It takes twice as many muscles to be miserable and frown than it does to smile.  Instead of asking people how they are and hearing about all their aches and pains, tell them they look great and the response will always be positive.  And for those of you who keep complaining about business being bad – take a break.  Then, do what so many photographers who are surviving today do, think about how to re-invent yourself.  Listen to what your customers are telling you – you can’t create images that tug at people’s hearts if your heart isn’t in it yourself.

And if you can’t get yourself out of the rut, instead of pulling back, maybe it’s time to spend a little more on advertising, promotion and networking…maybe it’s time to invest more time…maybe you need to hang out with other photographers dealing with the same challenges, like Summer School - while I admit it’s a shameless moment of self-promotion, I know what I saw last year and how many photographers left Vegas with renewed energy and new ideas.

The biggest thing is to not give up…

Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touch down.  Ross Perot

Make it a great Sunday and enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Put any two people from the photographic industry together who have at least ten years or more as photographers and you’ll eventually find yourself connected, not by DNA but by ISO!  (Sorry, but the analogy was too fun to pass up!)  This is an amazing industry, bringing us together by the mutual love we all share for the craft!

I’ve written a few times about my home being like a gallery, with prints from dozens of different photographers hanging on the walls spanning my career which, at least on the professional side, started at Hasselblad in 1987. As I gave Matthew the nickel tour, there were so many of these photographers he knew as well, had worked with, attended their workshops or just had a link to understanding the style or processes they were known for.  

So, all you newbies – get to every program you possibly can.  Build your network.  Give more than you take and listen more than you talk.  Then, in just a few short years, sit back and enjoy the friendships you’ve worked hard to build.   There are so few industries that offer the kinds of relationships we’re so lucky to have in photography.  What a kick! 

Make it a great Sunday, don’t work today and cherish the time with family and friends!

Maybe it’s move your lights around in the studio.  Maybe it’s spend some time on a few websites looking for new products.  There’s a lot going on in the world of albums, frames, canvas prints, not to mention all of the products your lab is probably offering that will help you grow your business.

Maybe it’s time to change the copy on your website, especially the “about us” section.  I’m amazed at how many photographers have information that’s simply irrelevant or out of date.  Read your bio and ask yourself, would I hire me? 

If you’re on the people side of life, especially weddings, children and family portraiture, your bio needs to have a whole lot of heart.  People are more interesting in hiring you for your personality than your skill set.  They already think they know your skill set – so don’t disappoint them, but it’s your personality they’re after and your ability to bring out the best most natural smiles if they hire you.

So, on that note enjoy this incredible July day with your family and friends and hit your business tomorrow morning with a goal – time to switch up your game!

But today is Father’s Day and it’s time I came clean publicly with my own Dad.  So Dad, here’s the truth about all those questions you had so many years ago:

1) I was never really worried about my sister getting punished for whatever it was we both did when I was around 12.  I only knew that if I cried hard enough in her defense I might not get the punishment I deserved!

2) Remember how the top on the only convertible you ever owned used to squeak when you tried to put it up?  Okay, so I was doing about 40 with the top down in December (in Ohio) – I was 16 and didn’t think about wind velocity versus putting the top up while moving.  Cool though – it almost picked the whole car up creating my own version of the flying house from the Wizard of Oz.

3) My college did NOT allow cars to underclass students - I paid rent to the manager of the College View Motel to hide the car behind the building! 

Okay, I think I’m clean.  In spite of a wealth of stupid things I did – you’ve never not been there for me!  You’ve always supported me and been there to help me up when I fell, no matter how old I was.  You’ve never doubted me and never stopped believing in whatever crazy ideas I’ve had.  So Pop, Happy Father’s Day – sure do love ya!

And to my fellow Dads out there – enjoy the day guys!  To those of you not yet Dads, but hoping to be – there’s nothing quite like it.  And for all those kids and Moms out there who made us Dads – we obviously couldn’t be Dads without you!

Happy Father’s Day everybody – make it a great one!

