonymous viewers of your work

I specifically did not want to put interpretations into the original blog post. I suppose the most successful photographs out there are the ones that can speak to all three audiences at one time. The reason I did not want to explain any of these photos is to see how they ranked without interpretation. I feel as though a photograph should stand on it’s own without explanation. Explanations can also change the way the viewer sees the image. It can sway your idea or emotion of the image. We don’t always get the opportunity to explain our work so we have to work on making sure it stands on it’s own.

If you are still with us here, do any of these explanations sway the way you voted? If you didn’t think “fear” the first time around do you think that now? After all this talking do you have a different perspective on this set of images or does it support your original thoughts and emotions about the images?

Given an old abandoned mansion where do you think you may have taken this assignment?

Thanks for being a part of it everyone!

Cheers,
Zack

My dear friend, Marc Climie, often says…

“Let your work determine your clients. Don’t let your clients determine your work.”

In order to live by that philosophy you have to be very careful what work you show to the world through your site, blog, and book.  If you don’t want to shoot family portraits, then don’t show family portraits. If you hate selective color photographs (as you should) then don’t show them.  Here is a good scenario…

You want to shoot portraits of bands and musicians for press kits and promo work. You are a struggling photographer just trying to get started and you get a call from a friend of a friend and they would love for you to shoot their family portraits. You need the work so you agree to it and, hopefully, you do a kick ass job.  You just shot the best family portraits of your life. What do you do with them?

Continue reading and seeing after the jump ::

Aside from delivering those family portraits to the client, you bury them in your local hard drive and you don’t show them to anyone else.  Why? You want to shoot bands (or headshots, or editorial assignments, or documentary weddings, etc.) not families. You have to show the work that determines your clients. If you put those family portraits out into the world then you are saying “I shoot family portraits”. Is that what you want to say with your work?

Let’s add another layer to this and say the family loves, loves, loves their photos and REALLY wants to buy a huge print of one AND they want some selective color goodness on it.  You know the kind. Everything is in B&W except their jeans or eyes or whatever. I hope that you cringe at this request knowing that there have only been two acceptable uses for selective color. One was in the movie Schindler’s List and the other was the original Live Strong campaign. So the family really wants this to happen and you really want to cash their check because rent is due in 14 minutes. What do you do?

There are times we do this for love and there are times we do this for money. That is the mash up of art and commerce. Especially for emerging photographers. As you are starting your career your ability to hold your artistic ground isn’t solidified and you will find yourself bending to the will of your clients more than you may like. I’m here to tell you that it’s ok. You aren’t that much of a whore for doing it! We all have to do it at some point all throughout our career. After all we are in the service industry. Our clients may have a very specific need or desire and while we don’t like what they are asking for, we need to keep collecting a check to keep our family fed.

Off you go to Photoshop… to selective color… a family portrait. And what are you going to do with these pictures? Deliver them and forget ‘em. The rest of us don’t have to look at them.

My point? As my business has grown the number one genre of photography I am so pleased to say no to is event photography.  I hate event photography.  Hell for me would be a non stop corporate cocktail party with 14 billion awards ceremonies thrown in all requiring grip-n-grin shots with the CEO.  Guess what I just shot last week? Grip-n-grin pictures featuring media mogul Ted Turner and key members of his family.  At least it was Ted Turner right? Wrong. There I am, camera in hand, lining up a group of folks and asking them to smile for the photo.  Here is the picture…

(crickets chirping)

(crickets chirping)

(crickets chirping)

(crickets chirping)

(crickets chirping)

Guess what? I’m not showing that picture. I’m not showing the pictures of him or pictures of he and his family or the shot where he hands flowers to the cast of the show he was attending. Why? I don’t want to shoot those pictures. I’ll tell you I shot them but I won’t show them to you. Want to hear something even more terrible? I did it for free AND I paid an assistant to go with me. Shooting pictures I hate to shoot cost me $120 after it was all said and done. Maybe I am in hell already. I most certainly delivered those images to my client but I’m not putting them out in the world to see.

So if I hate shooting events then what in the hell was I doing shooting an event for free? I was seizing an opportunity.

I love anything Cirque. I fell in love with their productions the first time I saw one of their shows in Vegas some 10 years ago. When I found out that one of the founders of Cirque had a new show here in Atlanta called Cavalia that introduced horses to the mix I HAD to go.  Better yet, I had to photograph it. I’ve been wanting to do a personal project with horses for awhile now and what would be better than mixing horses with acrobats?  I told my lovely wife, Meghan, that I really wanted to get access to Cavalia while it was in town.  Meg knows the folks handling PR for Cavalia so she got to work on it. The reply?

(more crickets chirping)

Until a month later. The PR company reached back to Meg with an opportunity for me to have pretty decent access to the cast and the show. For one night only, Jennie Turner, daughter for Ted Turner, would be performing in the show and they needed pictures of her performing, taking a bow, and then cover the grip-n-grin photo-ops at the end of the show with the Turner family and cast of Cavalia.  Did I want to shoot these pictures? No. Did I jump at the opportunity? Hell yes. Taking the photos I didn’t want to take was my key to getting in to take the photos I did want to take. Well, almost.

