Naturally if you’re read any of my posts on branding, you’ll see that I’m a big believer in the importance of it. It’s a key component to a business and once you realize that for yourself you’ll be much further along. You should always hire a trained designer/agency to develop your brand on the graphical side, but we all know that takes a good chunk of change. A brand development like mine can cost anywhere from $5-10K. There is a whole process behind the development and it’s unique to who you are. Its one of the most important things you can do for your business next to taking pictures. Perception is reality(in the visual branding sense), and that is what people take you for on a first impression. Unless you are a trained designer, you should never do your own brand. If you have that kind of cash to spend on developing your brand that’s awesome, and is a great investment, but you should also have shot for a few years and have a good sense of who you are as a photographer because that plays into your visual brand.

That said, I know how hard it is to come up with that kind of cash to hire a designer to create your brand during the first few years of your business. Trust me, I lived off of peanuts and ramen for the first few years of my photography journey because every penny I had went back into my business. Buying equipment ain’t cheap! That’s where your initial investment should reside because that directly makes you money, and you need to have a product before you can build a brand around it. My friends over at Brand Envy have just come out with a great solution for people starting out without the capital to invest in a custom brand package. It’s called BE by Brand Envy. It’s basically an e-commerce branding package where you can choose your design template, and logotype, etc and have a higher quality execution. The great thing about it is you can have a tight designed brand for a price range of $625-$2000, which is very affordable. It will be hands down better than anything the untrained eye. The drawback is the same as any template driven, you may not be the only one with that design.

Check out BE by Brand Envy’s packages here: http://bit.ly/BEbyBrandEnvy

A reader who was just reading the recent post “You Gotta Wannit” and was wondering what I meant by “putting in a ridiculous amount of work.” that goes on outside of taking pictures. I figured this my be a good thing to share with everyone. Behind the scenes there is a hell of a lot of work to be done that doesn’t even incorporate taking pictures. This is what’s called “The Hustle.” In fact, lately I’ve realized and felt that I should be out taking more pictures, but sometimes it’s a slow process of learning where to spread your time, which the older I get, the less I feel I have.

The ridiculous amount work all breaks down from the two rules of the photography game I described in a recent post. Make better images and show more people. It’s doing all the things that go into that.

A lot of the work comes from the self motivation and drive to get better at what I do between the actual paid shoots. I’ve always been a believer in the ABS theory(Always Be Shooting). The more I grow as an artist, the more planning and preparation goes into even my own test shoots. Since I’m putting my own money into my tests, I want to make sure that I’m pre-producing them to get the most out of them.

The other amount of work is showing more people, and that is a completely complex idea. Networking, marketing, promotion, social media, etc. This is all very time consuming but getting your work in front of people is the key component in even getting work.

So, that said, what are the daily tasks that fill my time? I typically get up at 8am and work till 6, 7 sometimes 10pm. The more you hustle, the more you have to do. A lot of my workload is even farmed out to different people that can do it for me(IE: my reps who circulate my portfolios, handle estimating, do portfolio shows, seek out new work, etc.) My accounting and book keeping are farmed out to people that actually enjoy doing it. Next step is to hire a personal/office assistant to take even more of the load off so I can spend my time doing more focused ROI work.