“Skip’s Dad” by Bambi Cantrell

I’m back down in Florida again dealing with some family health challenges with my folks. My Dad keeps telling me how he’s never seen me so happy. This isn’t earth-shaking, but I’m finally starting to understand how important it is for you to really love what you’re doing. That doesn’t mean every job has to make you smile all the time, but all of us do share the passion for the craft, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading my blog.

Mom and Dad photographed by Bambi Cantrell

 So, regardless of where you are in your career it’s important to have a plan. You don’t have to spend hours writing it all out, just take some time and day dream. Think about what it is you love to work on most and then set some goals on how to get there and do more of it. 

For me, when I launched the new company just over a year ago, I knew I loved to write and loved the marketing side of photography. I also knew I loved working with photographers.  I wanted to help develop some tools to help more photographers realize their true potential.

While I still have a long way to go, that’s what I’m doing now and yeah, it does make me happy.   But not until my folks started talking about how happy I am did I realize the significance of how important it all is. And, believe it or not, it’s really NOT about money – I don’t care how much money you’re making. It’ll never be enough if you’re losing yourself in the process. If you can’t take time to be with friends, because you’ve got to work, that sports car in the garage won’t mean a thing!

I said it in a post the other day. Photography is all about your heart. Whatever you’re feeling comes out in your images and even the expressions on your subjects. If you haven’t looked at them already, take a look at Kirk Voclain’s videos from last week. Kirk loves what he does and he’s one of the best in the country. Jasmine Star loves what she’s doing and it comes out in her narrative and video. Now look at the expressions on Kirk’s and Jasmine’s subjects. You don’t get natural fun expressions like those if you’re screaming “1-2-3 Smile” and then thinking “Thank God that’s over!”

Photography is from the heart, about the heart and your images need to grab the hearts of the people who look at them!

“A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.”   Ansel Adams

I can’t help but feel that a great day’s start is often dependent on the events of the previous day.  It’s sort of like an appetizer at a great restaurant setting you up for the main course.   Well, yesterday at a memorial service for the mother of a an old friend of Sheila’s I had a chance to talk to one of my teachers from high school, Mr. Stanley.  It’s funny that no matter how old I get,  it’s uncomfortable to call any teacher by their first name.  I hadn’t seen him in 43 years!

In any event, what makes Mr. Stanley so important is he ran the photo service club my senior year.  He was pretty much responsible for getting me started in what would wind up as a career.  Sitting next to him yesterday was Mr. Burris, the art teacher, who if you consider a yearbook a publication, published my first images.   

There are no deep thoughts this morning, just me enjoying the blog and thinking about the irony of how I got into photography.  I never anticipated it as a career in high school.  It was a hobby with benefits.  You got to go to all the games and be on the side line as a photographer.  Your images were shown throughout the year at various events.  And here’s a big one that no high school kid can relate to today – you got to work in the darkroom and appreciate the magic of watching a print develop in a tray of developer!  (Okay, I’m feeling older than dirt again – but what an incredible foundation in imaging!)

I remember looking at all the photo magazines and wondering what it would be like to hold a Hasselblad!  Who would have thought I’d have a warehouse full of them twenty years later!  Or, reading stories about famous photographers and wishing some day I could meet them and then thinking, “Come on Skip, you live in Painesville, Ohio and your mother won’t let you go to New York!”

I had really forgotten what geeks we all were, but as the picture below shows, it was a few years before our head size caught up to our ears!  

So, this morning’s post is dedicated to all the photo teachers in the world and a thank you!  You guys are the hidden heroes behind so many careers in photography.  You believed in us no matter how mundane our work was.  You supported us even when our images were less than stellar.  You smiled and encouraged us even when we took the shortcuts. (I had the biggest collection of yellow prints in the world because I was always in a rush to dry and hang my prints!

Take a minute today and think about it…who gave you your first inspiration to get into photography?

If nothing else give me a points for sharing a shot from High School – that’s me in the bottom left.  And a bold and gutsy move to have a pen in my pocket without my pocket protector!

For those of you in the younger crowd that might seem like it’s incredibly inconvenient, but it forced us all to take a break.  My Dad didn’t do anything except hang out with the family and at least in the summer time, we wound up at my grandmother’s for a barbecue.   Relatives from Cleveland would make the long pilgrimage (all of 27 miles) out to visit, just as the burgers were coming off the grill.  Somehow my Aunt Sarah knew exactly how to time it so she’d arrive just as the sweet corn was coming out of the pot!

