Kris D'Amico Photography

December 5th, 2011 by Kris

From Seth Godin’s blog Thursday, I think these are especially true when running your own shop. Enjoy.

“You don’t even realize there’s a game. (And any contest, market, project or engagement is at some level a game).

• You start getting involved and it feels like a matter of life or death. Every slight cuts deeply, every win feels permanent. “This is the most important meeting of my life…”
• You realize that it’s a game and you play it with strategy. There’s enough remove for you to realize that winning is important but that continuing to play is more important than that. And playing well is most important.
• You get bored with the game, because you’ve seen it before. Sometimes people at this stage quit, other times they sabotage their work merely to make the game feel the way it used to.
• And then a new, different game begins.”

November 9th, 2011 by Kris

It’s that time again. Actually, I’m long overdue. It’s been over 2 years since I’ve really updated my web site and I’m not even sure where my printed book is. And that’s a little sad. We all get busy, but this is something that we all need to put on our calendars at least once every six months. Take a day or two and go thru the work that we’ve been slaving over for the last 2 months! Regardless of medium, if you’re freelancing in the current economy you either have lots of little jobs mixed in with a few big ones. I bring this up to say this, don’t over look the little gigs, there are jewels in there that you’ll want to show off. Especially if you can tell a narrative that is loaded with drama, everyone loves a good story. Well, I found this article, “Editing Your Portfolio” by Zack Arias out of Atlanta. Cutting my teeth in the Atlanta market admittedly gives me a bit of a soft spot for any shooter carving out a niche there, but it’s a solid article with some great tips. Here’s an excerpt:

“The BIG Edit :: Brew 10 pots of coffee, grab all of your archive drives, kiss the wife and kids goodnight and  start harvesting every photo that you like from all of your jobs. Grab the RAW untouched files where possible. Don’t get the processed JPGs. Get the originals whenever you can. You may think your post production skills three years ago were awesome but as you put your work together today you may not like those 14 crappy actions you dumped on your work back then. Trust me on this… harvest the RAW files every chance you can. Don’t think “is this going to be in my portfolio?” while you do this first step. You’re just looking for photos you like. Like you really like them. Maybe you shot five consecutive frames of someone laughing and you like all five. Copy all five of them to a BIG edit folder. Notice I said “copy” your photos into the BIG edit folder. Don’t move them out of their home in the job folder where they lived. Make a copy. You want ONE folder holding all of the images. You can then copy specific images into genre folders if you want but the main folder holds all of them.

Go through your edits and any other RAW files you may have from the job that you did not deliver to the client. It’s always amazing to go back into a shoot and find a gem of a shot that didn’t make the edit when you first shot and delivered that job. You not only grow as a photographer but you grow as a photo editor in your life. A shot you may have passed up three years ago suddenly jumps out at you now. That is why I never delete my unpicked files. I always keep them. I go through these old folders a few times a year.”

Alright, to read more click here. I’d love to see what you end up with!  Alright off to go start my “big edit” folder!

KD

August 29th, 2011 by Kris

Quick post today about exclusivity.

What do you do well? Where are your weak spots?

I believe strongly that we should all play to our strengths, not our weaknesses. In your brain, you are literally “hard wired” to do somethings better than others. The more that we push into our areas of strength, the more that area of our brain grows. Guess what? When we work on our weak spots, there is still growth, but not the exponential growth that happens with strengths.

Now, I’m not saying abandon your weaknesses. I still need to work on my timeliness, I still need to work on fiscal fastidiousness. But, where I excel, now that’s where I can expect real growth. Keep this in mind this week as you run into your daily challenges!

With this in mind, think about that one thing that you shoot, that one thing that you design, that one thing that’s not work, it just flows out of you. Is your business built on this? Can it be? It probably should be. It might be something completely esoteric.

Meditate on the things that bring you joy and the things you look forward to and your gifts will shine thru. Try working on something where you are already a rock star and see what happens! Good luck! We’re all looking forward to the results.

KD

August 22nd, 2011 by Kris

Repost from Seth Godin’s Blog last week.

“Not just the first one.

June 27th, 2011 by Kris

Let’s start at the top, what is a “mentor”? Well, the term actually comes from Greek Mythology, Mentor was a character in the Odyssey and to some extent the Iliad. I won’t get into the gritty details but the over simplified version is simply that he was put in charge of the estate when Odysseus went off to war and subsequently like a father to Odysseus’ son. That’s where we get the term mentor, someone who is not related by blood but who is “father like” and passes wisdom to us like a father would.

I think in modern times it’s not such a weighty term but the roots are similar, after all, how many TV personalities tear up when talking about their mentors? We all have people in our lives that rise up and teach us things about life. I recently have been reflecting on some of those people in my life.

