Many hours of propping, shooting, printing, cutting, building, stamping, writing, stuffing, and delivering later, my holiday promo is done. Still not enthusiastic about sending just a postcard, so I built this image into a "framed" picture for the desk, made sure I slapped a sticker on the back with my website address, and included a handwritten note.
I think the high point was seeing that I'd included someone with the last name of "Frost".
Location scouting for an upcoming shoot, I think I got hives from being out of the studio. Maybe it was goose bumps.
I did find my new winter hovel in Golden Gate Park though.
We went this weekend to the APA Something Personal exhibition.
The event has really blown up over the last three years. I s'pose about 1000 filtered through Left Space over the course of the evening, to check out 100 photographs from Bay Area photographers. It's kind of like the Academy Awards. Well, the square root of the Academy Awards. Oh and I doubt the fire marshal stops the serving of booze at the Academy Awards.
But it's a great time. It's always great to see all the people you worked with throughout the year, and catch up with the ones you didn't. Most everybody gets dressed up (there was one guy in a tuxedo), which is nice, and there's a lot of excitement.
Lots of portraiture this year, gritty, kind of journalistic stuff, and lots of journalistic or documentary stuff too. I guess people want to deal with important things during a downturn.
I shed a little tear because I didn't get in this year, unlike the last two years. But it was a crocodile tear.
It's strange to move from someone you barely know, to someone you know really well. From someone who's running the "I'm so busy oh god never a moment to catch my breath" schtick to someone who's stuck and wants to talk about it. From someone quite senior to someone who's mom might be picking him up later.
And it's a real fun time.
Not that there are only ten, but since I go on about copyright from time to time, I thought I'd repost this interview with Photo Attorney. Top 10 Misconceptions about Photography and the Law
So, earlier I wrote about how creativity requires space, and that discipline and pushing directly are much less effective than openness and pausing. But what about commercial artists? You can't just be all arty-farty when everything's on the line, right? In the world of commercial art, you have to grow up and whip that creativity into shape, drag those ideas out on-demand and fully-formed.
Ah, no. I just have to listen harder.
I have listen to the client to make sure the goals are understood and shared. Then I have to plan the project to a T, pick the best team, the best environment, and ensure everything that we'll need is on hand.
But once things start, all the work is to allow for that space within. It's smaller, more intense, but just as vibrant, although it's a little slipperier. I have to listen harder, but there is help, too, because we're all working together.
And yeah, it's creation on-demand and per-criteria, but that doesn't necessarily lead to strain or pushing or struggle.
The struggle is to not struggle.
