One of the shots from a Russell Athletic shoot of Cleveland Brown’s young QB Colt McCoy – turns out we both dislike having our picture taken. Good thing for me it was his job to be on the other side of the camera.
Earlier this year we were shooting in the SFO area for G-Form, a new company that makes impact protection products for electronics and sports. They had just developed a water resistant case for the iPad/iPad2, and we needed a place to shoot it. At the last minute, all-star producer DeeDee Porter and assistant Raymond Graber had a connection at a beach near one of our set locations.
A few magic phone calls later (plus a whopping $7 fee) we were in at the beach to shoot at sunrise. Thanks to the amazing crew that helped put this week together.
There are a lot of ways to make money creating imagery for different companies and causes, and although none of them is perfect, being involved with a company that has a moral mission and a sense of responsibility to its community is a special thing indeed.
Again Faster is such a company, providing equipment, advice and instruction to the CrossFit community. I’m happy to help them with the visual messages that communicate their mission.
We shot certain scenes out of some typical CrossFit workouts and found that people who have participated in CrossFit responded well to the imagery.
Here’s a sample of out-of-home displays (15 feet wide) that worked out well for their pop-up store at CrossFit events. More to come.
15-foot wide pop-up store displays for Again Faster
A few weeks ago, while on the road in the UK, I realized I was getting too far away from shooting – too many meetings, miles and commitments. I managed to get out of the hotel a couple of the mornings and see a few things that were worth the early hour.
Outside the Eagle & Child Inn, Staveley, UK
Staveley, UK
Manchester
Manchester
Sitting at breakfast in San Francisco recently, one of the guys in my crew told a story about one of his photography clients wanting images of a construction project in progress. The client – a commercial real estate developer – was unsure how much coverage he would need, when he’d need photography done, what he’d use the images for, and even what, specifically, he wanted to show. He didn’t even know what to tell my friend what to shoot. Plus, he wanted to know what it would cost. What should my guy do to get the client in line?
A nightmare, right? This potential “client” can’t even articulate a need, wants a price, and then we all know he won’t want to pay, or he’ll pay slowly, or try to add things on after the job starts. Fellow photographers, designers, and creatives of all types reading this are now nodding their heads and thinking, “Oh, I know just the type – let me tell you about the job I had like that . . . ”
Backed by years of assisting, traditional photography education and faced with the shift in the way the commercial art economy functions, my friend was at a loss for how to handle this guy.
But I thought my friend was heading in the wrong direction. True to the statement that Kane has published on this website about my being the bluntest man alive, I started out by telling my friend he was wrong, or at the very least, that he was asking the wrong questions. (And yes, I have no problem doing that before someone even starts his morning coffee.)
The “economy” – the way in which we all do business with each other, is constantly changing, meaning what was considered valuable to a group of businesses or people has changed. Creatives who sell their services to business are particularly challenged by the relatively recent unrelenting and precipitous changes in technology that influence consumer’s decisions. I’ve always believed – even when I was bribing the night shift at the E6 lab for access to my clips during a week-long job that had been signed off with a paper PO – that any question about how “everyone” charges, delivers, expects or performs a certain piece of contractual business is a question that is pointed in the wrong direction.
I think the question should be this: what does your client need, and do you have the ability and desire to provide that in a mutually profitable way? Contracts, invoices, business deals and jobs are all just the point at which the exchange of money and work make sense for both parties. For instance, traditional business methods of the commercial artist produce certain types of questions about usage – if you’re going to use this in three ads instead of two, it’s going to cost you more for more usage. But our developer is asking for help, and he’s clear that he doesn’t know exactly what he needs, but he needs something, and he thinks my friend can help him. My friend is indeed in a position to help him, to be his partner in a way, and can lend his experience and judgement to the contractor’s business by finding out what need he wants to fill and figure out if meeting that need is something that he can do profitably.
I think this story is a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg – there are many levels of detail here – and the topic has a broader scope than a single blog post. I get asked questions like this regularly, and the benefits of changing the way creatives do business with clients is something I’m going to write about here, if only because I get asked about it so often.
In my friend’s case, I urged him to look at the situation differently: recognize that out of all the numbers the contractor could have called, he called you. Why? What is he trying to accomplish? Unless you’re talking to a fellow art-school grad, drop the idea that he’s going to refer to moody depth-of-field or the color palette of “the photograph.” Think in terms of how your work is going to affect his business and why he’s asking you instead of someone else. It may turn out that he needs a brochure, that he has a big bid coming up and he needs to figure out how to show his prospective client what the construction process is like. Do you know a designer you’d like to work with, someone who can put together a brochure? Can you learn how to do a press check, oversee a project? The developer is admitting he doesn’t know a whole lot of things, and my friend is in a position to help him, charge him money, and directly affect the outcome of not only the project, but his business.
It’s an opportunity, not a problem.
There’s more. Much more, but this is a glimpse at the start of looking at the world differently.
Like a lot of Americans in the last 200 years, we left for Europe charged with energy – to demonstrate our innovations, our technical superiority, our positive, can-do business attitude. We sat in back of our Lufthansa flight working with a brand-new company, with brand-new products, sure to change the game in their category. Our mission was to se up the booth at one of the biggest trade shows in the world, to show the old world just what the new world had for it.
