These are very important to have if you’re serious about your career in photography, but I think they’re important to write at the right time in your journey. It takes a few years to really figure out what you want to shoot, how you shoot it, and how you want to make money doing it. It’s a lot to think about.

Earlier this year, I worked with a long time friend of mine Kris Nelson in LA who helped myself and another mutual friend Mark Leibowitz write his marketing and business plans. During the process Kris worked with me by helping me ask myself the right questions and to lay out hierarchical documents that describe my goals, vision, and break down how I intend on achieving them. It was a long process, but a good one. It’s helped to clarify and outline where I want to go with my photography business. It was also a great piece of the package to have when meeting with different reps. They were very impressed that I had my marketing and business plans written out. (If you haven’t read the Reps post, read it here.)

The documents are very personal, thought out, and quite a process. I highly recommend creating them if you are that stage of being ready to move your business forward. Kris was great to work with.

You can find out more at Kris’ website, and contact him with any questions.

http://www.kramaconsulting.com/

Yet another fantastic restaurant in New York. A hidden little gem in lowest part of the lower east side that has been surfacing amongst foodies in the recent months. Everything is made with fresh organic ingredients that is bought within a day of being served. Something also interesting, is they only use ovens. Nothing is cooked over a burner.

Here's a little idea of what I got to try:
•brown’s macaroni and cheese with 2 year aged gruyere, ricotta, fontina and mozzarella
•red snapper ceviche, corn, red onions, avocado, grape tomatoes, cilantro, house made taro chips
•roasted sweet water prawns, israeli couscous, brunoise vegetables, roasted asparagus, grape tomatoes 
•Avocado Toast, fresh avocados, melted cheese and carmelized onions accompanied by mixed greens (it was recently added, so I'm not sure the exact ingredients)

Is your mouth watering already? Mine is. I must revisit this place. Check out the little news clip on their website that Channel 7 did for them.

http://www.greenbrownorange.com/

Amanda Sosa Stone, my consultant for the last few years is working with Lost Luggage/Team Envy this week at the expo and putting a few free seminars at the Lost Luggage booth. She's awesome if you're looking to figure out how to go about your business and marketing.

None the less, she asked me(and a few others) to answer some questions on her panel about the process I went through in finding my rep, Greenhouse. There will be a couple other high profile reps there as well answering questions. The seminars will be some really great information, so if you can make it, come by.

Info:
Friday(the 24th) 11:30 LOST LUGGAGE/BRAND ENVY BOOTH #1528

Come say hi!

I'm sure you might have gathered by now that I like to eat. It's pretty rare that I run across a place that is amazing enough to blog about but it looks as though I've found something. I'm in NYC right now exploring and getting a feel for the city. I'll also be heading to pieces of the expo this next week.

That said, I know NY has many great places to consume goodness, but this one in the embarkment of my journey has topped the charts so far. I'd rank it up there with the goodness of Monsoon in Seattle. Macondo is a fantastic gourmet Spanish Tapas spot on the lower east side at crossing of Houston and Allan.

Each dish had it's unique spices and flavors to give those tastebuds a little party. We had the Chorishrimp, Cubanos, and their specialty guacomole which was pretty unreal.

If you're ever in NYC, it's definitely worth your time.

http://www.macondonyc.com/

Found this article through my friend/mentor, Chase Jarvis. It's written by Court Crandall, a founder of the agency Ground Zero down here in LA. What caught my eye, was the article was written about my friend Noah Clark and his resilient character and motivation. So, if you're reading this Noah, Kudos!

I believe a lot of what it takes to be come a pro photographer, and also as Chase says is hard work, and motivation. That is the core character of a job like this because it can be tough. You need to be very self motivated to excel in this world, especially with all the competition that is arising. That even extends into assisting and learning. Be willing to get your hands dirty for a while to learn. Attitude is everything.

Here's a bit of the article:
"Last week was about as bad a week as I can remember at Ground Zero. We lost two employees. The first was art director Noah Clark, who announced he's leaving to join Crispin, Porter + Bogusky in Boulder, Colo. The second was a woman who made breakfast for the staff and cleaned the office, and who died of lung cancer despite having never smoked a cigarette in her life. (Having worked on the California Department of Public Health account for eight years, I'd be remiss not to mention that her father was a heavy smoker and she believes the second-hand smoke she inhaled as a child ultimately led to her demise.)

Clark interviewed to be my assistant a couple weeks before he was scheduled to graduate from the University of Southern California. Unlike the other finalist for the job, an attractive woman the rest of the creative department was imploring me to hire, Noah was more "boy band": spiked hair, fresh face, jeans that were more fancy than a guy needs to own. But there was something about him that reminded me of myself. And it wasn't the hair. He was just so damn eager to be in the business. There was no pretense, no attitude or entitlement. All he wanted to do was work hard, learn and help.

So I hired him, spelling out very clearly that the chances of his growing into an art director position with us were similar to the word at the end of our agency name: "Zero." He nodded along and said he understood. Then he set about completing every task asked of him to the highest standard possible. Between doing all the so-called "grunt" work, Noah grabbed every creative brief he found lying around the office and looked for ways to help out with layouts, taglines, new business presentations, etcetera. He never asked to be promoted. He never bitched about his day-to-day responsibilities or acted like anything was beneath him. Which is why when a junior art director position opened, I decided it was time to do what a guy named Peter Seronick did for me years before: Give him a chance. So I gave the kid who was Ground Zero the opportunity to join our creative department over all the guys and girls who simply wanted to work for Ground Zero.