Day to day:
•Researching, planning, reproducing and shooting test shoots: (A fun part of the job that lets us be creative) I spend time writing out creative briefs for shoots so we can all be on the same page when shooting them.
•Job preproduction: working on casting and location decisions for jobs, conference calls with clients for pre-production etc.
•Conference calls and new business: Big ad jobs always require creative calls with art directors to get more info on the project and to for them to hear your thoughts on how you would shoot their concept.
•Dreaming of ideas and establishing goals: Another thing I love about this career is dreaming of ideas that I can actually execute or at least work towards executing. The world is your oyster. You can do what you want with it. Dreaming and creating goals is a great way to stay driven and inspired to keep creating.
•Branding development: Tasks like working with designers to create new promo pieces, email promos, etc. Brainstorming new ways of getting my work in front of prospective clients.
•Portfolio updating and creation: This goes in conjunction with creating and updating the website. It took me a month in the office of 12 hour days to populate my the new website I just launched. Prepping images, and creating the right edits. My printed portfolios get updated twice a year, and that in itself is a lot of work from working with other people on the right edit to laying it out and getting it printed.
•Party planning: I just threw a book release party for my recent book Photo Trekking, and even though I hired an event producer to make the event happen, there was still a significant amount of creative decision making and promotion that I had to do myself. Check the out video and photos here.
•Social Media: I’m not as hardcore into social media updating as a lot are because it’s so time consuming. I try to do it as much as possible, but time becomes so spread thin.
•Blogging: Writing blog posts and getting inspired to write. Figuring out what is best to share with the community.
•Networking and relationship building: Something I do way more of in New York because you can. The community here is pretty amazing, and you meet new people all the time. I love it because it doesn’t always feel too separated here. People in the industry enjoy hanging out and talking about collaborating. Even outside of networking building personal relationships is not something to cast to the wayside. Developing more meaningful relationships is something that I’ve made a goal in my personal life. Sometimes especially here the work and personal relationships collide in a good way.
•Travel planning & Dreaming: I love traveling and dreaming of places to go. Granted time is more scarce these days to take off for long periods, but something I still try and get done. It seems to be more last minute these days, but it involves a decent amount of planning.
•Paying bills and paperwork: The dirty work. Usually it’s taking care of the in office management stuff to send to my book keeper/accountants. I hate doing this stuff.
•Budget planning and allocation: A lot of being a business person is deciding where you spend your money. I try and put as much back into the business as possible to grow and expand. Learning and deciding where to allocate your funds can be a fair amount of work, especially in the beginning stages when there’s not much funds to allocate. Figure out where to best invest.
•Business meetings: Meeting with current associates and potential clients. All takes time out of the day but is important. Personal relationships are key.
•Researching & Reading: I like to read business books when I can to learn how I can better myself and my business. In the same respect I like researching imagery and where I want to be going with my work.
•Managing Interns: This one is quite new, but managing interns, teaching, and giving them tasks to do.
•Other business ideas and projects outside of photography: I have other ideas that may be somewhat photography related but aren’t within the actual scope of my photography business that I love dreaming of and working on.

The “To Do” list never ends, and I’m sure there is much more, but what I can think of off the top of my head. Most of this work is self created, which is a huge part of going places in the commercial world.

Here are a few of the final retouched images from a recent Chevy campaign I shot along with a few behind the scenes set shots.

I recently picked up an iPad due to the influence of my friend Mark Leibowitz. I was originally on the fence because I have so many freaking Apple computers in my house already that my friends make fun of me for it. Why do I need one? Well, it is a shiny new toy but the purpose? 2 of them.

Number 1: Showing more images, but never to take the place of a printed portfolio. I don’t think the printed portfolio will go away completely(at least I hope not). Most of the art directors and art buyers I talk to WANT to see how your work is printed on paper, and most say this won’t go away. It’s a tangible and tactile piece of your craft that represents to them how you put your craft out there. In addition, if they are creating print ads, they want to see your work in printed form, because that’s what they will hire you for. Will print completely go away? I don’t think so and knock on wood, it won’t. I think like most of us we love tactile things in our hands. So, back to the iPad. My point on this is the iPad is great for walking into a meeting with in addition to your printed portfolio to show images beyond it. Images do look quite stellar on the device. If you shoot video along with stills, it’s an excellent way to show people. The screen is much bigger than an iPhone so it changes the whole viewing experience. The backlit screen even gives your imagery a different dimension.

Number 2: Media research. I truly believe that the niche for the iPad (and other tablet devices) is INTERACTIVE MEDIA. From the internet chatter, and recent conversations it feels like people haven’t really caught on to this idea. While it won’t completely replace the magazines we’ve grown and loved, it will save them. I’ve downloaded a couple like GQ & Interview and the interaction with them has much more dimension. Photo Editor has a more indepth review with a couple of cool videos here. The touch screen interaction takes the media to a completely different level. It bridges the gap between an actual magazine and going the magazine’s website. I’m never sitting in front of my computer reading a magazine looking online for the things that I find in the mag that interest me. With this device, it’s one tap and you’re exploring further. We are in the early adoption stage where everyone is trying to figure out what to do with it, but just wait. Media companies are already jumping on and beginning to create great content for it, and that my friends is where we come in. The iPad will be yet another we will be creating content and where stills meet video in an interactive experience. The bigger screen(than the iPhone) completely changes app interaction. Adapting to where technology is moving is greatly important in this day in age. Look how the world of media has changed in the last 5 years since digital has entered the market. It will continue to change at a rapid pace, and we must adapt, and use it to our advantage to survive and succeed. That said, another big reason I picked this bad boy up is to get familiar with it and generate content ideas.

