I was reading through Chase Jarvis’ latest post “Escaping Your Portfolio” and it got me to thinking. I’ve always been a believer of “Showing what you want to be or what you shoot”, meaning that your portfolio should only consist of the things that you want to be shooting creatively. That doesn’t mean we won’t take paying jobs that don’t relate to our portfolios, but the idea is VISION, mean your vision and how you see. This I believe is a definite MUST in our world, and as Chase puts it, a necessary evil. Your vision starts to come together after you’ve been shooting for a few years, and you start to hone in on your style. It takes quite a while to get just a grasp of what that is as an artist, and a process that we must all embrace. Patience is the key. (not that I’ve had much of it over the last few years, but it’s what my mentors keep telling me.) Hiring the right people (consultants, graphic designers, reps, etc) to curate/edit and package your work is the other key. So strive for the perfect portfolio? Not necessarily. Strive to create your style/vision and continue to update your portfolio. If you are shooting all the time, your work and vision will evolve, as will your portfolio.

The point of my post is that his post did push me to think about pushing my brand beyond just “taking pictures” and into the other interests and facets that I aspire to. That’s one reason I’ve never attached “Photography” to my name. My goal is to push my brand into as many creative ventures as I can, and that in and of itself is a process. Is directing commercials in my future goals? Yeah. In what capacity, I have no idea. I’ve already begun a little (see my videos/stop motions). Maybe fine art? Maybe a clothing line, a restaurant, a bar? I have many other dreams and goals that take time and process. Remember being successful at something takes a lot of hard work. (10,000 hours perhaps?) In the end, I want my brand/name to be a creative entity, not limited to just photography.

With photography, the body of work you develop over a few years will evolve and will
progress, and eventually be in your Default Bag so that you can explore
other opportunities. Eventually you will have the staff to free your time to work on the projects you want to.

Adding this to the pot of creative theory reminders that problem solving is what this job is all about. I love to shoot my own work as much and as often as I can, (ABS Theory). It keeps you sharp and Expands Your Default. I pulled some friends together and drove to the desert for a little spontaneous personal shoot. Sometimes you get into situations where things go wrong, unforeseen things happen, important parts of the crew are late, etc. Our job is to solve those problems and make something great despite the circumstances. This time Mother Nature threw a little twist into our little shoot. My concept was involved 300 balloons, and that didn’t exactly happen. We got there and the winds were so strong it was ripping the balloons off the ribbon. So we still made it work for despite the Mother Nature’s blessing of insane winds. A little more to add to the subconscious default.

See the full images story here:
http://www.nickonken.com/Stories/AndreeaAtTheMojaveSaltFlats/

Went to an art show party last night for Arielle Pytka, my friend Sacha's sister. You'll find Arielle modeling in a lot of the Roxy campaigns and many others. I enjoyed her work, especially the typography driven pieces.

My director friend Omri(who I collaborate with on a lot of projects ie: The Legend of Santi), got into a conversation with their dad, Joe Pytka who is one of the most famous commercial directors. He's directed over 5,000 commercials in his career. He had some great words of wisdom.

The thing I walked away with, is staying true to spontenaity and real moments which something. It is the element that we as humans connect with in films, and imagery. So many times, big productions get convoluted and art directed to the point where you lose spontenaity of real moments because there's not room to let them happen. It's part of the process. Authentic moments are a big part of my work, and something I want to strive to keep and try to infuse as much as possible into commerical shoots. When I shoot I like to create scenarios and let moments happen, then snap the photograph at the right moment.

The conversation was a good inspiration to keep looking for those moments.

As you may know, I'm writing a book on travel photography. I've created this poll to see what title people would be most inclined to purchase. Please help me by voting and passing this on to any people you think would be interested in buying a book on travel photography.