In the four years that followed, Noah turned into an award-winning art director who did the kind of work students at VCU and Art Center now point to and say, "Someday." But that wasn't what made him special. The longer you do this job, the more you find that doing good work is the price of entry and it's all the other stuff that separates the folks you really like from the ones you can't live without.

In 15 years of owning Ground Zero, there haven't been many folks who regularly beat me to the office in the morning. Noah was one of them. It should also be noted that he was often the last to leave at night, if he left. I don't say this to glamorize long hours or a sweatshop mentality, but to point out that he typically wasn't burning the midnight oil or the pre-dawn oil to better his portfolio, but to make a presentation look a little better, work on the agency new business materials or polish an ad that was still a little too rough around the edges for his liking. This kind of dedication earned him the moniker "The Cleaner" from Laura Eastman, our head of account services. Like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction, Noah was the guy who fixed things, no matter how screwed up they might have been when someone dumped them in his lap. When another art director left on vacation, Noah picked up the slack. When another team dropped the meat in the dirt, he picked up the pieces."

Read the rest here:

Obama '08 – Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

This Vote for Hope video by MC Yogi(youtube) is an amazing one. It was inspired by Shepard Fairey's work, one of my favorite street artists. The graphics and the message in this video are very inspiring.

Andrew Zuckerman created a very inspiring personal project called Wisdom. It's a film where he interviews famous cultural icons and asks them what wisdom is to them. He also does a book of portraits of all the people in the film. The words of wisdom from these folks is truly inspiring. Check it out!

http://www.wisdombook.org/

Chester French, is up on the rise. I just shot them for the cover of this week's issue of the Improper Bostonian. What do these guys have to do with Boston? They both went to Harvard. Their music is fantastic. They were really fun to work with due to their humor and sarcasm. We had a great time walking around in the mid day sun searching for shade and unique shoot locations.

Here are a few links:
Their Myspace
Funny MTV interview
Rest of the photo story

Something I notice a lot when receiving emails is links to the web that aren't hyperlinked. It's a rather annoying little pet peeve. Lets face it, we're all lazy these days, and the effort to select the text, copy it, switch to your web browser, paste it and press return is a lot of work. It may not seem like much, but it's a pretty big deal. It could mean the difference between very busy Art Buyer or Photo Editor not checking out your website. If you create a hyperlink then it's "one click" and they're in. It's funny how in a busy world, something as small as this could make a huge difference. Especially if that person doesn't know you from Adam, they're not going to give you the time. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to see images.

Think about the steps in that process, then what happens if it takes more than 1 click to begin seeing images on your site?

Creating a hyperlink is really easy in email. All you have to do is add "http://" in front of the "www" of a website. Most email programs these days will pick the http:// up and turn the whole link into a one click hyperlink.

Example(and bare with me while I spell it out):

This DOESN'T work:
www.nickonken.com

This DOES work:
http://www.nickonken.com

Through a recent conversation with my new friend Aurelia, a few thoughts came through my head that is in correlation with ABS theory, and Testing, thus creating this post.

Your “Default” is what you shoot, what you default to when you’re under the pressure to perform. It’s your natural “go to” when you’re in the moment, and maybe things aren’t going completely right, or things you were expecting didn’t come through. Your default is your muscle memory, and the result of how you’ve conditioned yourself to the maximum capacity of your creative capabilities. This default is WHAT you show in your portfolio. I’ve heard it said many times, you are only as good as your WORST image. Your portfolio is who you are in the game of photography. It shows what you shoot, how you shoot it, and how good you are while you’re shooting. When Art Buyers, Art Directors, and Photo Editors look at your book, they can see everything about you. They see the production value of your work, the elements you choose which conveys your tastes, they see how you direct and interact with your subjects, etc. They can read everything by looking at the images in your book.

The more you are shooting (ABS theory) and pushing yourself on your own time, the more you are expanding your creative default. The more you expand your capability to see while you’re in the moment. SEEING is what photography is all about. I am constantly pushing myself to see more, and that seeing more comes through starting in the production stages. How can I choose better elements to infuse into my images? Locations? Props? Models? Styling? How can I refine my taste to convey a better quality image?

Expanding your default can also translate into the realm of WHAT you shoot while still living under your creative vision and style. That is something that I am working on in my own vision. How can I diversify the content of what I’m shooting, or the style of lighting, while staying under the umbrella of MY style? How am I pushing myself to see better and more unique compositions, and better direct my subjects to add to my default? These are all things that become innate and subconscious. It’s like exercising your muscle memory to better help you problem solve and perform under the pressure of a real job without having to stress about them.

This is why art is a process, a process of learning to see. That’s why as much as we look through magazines and think “oh I could have shot that”, more than likely unless our portfolios contain that level of imagery that we are “think we could have shot”, we can’t. I remember so many times thinking that over the last few years, and now looking back I laugh because at that stage in my creative potential/default there’s no way I could have. In the same respect I look at certain images now and think the same thing, but in reality until I actually do it, I’m not there yet.

All this said, what are you doing to push your creative capabilities and expand your default?