A Big Grey Area

in

After writing my rant on photography I realized I needed to clarify some things. My intention was not to say you shouldn’t consider yourself a photographer unless that’s how you make a living. My hope was to express the importance of patience and practice. I am frustrated by the sense of entitlement surrounding our generation. I love the fact that people everywhere now have the ability to capture their everyday lives on camera. The technology today makes it possible for friends and families to stay connected whether they’re across town or across the world. Websites like flickr and vimeo and tumblr have made it really easy to stay connected with people. This is the upside to all our technology.

Which brings me to my point. What is the difference between the enthusiasts and the professionals? An enthusiasts is someone who does it for fun but without any real knowledge of what they’re doing. They may be learning, which is good, but they haven’t reached that level of professionalism yet. A professional is someone who does it for fun but has the knowledge and experience to know when to break the rules.

It’s really hard to be so black and white with an issue that has so many grey areas. I believe we are all learning day-to-day about how to be better at what we love to do. At least I can speak for myself. For someone just starting out the feeling will be totally different than someone who’s been in the game for 10-20 years.

Wherever you on your professional journey please know that there will always be those ahead of you and those behind you. Just be humble and gracious to accept any amount of recognition you get in this life. No one likes a douche.

Just one person

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Zoning out in a meeting today it struck me how amazing it is that even just one person likes what I do. Our consumer culture is always telling us we need more. More money, more food, more memory, more everything. But that’s just not true. We need to stop. We need to slow down and be thankful for what we have.

The fact that you have at least one person who cares about you and listens to what you have to say is amazing. Please don’t take it for granted.

In the end nobody will remember how many followers you have or how many likes you get. All people will remember is the way you made them feel.

Everyone is not a photographer

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The age of the internet and the iPhone has brought photography to the masses in a way not even George Eastman or Edwin H. Land could imagine. And that’s the problem. Now everyone thinks they’re a photographer. But what if the internet and the iPhone came with a hammer and nails, would that make everyone a carpenter? No, of course not, that’s a silly thing to imagine. It takes time and practice to become a carpenter. You spend many years training under the hand of an older/wiser teacher or wrestling your way through it on your own. But it’s never instant.

All the overnight sensationalism and instant gratification of the internet are nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

I’m speaking to myself here too. Even though I’ve been shooting photos for over 10 years now, I still wouldn’t consider myself a photographer. I like to dabble, sure, but I don’t pay my mortgage and feed my family on the pictures I take. I’m just a guy with an iPhone and instagram.

Seamlessness

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These thought are buzzing around my brain right now and I wanted to jot them down before they’re gone. I have really been feeling the need lately to get my self in order. And by self I mean all the ways that I am portrayed online. This online presence is really important, the way I see it, for the future. Not that I’m trying to secure my future, I know that’s a foolish thing to attempt, but I want people to know when they’re looking at something I did. I want whatever I touch to leave my fingerprint behind. Yeah, I like that analogy. So why this sudden pull? Well, first off, it’s not so sudden. This pull to make everything “seamless” has been the goal since day one. But, as in all of life, we have to make mistakes and learn from those before we can see where we want to go. I know I don’t roll out of bed each morning with the next big idea that will change the world and save humanity. Do you? So over the past few years I’ve been working and re-working my website and trying to find my place on the web. But what I’m coming to find is that I don’t want to live on the web. It’s a nice place to visit, but I want to live in the real world. I want to touch the earth and feel the warmth of another. I want to drink a pint of Guinness and eat dark chocolate. But somehow I feel like I need to bring all those things that make me who I am to the web.

Am I making sense? God, I hope so. I don’t want to rant, so I’ll wrap this up quick. I am carefully observing and dissecting a few select websites of people I admire online. I am looking at how they’ve managed to tie all of what they do in to one seamless experience online. But I’m afraid that even in this observation I could easily get lost in trying to become them, instead of just being myself. And that’s the last thing I want. So I am freeing myself to continue to make mistakes and not get things perfect. I am free to be who I am, as clumsily and weird as that may be. Thank you.

The greatest investment

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One of the greatest things I've learned about myself is that I really enjoy people. Not only getting to meet people, but getting to connect people also. My friend Tim Coons was telling me about this book The Tipping Point that describes the main factor in any new trend, people. The author places people into three basic categories: connectors mavens and salesmen. Now I won't attempt to delve into the explanations of each type, you can read for yourself if interested, but I am most certainly a maven. However, I think there is a little connector inside me as well. Because as much as I enjoy the sacredness of a few personal relationships, I also enjoy connecting people with other people on a much larger scale. This connector part of me really came to light last weekend at my art show. Seeing the response I got from people who turned out for the evening was overwhelming. I can't put into words how much it means to me to have the support of family and friends and even people I've never met before. But what I really thought was cool was seeing all these people getting introduced to other people who they've never met, and I believe that was the real success of the evening. My art, more or less, acted as a conduit for people to flow in and out of the coffee shop and bump into one another and make connections. Those connections are priceless because of the people. That's why I believe people are the greatest investment we can make.