Kris D'Amico Photography

February 11th, 2011 by Kris

I’m working on two series right now: a three-part series regarding social media for creatives and a series of 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.

December 23rd, 2010 by Kris

From Seth’s Blog on Tuesday; sage advice for the new year:

“Go to work on a regular basis.

Art is hard. Selling is hard. Writing is hard. Making a difference is hard.

When you’re doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out–this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it’s time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break.

Zig taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don’t allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, “hey, maybe I should check my email for a while, or you know, I could use a nap.” If you do that, the lizard brain is quickly trained to use that escape hatch again and again.

Isaac Asimov wrote and published 400 (!) books using this technique.

The first five years of my solo business, when the struggle seemed neverending, I never missed a day, never took a nap. (I also committed to ending the day at a certain time and not working on the weekends. It cuts both ways.)

In short: show up.”

Thanks Seth!

December 14th, 2010 by Kris

There’s that time of year where we are either dead in the water or slammed and wondering if there will be one full night’s sleep this week. Yes, I’m talking about the holidays. Between personal commitments, parties, socials, and the such, we’ve got our usual work load and, oh yeah, the people who are trying to squeeze one more project out the door before the year ends.

Now, like many of you, I fall victim to this same old year-end race to the finish. Tradeshows aside, we all know that 80% of this work we do in December will not be dropped into layouts ’til after the first and ad spots will not be purchased until, in some cases, February when ad budgets for the year are refreshed. Why do we kill ourselves to get it out the door? I’ve got my reasons, what are yours?

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 ask: 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 two 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?

Read the rest of this entry »

November 3rd, 2010 by Kris

So, recently my friend, Jeremy Mitchell, had this idea for iPhone app called, Gallerytopia. I tipped a pint with him at our local pub and he gave me this interview.*

Kris D’Amico: “Dude, so where did you come up with the idea for Gallerytopia?”

Jeremy Mitchell: “So, I had lunch one day with Chuck Norris, right? And you know he only eats uncooked red meat**, so we ate over at the butcher department at Sam’s Club, but I digress. He was telling me that since he has a flash website for his photography, people cannot see his images on the iPhone or iPad. He proceeded to tell me how he thought that this is a travesty and might have to ‘take care of things’ over at Apple.”

Read the rest of this entry »

November 1st, 2010 by Kris

From Seth Godin’s blog this AM:

“This year, fewer than 40% of voting age Americans will actually vote.

A serious glitch in self-marketing, I think.

If you don’t vote because you’re trying to teach politicians a lesson, you’re tragically misguided in your strategy. The very politicians you’re trying to send a message to don’t want you to vote. Since 1960, voting turnouts in mid-term elections are down significantly, and there’s one reason: because of TV advertising.

Political TV advertising is designed to do only one thing: suppress the turnout of the opponent’s supporters. If the TV ads can turn you off enough not to vote (“they’re all bums”) then their strategy has succeeded.

The astonishing thing is that voters haven’t figured this out. As the scumminess and nastiness of campaigning and governing has escalated and the flakiness of candidates appears to have escalated as well, we’ve largely abdicated the high ground and permitted selfish partisans on both sides to hijack the system.

Voting is free. It’s fairly fast. It doesn’t make you responsible for the outcome, but it sure has an impact on what we have to live with going forward. The only thing that would make it better is free snacks.

Even if you’re disgusted, vote. Vote for your least unfavorite choice. But go vote.”

Thanks, Seth. Like he said. JUST GO VOTE!

October 26th, 2010 by Kris

From A Photo Editor’s RSS feed this morning:

1. Before proceeding with photography, make sure that’s your thing.
2. Test your brain out by exposing it to a ton of photographs, as well as real scenes.
3. Choose good friends, not for networking. but for honest critique of your work.
4. Borrow from any time period and any predecessor, then build on them to create your own vision.

via B, aka Blake Andrews.

So, what do you think?

September 24th, 2010 by Kris

So, here I am waiting on files to transfer. Earlier this morning I was waiting for videos to upload. Last night I was waiting for image files to import.

I spend the majority of my day waiting on the technology I use.

Hey Adobe, hey Apple, hey AT&T, hey Vimeo, why are we always waiting? If google can figure out what I’m typing before I type it in, why can’t my file transfers be almost instantaneous?

In your defense, my average file transfer is 1.5 gigs, with some as high as 8 to 10 gigs at a time, videos do have to be converted and not everyone has fiber optic or cable connections to their severs. But I implore you, people who make the imaging technology and internet work,  think about us little guys who still have large data transfers and simply need a bit more speed. Yes we NEED 6.2 GHz processors with 22 cores, 1024-bit graphics cards, 512 GB of RAM, and unlimited battery power. Oh yeah, did I mention, all this needs to be in a lightweight, good looking laptop with a wireless card that reaches a half mile and I’d still like to be able to update my facebook and twitter at the same time… did I ask if you had anything faster than fiber to the desktop?

Looks like my transfer finished, back to work. Now I get to wait on Lightroom to process these 854 images from 50Mb raw files into web ready jpgs, automatically build me a web gallery, post it to my website and automatically send emails to the four people who need to see it. . . guess I’ll go read a magazine and get another cup of coffee.

Wait, it’s already finished. Damn, guess I’ll save that article about Ryan Reynolds for lunch.

August 30th, 2010 by Kris

Just quick post today. I’ve got several deadlines this week and, of course, I’m already behind. I did want to post up some advice that I’ve gotten from the collective wisdom of Google and the interwebs. When I started this photography business ten years ago, I started it with $450 and no real direction, so it was essential that learned how to buck up and make the few deadlines I did have as perfect as possible. As you freelancers and Sole Props know, when you’re the boss, you kind of have to be a jerk to yourself. Anyway, here are a few things that I do to stay on track.

Read the rest of this entry »

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!!