Shooting this event turned into an opportunity to make a relationship with the good folks who put on the show. Around the big tent there are these massive banners with the horses and cast of Cavalia performing their routines in some sort of mountainous desert. They are gorgeous and I can’t find them on the web but somebody shot those images. THAT is the access I want.  You get that kind of access by making relationships and NOT showing grip-n-grin event photos in your portfolio. I would love the opportunity to shoot the promo work for any Cirque show. I have to figure out who makes those decisions. Once I find that person or group of people then I have to show them images that I want them to see. I do not, under any circumstance, want them to see after the show happy snaps.

After all this blabbling, here is a small set of images from my evening at Cavalia. I did my research before I went. I looked at all the photos I could find of the show and I was determined to not replicate any of them. I wanted a unique set of images from a show that has been shot numerous times by lots of photographers. For me this meant concentrating on behind the scenes, B&W, and motion.

The last image in this series is just about my favorite.  I went in looking for a picture that you would not expect to shoot at Cavalia.  I was shooting the performers but kept seeing movement out of the corner of my eye. Then I saw the shadow and ditched the action for the shadow play on the side of the stage.

So now what? How do I use these images beyond blog fodder? I’m going back this week with an armful of prints. My goal is to shoot portraits of the cast.  I need more access and more time. I’m hoping that these images combined with individual images I shot of the cast members as they performed will add to all of the smiles and hand shakes I gave out the night of the performance. They are such an amazing group of people I am really hoping to gain a little more access and have a little more time to create something a little more unique. We shall see how it goes!

How many of you are willing to lose money on an opportunity? Have you done it recently? What type of work would you pay to shoot? That’s basically what I did here.

Cheers,
Zack

PS – Winning Vision Mongers Christmas stories coming up soon!

I’ve been talking with some folks and the topic of street portraits came up. Some are scared to death to approach strangers on the street. I understand the feeling completely but there are times you have to get over your anxiety about talking to strangers and pursue what it is you want to do. While I was in NYC a few weeks ago I decided to practice what I preach. I gave myself the assignment of shooting 10 portraits of 10 strangers in 10 hours. I had to sandwich these in between other shoots I had on the books while I was there. I approached 15 people and 9 accepted my request.

For those of you who have expressed your concerns about approaching strangers lemme give you some advice.

1) Read David duChemin’s book Within The Frame. David talks in depth about pursuing and expressing your vision where people, places, and culture are concerned. It’s a fantastic book with lots of technical and philosophical meat to dig your teeth into.

2) Get over talking to strangers. I know your mom told you not to but seriously, it’s ok. You will be amazed at how many people open themselves up to you. It’s a great experience for them and for you.

3) Don’t try to approach people who are on their way somewhere. Find someone just hanging out. You won’t be interrupting their schedule.

4) Guys, know your limit with approaching females. Some of you are suave and can do it with style. Dorks like me look like we are just trying a bad pick-up line. Know your limit. Ladies, well, y’all have it easy. Talk to anyone you want.

4) As David writes in his book, be kind, smile, and extend warmth and friendship to the folks you meet.

5) Many will tell you “no”. Many will say yes. Listen to what Janet said in the video above. She had not had a portrait made of her in 35 years! She wouldn’t have one getting shipped to her if someone had not simply asked to take a portrait of her.Anyway, here are my portraits. They aren’t the most amazing portraits I’ve ever shot but I’m glad I put myself out there. I met some great people I would have otherwise never talked to.

Cheers,
Zack

If you have been following the call to action posts lately, then you know this is the week to get your service projects wrapped up and delivered.  I would love to hear your stories. Email your stories and/or links about your service project to me at service @ zackarias [dot] com and I will compile them into one blog post to share with everyone else.

I know some have already shared your stories or links in the comments of other blog entries. Can you send them again to the email address above so I can sort them out quickly? Thank you!!!If you’ve been sittin’… Don’t beat yourself up. You have 365 days a year to serve. Maybe tomorrow is your day.  

Cheers,
Zack 

I’m just checking in with those of you who are taking the call to action challenge.  If you are new to the blog then check out this post to figure out what I’m talking about.

This is the week to be getting a service job on the books and scheduled. By reading comments some of you have seen this through to completion by now. I know some of us are still draggin’ ass on it.  

On my front I have been working with Derrick. He’s set up with email, online banking, and he has his own PayPal account now! We are moving him toward a blog.  I have to hook up with him this week to see how the eWorld is treating him and make further steps toward the blog.  I also went to a networking event last week and connected with an organization that works with kids and mentors them from 8th grade through 12 grade. They commit five years to each child. It’s an organization that has an amazing heart and amazing statistics. I’m hoping to meet with them in the next week or two to figure out how I plug in with them. 

What’s up? How are things going? Any of you still sitting around wanting to do this but still making excuses as to why you can’t? Fess up as an anonymous commenter and let’s see if we can’t find a boot to plant up your rear!!!

No seriously. This community of folks are here to help. Speak up! This project will be a good primer for many of us to get off our butts and help out in December for the Help-Portrait project.

Cheers,
Zack