{Take your time, wait for the shot. Above image (c) Brian Robbins}

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February 13th, 2011 by Kris

I took a long plane ride today. Being the marginal workaholic that I am 45 minutes into the flight I had killed the battery on my mac book pro. Just a side note, AfterEffects on battery power, not a great idea. But, not having my usual work crutch of my laptop it allowed me to focus on some things that just get pushed to the back burner. I know before I’ve talked about mission statements and crafting razor specific goals for your business, but it’s worth mentioning again. I strongly believe that there’s merit in revisiting and if necessary reworking all of your business goals and objectives on at least an annual basis.

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February 11th, 2011 by Kris

I’m working on 2 series right now, a three part series regarding social media for creatives and a few fresh posts on photography for non-photographers. Well in the mean time I saw this on Seth Godin’s blog this AM and I thought it was worth reposting. Stay tuned!!

“A recent study found that placebos work even if the patient is told by the doctor that the drug they’re taking has no ‘real’ medicine in it.

November 9th, 2010 by Kris

Sometimes our egos get the best of us, right?

Sometimes that one guy, you know that guy (or gal), gets the gig. He under bids you, they out promote you, or just sweep the client off their feet. If you’ve been in business for, oh I don’t know, a day you’ve run across this. It stings a little, doesn’t it? Especially those of us shooting in small and medium size markets where it can be difficult, if not impossible to even get clients to give us a chance to re-bid, we need to be mindful of what our attitude says about our character. How are we walking through our day-to-day workflow? What is our relationship like with other creatives? How are we checking our attitudes about the gigs that got away?

I have found that when I am hitting wall after wall with my bids, my best bet is to take a step back and say what I am doing right?

In this current economic climate, where our resources are scant, we have to remember our clients are making tough decisions about money as well. So, look at what you are bringing to the table, if it’s just a few pretty pictures then, why would you get a call back? How many times have you surfed the internet and seen some kid, fresh out of school, who’s work is breathtaking? There will always be someone who has “prettier” work. We need to dig deep and find a way to present more than pretty work, right?

I recently tipped a few pints with 2 guys who I feel are true pioneers in the creative field here in Nashville, Blake Allen and Matt Reed. Now I posed a simple question to both of them:

How do you redefine your creative vision to keep on top of the pile?

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August 24th, 2010 by Kris

Now, we all know how tricky it is to shoot black on black and I get a lot of questions about how I manage to shoot black on black and white on white. My answer is simple, hire a great retoucher. ONLY KIDDING, but seriously a great retoucher will make your life easier. We all know though that I am a huge fan of shoot it right the first time and will make post easier, your retoucher will thank you. Even if your retoucher is you… but I digress, here’s the shot that I’m going to talk about.

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August 20th, 2010 by Kris

So, I saw this on my twitter feed this morning and I thought it was too good not to share. Thank you “Johnston on Photography!” Here’s a few of my favorites, link to the full article follows:

• Use either a very big camera, or a very small camera. People seldom feel threatened by a tiny camera the size of the Sigma DP-1 or Panasonic LX3, but they also don’t feel very threatened by a giant, clumsy view camera on a tripod (they are also seldom aware of “the moment it clicks” with a big view camera, since you’re not looking through the camera when you take the picture). I suspect that setting up a big camera makes you less of a threat because it immobilizes you; you can’t go sneaking about with one of those. You’re also given an opportunity to confidently pretend that you have every right to be doing what you’re doing. Of course, you’re subject to tripod restrictions in very public places such as crowded city sidewalks and tourist attractions, so do your homework ahead of time and be sure you have a permit if you need one.
• Carry a business card and give it away freely. If you’re stopped or threatened, a card goes a long way toward explaining who you are and implies that you have nothing to hide.
• Ask them for help. Asking someone for help changes your relationship to them. This works with potential thieves—you turn yourself from their prey into their beneficiary, and them from predators into good Samaritans—and it works with cops and guards too, whose job it often is to help people, after all. Have a question ready to go for when someone approaches you or hassles you.
• Work on your camera skills! Good shooters work fast. Cartier-Bresson could reportedly get his Leica to his eye and back almost literally faster than people could notice. If you want to avoid attracting attention, don’t stand there like a big dork futzing endlessly with your camera controls and staring through the viewfinder for minutes on end. Waist-level finders help with this too, because when you look through an eye-level finder, people feel like you’re looking at them, whereas when you look down at some device you’re apparently fiddling with, people assume you’re looking at the device and not at them.
• Adjust the camera while looking in a different direction. Then take the picture you want to take as though it were an afterthought, and do it quickly. A bored bouncer at a bar doesn’t have an excuse to stride across the street and hassle you if you’re pointing the camera down the street and not at his bar; and if you take one shot in his direction and then turn and leave, you remove his opportunity to challenge you.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Have a great Friday!!