I’m just back from Pictage Partner Con and what an amazing “community”….I’m using the word community because it’s the one word that best describes the feeling in the air.  There were close to 500 people who all seemed to have the same goals – find new answers, fine tune their skills and most important of all work together.   

I was able to sit in on part of Roberto Valenzuela’s program and he said something that really hit home…”Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect!” 

Think about the simplicity as well as the complexity of that statement.  Our entire lives we’re taught “practice makes perfect”.   I think I heard it for the first from a grandparent as a kid, probably when learning to ride my bike.   Throw in a few more colorful adjectives and we all heard it from coaches throughout  high school, driving instructors etc.  It could well be the most abused saying in any language any place in the world!

But Roberto made a very significant point when it comes to photography…what if you’re practicing it wrong?   Doing something the wrong way, over and over again won’t make anything perfect.    He went on to talk about the importance of  learning to really see, not just look and he reminded of a book Polaroid published around 1980.

The book was actually called “Learn to See”.  It was a workbook for teachers to use Polaroid products in the class room.  Obviously it was done as a marketing tool to get schools to burn film, but it honestly had a great message in trying to teach creativity.    “Learn to See” had page after page of assignments for students, mostly elementary school age, to photograph things around them with a common theme.  From shapes, to colors for younger students to assignments to capture emotion for older students.   It helped to create an environment to learn to dissect a scene, not just look at it.  It seemed so ironic that the basis of a book published primarily for kids thirty years ago would be a parallel foundation for Roberto’s inspirational message.

As I sat there listening to his program, I couldn’t help but think about his statement as it applies to marketing.  Over and over again I’ve heard photographers say, usually in reference to direct mail campaigns or advertising, “We tried that a few times and it just didn’t work!”   I’m not questioning the validity of something not working, but what if the message of the original campaign was just wrong?   What if the images chosen for the ad or the direct mail piece didn’t have the impact necessary to get people interested?  What if the direct mail piece or ad was just fine, but since it takes hitting a consumer 8-10 times for them to remember who you are, the photographer just pulled back too early?

This is obviously fuel for a far longer post or even a series, but the truth is photography is all about learning to see, not just look at a scene and click the shutter.  And, in the same way, marketing is about learning to listen to your market not just hear.   It’s all about dissecting the scene and isolating the most significant points for success or as Roberto put it, creating perfect practice.