Road Not Taken

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IX.) My Road – From the Road – A Village Named Unite

Walking across my grandfather’s field into the forest was truly a wonderful place to begin this journey.  I have been traveling alone for a number of days.  So far I have found very suitable places to take water breaks, listen to the birds and other small forest animals, with a bit of sun shining on my face.  It has been very peaceful.  Being alone has given me a chance to realign all of my senses.

Living in the city with all of its activity, friends, family, and responsibilities often overwhelmed me.  All of these things together acted as tiny little voices that slowly drown out the murmur of mine.  As my senses realign they are tuning to the sound of my own voice.  When I wandered into the thick forest without a map it required me to have my senses about me in order to survive even that very first night.

I am now not far from the first village I will encounter on this journey.  I know this because I have been to this place before.  It is a small village I visited almost exactly one year ago.  Of all the places I have traveled to and visited before it has already gained a special place in my heart because the people who live there are so welcoming.  The people who live in this village are very idealistic.  They are also very self motivated and believe in taking responsibility for their own actions.  They are an extraordinarily healthy group of people mainly because they ride bicycles.  In fact, there are no cars, or any other way of getting around besides bicycles in this town.  They are a hardy lot; riding a bike all year is no easy task especially considering the harsh winters.  I’m really excited to visit this place again because I know all of these people will provide me with great encouragement when I explain to them where I am headed to next.

Although it seems like there has been so much bad news over the last few years in the world at large I have heard that this town is doing very well and is in fact growing at a rapid rate.  I can’t wait to see the changes that have taken place in this small corner of the world since I was there last year.

I am also especially excited to garner my cameras and do some portraiture work of the new people I will meet.  I will not be able to stay long in this place because I have some vast distances to cover before winter hits and just today I felt the first real hints of fall.

My supply levels are good and will be just right for the five days of travel I have until I reach this little village of wonderful people – a town with an equally wonderful name, a place called – Unite.

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VIII.) My Road – Bring Something Creative to the Table

As it stands now commercial photographers are almost always hired onto a project after the major creative decisions are already made by the agencies that handle their accounts or the internal marketing departments of the brands themselves.  Or, as is the case in the editorial world, the shooter is brought in after the story has already been assigned or in some cases already written.  Often, photographers are barely creative partners in the development of advertising campaigns.  I’m not a huge fan of this process.  And if there is anything I can do to help change this convention – I’ll certainly try.

Personally, I think too many shooters are treated like disposable commodities.  A successful commercial photographer needs to be fundamentally skilled in the specific and technical aspects of the tools of the trade,– they need to be good at taking pictures and to be able to recreate someone else’s creative ideas.  BUT, they also need to be skilled businessmen – to be their own brands and agencies unto themselves.  Wait a minute – you mean a successful photographer has to be skilled at a trade, run a business, a brand, and be their own ad agency too?  Yep.

Well, if that’s the case you’d think some successful shooters might have legitimate ideas to bring to the creative table while developing campaigns for the end clients.  Granted some shooters might not want to be involved in this process – they’d prefer to be hired after the ideas are already in place and to just shoot the layout.  That makes sense for some, but to me it seems like it’s a lot harder to set yourself apart once the ideas are already locked.  At that point you are the photographic version of a tradesmen – artistry and creativity are not necessary in order to complete the job.  As I move forward in my career I would like to become known as someone that can be brought to the creative table – before the ideas are closed.

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VII.) My Road – Why These Clients?

(Yeah! I could likely go on for days about the super details behind why I want to be hired by these clients, but I’ll give you the short version here.)

The New York Times Magazine:

In the words of a giddy 14-year-old girl – OMG!  I love The New York Times Magazine.  It’s like my 1960’s adolescent-self’s print version of The Beatles.  Way before I ever carried any notion of being a professional photographer I use to pick up copies of ‘T’ lying around at various households I would find myself at… and think, “Man, there is some really great photography in this magazine.”  From a fairly young age I’ve connected on a regular basis with the imagery this publication puts forth.  For me, there is hardly ever ANY imagery in the magazine that feels like a fad-style.  I’ve found copies of the magazine lying around that were five-plus years old and the imagery feels just as strong and present as if it were in last week’s issue.  I think this speaks volumes for the quality of work this publication puts forth.  In some way that is the most important bar to which I hold up to my own work – is it imagery that will matter over time?
What makes this even more impressive is the fact that ‘T’ is a weekly publication.  Talk about short deadlines for quality work.  In my opinion it is nothing short of incredible that The New York Times Magazine can publish such consistent, quality, and timeless imagery on a weekly basis.  I have nothing but total respect for this publication and its staff.