All in all, there are still bugs in the apps, and a few other kinks to be worked out but it will get there. I was totally skeptical until I went to the Apple store and held one in my hand. It truly is a sleek little device. Check out APE’s demo videos. I understand the beef everyone has with the whole non-integration with flash, but I’m starting to realize that the media will be all about the apps which in the end has way more functionality. I’ve hardly found myself web browsing on the device. That’s what a computer is for. Why did they not go for OS X? Because it’s a device that is not about that. It’s not a work horse, it’s an INTERACTIVE MEDIA reader. It’s also NOT an iphone. Right in between. My beef as with with all of Apple’s newest screens is the the gloss factor. While images look ridiculously amazing on them, the glare is quite obnoxious. Love it & Hate it all at the same time. Since it’s just a consumption device it’s fine. I don’t have to worry about color calibration and the gloss jacking up post processing. NEXT project, is an iPad friendly website. Adapt and change.

Through a few recent conversations, and even speaking at the Lara Casey’s MTH 2010 seminar, I’ve come to a harder realization that in any passion driven career, you’ve got to want it, and you’ve got to want it for the absolute right reasons. If you don’t, you won’t want to put in the ridiculous amount of work it takes to make it. The fact of the matter is, any art/passion driven career is WORK, and an extreme amount of it. On the flip side, if you absolutely LOVE your craft and doing it, then it actually isn’t work. I’ve seen a handful of people get into photography not necessarily because they love it, but because they like the acclaim that goes with it whatever that may be. It appears to be a highly glamorous job(as it is), but it is also a hell of a lot of work, and if you don’t love actually “making pictures” and creating art, then it in fact becomes work and to endure the longevity of getting to a sustainable point in a career, your passion has to drive you.

The lovely thing is, that if you actually do love it then you’ll never work a day in your life. (well, the dirty office work like accounting always seems like work, but you can keep working to the point that you can hire other people to do that stuff). I feel blessed to wake up every day and think “What can I create today?” My TO DO list is filled with things I love and want to be doing. That my friends is a personal choice, but along with putting in the hard work in the earlier years, things become easier as you grow.

I know realize that when I was a graphic designer, I never loved the actual craft as much as I do with photography. When I started doing photography, I knew exactly what I wanted to be doing in the end. That gave me the passion, and motivation to get there.

The artistic evolution and journey is a long one. If you truly love it, you will ride it and do what it takes to get there. Transitions, sacrifices, successes and all.

A little sneak peak of the 12×18″ newspaper style promo campaign we just dropped in the mail. These lil tabloids are pretty killer. WE even achieved the zipper edge with gripper imprints on the edges just like a newspaper. The printing was done on a webpress. The awesome design was done by Brand Envy.

We also doubled them as a photobooth backdrop at the Photo Trekking book release party.

In all my efforts of analyzing my business, and where I want to be, I came to a new realization. I’ve always preached that you need to show what you WANT to be shooting in your portfolio and I still believe that to be true. What I’ve been thinking about recently is even beyond that we need to be shooting vertically rather than laterally, and by that, I mean that we need to be shooting imagery that our dream clients actually aspire to.  That’s what the advertising/lifestyle/fashion world is all about. We build aspirational imagery for our client’s demographics, why don’t we shoot aspirational work to reach our demographic? (in most cases in the photo world this would be art directors and photo editors). All the people hiring us want to aspire to a high level of creative. If our clients are seeing our work as a vertical reach to what they’re trying to achieve, it gives them more of a desire to hire us than if we shoot what they already do.

I wrote a previous post on “Creating your own branding imagery” which this very much ties into. (along with “Making better images & Showing more people“) Why not create images that are at a higher level than the clients we are wanting to work for?

Aspiration breeds inspiration. Inspiration breeds motivation. So, translated into photography speak, shoot imagery that is aspirational for the demographic you are targeting, and inspire them to want you. To want your creative eye applied to their vision.

Super excited to have had DJ Cosmo Baker spin at my book release party for Photo Trekking a couple weeks ago. We collaborated on this mix tape.

Download the mix tape album in separate tracks here:
http://bit.ly/OnTheRoad_mixtape

Download it as one continuous song here:
http://bit.ly/OnTheRoad_mixtape_cont