I had shot and helped in the design of the graphic displays that would surely draw buyers and retailers into the booth and secure big orders. We were full of purpose.
Sitting next to us on the overnight flight to Munich was Achmed, an Egyptian who worked in high-end network security for an international company. He was traveling back to his country from the US, taking a leave of absence from work, having not heard from his family, his wife, or friends for a week.
He spoke calmly about expecting his apartment to have been robbed, about not knowing where his wife and daughter were, of his life being forever different. The plan was that his wife and daughter would go to her parent’s house for safety, although he had no idea where they were. The police were not to be trusted. The army was of the people, and the government had to go.
But he was not angry, he was grateful. He was grateful for his life, for his health, for his family and all that he had been able to do. Money, he said, money and success meant little. He told us stories of happy, laughing homeless people living in his neighborhood who were grateful for the sunshine, for being alive. He talked about the love and effort he put into his marriage, and how he could be happy doing anything. His worry was palpable, but his serenity was powerful.
We have not heard from Achmed yet, but we are grateful for his presence on that flight and the sense of purpose he left us with.
Here’s a look at some of the promotional imagery for G-Form, a new company developing products for the biking and sports protection market.
The pads the model is wearing are cool – they are soft and pliable, and sewn to the outside of a compression sleeve. When the pad strikes something hard (like a rock), the outside of the pad forms a hard shell to protect the joint.
Very cool stuff, and there’s more to come. We shot video and some of the other (soon to be released) products. Stay tuned.
This spring found me in Times Square helping out the wonderful Sari Goodfriend with the NYCSalt photography program, which helps inner-city kids learn photography. That day I worked with Lenice Diaz, a high school student in the program, and she’s writing today’s blog post about her day and showing us the images she made then.
Typical Tourist by Lenice Diaz
For some, photography is the act of taking and printing photographs. Photography for me is exploring, interpreting, and capturing the unique relationships between people and their environment.
Nature, by far, is my favorite subject to photograph. As a student in NYCSalt, I am able to go places with my class where I can further my love of photographing nature, however, as a photographer living in NYC, I’ve noticed that nature is hard to find. This has brought me to the love of a new subject, one I call urban nature.
Urban nature is any permanent object in the city such as concrete, metal, mailboxes, trains, etc. I naturally found myself being drawn to the way New Yorkers interact with these objects.
In these four images, sports photographer David Foster was mentoring me. When we started working together I explained to him that 42nd street was difficult for me because I was more of a single object, nature photographer and not so much a crowded shot, people person. At that point he began to give me a lot of ideas and at one point I told him “You know, I feel like I am in such a block and all these ideas are yours.” and he simply responded to me “If I would have shot that, it would have been a completely different picture.” These words really resonated with me because being in a photography class with 12 other students, we are often given the same assignment but come back with very different products.
Since I was so used to photographing nature, approaching people and asking to photograph them was difficult for me. The police officer Romina actually got out of her cop car to let me shoot her. It was a really great experience interacting with her, and I was comfortable enough to ask if I could shoot her again in profile.
My next two photographs were very abstract, with all the stripes and lines. In the photo titled Yellow you see a very clear structure of lines of different lengths and textures. In the photo Crosswalk again you see a very clear linear structure. I was very intrigued by the concept of inserting a subject into the frame. I was really happy in this case that it worked out quite well.
Want to hire Lenice? Call her on 646.409.0607!
Some people cast long shadows in life – important teachers, coaches and mentors of every sort – certain individuals influence the lives of others in a disproportionate way. This week, under the relentless Boston heat, a group of kids are under just that kind of shadow.
By all accounts, Ucal McKenzie was an inspiration to nearly everyone he was involved with, as a soccer coach, player and teammate. As one of my close friends reported, “he was the one who smiled and made friends with that guy who everyone wanted to punch in the face.” As I’ve reported in this space before, his wife Suzanne has set up a foundation in memory of his life after his sudden and untimely death.
Suzanne’s persistent dedication to her husbands legacy through the Ucal McKenzie Breakaway Foundation has gained considerable support from the community and this week I witnessed the most important manifestation of all the hard work: youth soccer clinics held at The Winsor School in Boston.
The most important work being done at these clinics is not about soccer – it’s about developing responsible, well-rounded kids. Athletics is merely the vehicle through which the message is sent. Walking through the drills and practices, the coaches spend as much time emphasizing character development as they do soccer style. Instead of shouting, shaming or demanding performance, the coaches stop to talk to the kids to find a way to help them. Suzanne spent a good part of the day with a boy who claimed injury, but seemed to just need someone to talk to.
The foundation’s mission honors her husband’s legacy in other related ways, including guidance on nutrition, first aid and an emphasis on being a a team mate and leader. Instead of driving kids to win at any cost or idolize stars with questionable character, the foundation’s clinics patiently and effectively send the message of dedication and personal responsibility.
Driving away from the field, I couldn’t help but think that Suzanne was beginning to cast a long shadow of her own.
I’m not a big fan of the summer – it’s the heat, really, it’s never been one of my favorite things. But there is a silver lining to the summer weather, and that’s dramatic light. It’s been a typical hot and sticky stretch where I live for the last few weeks, but yesterday the post-thunderstorm light show at home was worth seeing.