After learning more about ‘T’ I would firstly argue, that it has published such wonderful, emotional, and timeless imagery over the years revolves around the fact it has had the same senior photo editor for according to my calculations, the last 24 years – since 1985 (when I was 4 years old).  I don’t think you’d last 24 years as senior editor for The New York Times anything if you weren’t damn good…  Seriously, that is epic.

I would be nothing but honored to be able to shoot a cover for my metaphorical ‘Beatles’.

Nike:

Ok, you got me.  I drank the Kool-Aid.  Nike has always had a special place in my heart.  I can honestly say Nike is one of the few brands that I’ve ever been inspired by.  I can even think of a whole bunch of brands I, as a consumer, would never use or buy because their marketing annoys me or I just generally think they are a big bad company.  For example, Walmart – sorry, but I think you’re crap on so many levels.

Anyway, growing up I did what all middle-American middle-class boys in the 1980’s did – I played sports.  I played all of them.  Baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, kick-ball, track, wrestling, fishing, hockey, golf – I mean seriously, I played too many sports for one little guy to handle.  I was ok at most of them, good at a few, and I really sucked at baseball… to the point of still basically hating it (but, that’s a story for another day…).

Being a young guy in the 80’s meant something else: If you liked basketball at all, one of your idols was Michael Jordan.  And as everyone knows, Michael Jordan is just as much Nike as the Swoosh.

At that time in my life I loved playing basketball.  I loved watching basketball on Saturdays and Michael Jordan really was one of my idols.  And I loved wearing the same shoes as my idol.  I was actually inspired by Nike commercials, by Nike print campaigns, and I really liked their shoe and clothing designs at that time.  I thought Nike was so cool.

As I grew older my love for basketball faded into other interests and my love for Nike products faded as their design aesthetic changed with the times.  But, I still connect with the Nike brand, because at its core it’s about inspiring people to be better athletes.

A main part of the reason I would really love to shoot a Nike campaign stems in part from my childhood connection to the brand itself, but also more importantly to the class of creatives Nike has used in the development of their ever-expanding, extensive, and often cutting edge imagery.  Some of the most creative advertising work ever created has been for Nike.  And I want to be a part of it.  Spike Lee had it right; Nike is where it’s at.

Polo – Ralph Lauren:

My thoughts on Polo are a bit different from my other two ‘ideal’ clients.  I don’t have affection for the brand from my childhood and obviously a clothing label is very much a different thing than a national news magazine and its imagery is meant to serve a different purpose.

But, similar to my thoughts on the Nike brand, I like Polo because of what it represents.  I appreciate the fundamental esthetic behind the brand.  Like the images in The New York Times Magazine-, Polo is about a clean and timeless sense of style.

From the very beginning Ralph Lauren had a vision for what he was trying to create for his brand.  In the early 1970’s he said this:

“I’m not a fashion person.  I’m anti-fashion.  I don’t like to be part of that world.  It’s too transient.  I have never been influenced by it.  I’m interested in longevity, timelessness, style – not fashion.”

I connect with this statement.  As a photographer I constantly look at fashion imagery because it makes up such a huge portion of the world I live in.  It’s a huge part of the world we all live in.  Fashion is a big industry; there are lots of players, and obviously a lot of people who care about it.  But personally, I basically hate ‘fashion’.

For me, the world of ‘fashion’ has always represented the shallowest aspects of modern society.  I know we all need to wear clothes and I think what we wear is important in defining who we are individually.  Expressing a personal style via the clothing you wear is a valuable piece of presenting your identity to the world.  But, generally I feel the ‘fashion’ industry is way, way overly self-important.

And it’s not that hard to call the ‘fashion’ industry out on this.  What’s more important – what you are wearing today or what you’re going to eat?  Or how about whether or not you’ve got a place to sleep tonight?  Or if you have good friends? or about a million other things…?  Seriously, I could write a list thousands of pages long of things that are more important than the entire fashion industry (there goes my career as a fashion photographer… oh, well).

Maybe I’m just jaded.  To date the only people who have been rude to me while in any sort of interaction as related to my work – have been people involved in the fashion world.  And really not in isolated instances, but more like almost every time in one-way or another.

Having humility is a part of one’s personal style that transcends their outer fashion.  It’s classy to be humble – even if you are in fact a big shot.  Fashion is about short-term importance… and I’m not interested in that.

I bet Ralph Lauren is a motivated, classy, fairly humble, and stylish guy.  I think we’d get along well and that’s a big part of why I’d like to shoot a Polo campaign.