For most people a quiet relaxing Sunday had nothing to do with religious beliefs, it was simply a day of rest, because you had no other choices.  Nothing was open and in fact, of the three TV stations, on at least one of them, nothing was even on until after 7:00 am!

So, let’s start a trend – just a small one and get everybody we know to return to family values on Sundays.  We’re just going to enjoy our family, read a book, leave the TV off until noon – forget about whatever it is we absolutely had to get done today.  We’re just going to kick back and chill – smile more than we frown and make it a great day! 

…it’s almost impossible to do, since I’m already here “working” and writing my blog, determined not to miss a day, but it can be done and we can all get off this trend of being obsessed with our own self-importance.  So, don’t just make it another Sunday – make it a great one!  Enjoy your family and remember all the work you need to do will still be there on Tuesday morning – because the theme for the Memorial Day holiday should be exactly the same.

I know my blog this morning isn’t original – I’ve written about the same topic at least a couple times in the past, but it’s a message everyone needs to be reminded about. You’ve earned the rest and the break – so make the most of it and at the end of day  I hope everybody can look themselves in the mirror and simply say, “Wow, I didn’t do a stinkin’  thing today!”

One of the highlights of my career might be when, after I called him Mr. Avedon several times in a bar in Tucson he said, “Skip, you can call me Dick.”   That was the start of a nice friendship.  I don’t want to make it sound like we were the best of buddies and about to buy a boat together, but he always said hello, always sent me a new book (signed) and I even lucked out and tasted his cooking once when he made us lunch in his flat above the studio.

In thinking about Avedon and the contribution he made to photography, I happened to run across a great quote of his that seems appropriate to so many of us.  He absolutely loved photography, but his outlook on “work” was unique – although when I think about how many of us absolutely love what we do, maybe it’s not so unique!

“I believe in maniacs. I believe in type As. I believe that you’ve got to love your work so much that it is all you want to do. I believe you must betray your mistress for your work, you betray your wife for your work; I believe that she must betray you for her work. I believe that work is the one thing in the world that never betrays you, that lasts. If I were going to be a politician, if I were going to be a scientist, I would do it every day. I wouldn’t wait for Monday. I don’t believe in weekends.   If you’re headed for a life that’s only involved with making money and that you hope for satisfaction somewhere else, you’re headed for a lot of trouble. And whatever replaces vodka when you’re 45 is what you’re going to be doing. ” Richard Avedon

Nothing I could add would top that!

The prints on my wall range from a photograph of Virginia Adams (Ansel’s widow) handing me the keys to his 1977 Cadillac framed with his ZoneV license plate to one of Robert Hughes’ first manipulated images to the Simone’s portrait of Don Blair to one of my favorite Nick Vedros posters.  And, there are 8 other prints that represent benchmarks in my career thus far that extend to Australia, California and New Jersey and Sweden covering the last twenty years – all on one wall!

I’ve written about this before, but do we really appreciate what we provide to the “outside world” as members of the photographic industry?  Do we too often take for granted the ability of one single image to tell an entire story?

Here’s the fun of just one image.

It was the mid 90’s and I was on the board of the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson.  Ansel’s widow, Virginia, donated Ansel’s 1977 Cadillac to the Center to help raise money for the University’s Visiting Scholar Fund.  John Shaffer, then chairman of the board, decided to buy the car for his own personal collection.  The next morning he came in and begged the other members of the board to find someone else to buy it – his family was less than enthusiastic about him bringing home a twenty year old gas guzzler to take up space in the garage!

Well, Hasselblad had just come out with a new camera system…Ansel and Victor Hasselblad were good friends…and I decided to buy it on behalf of Hasselblad and raise money for charity.  The car went on tour.  First, it was on exhibit at Moscone Center at PhotoWest.  Terry Deglau, then at Kodak, and I took it up to Yosemite for three days, after which it was shipped back to New Jersey and on display that year on the floor of PhotoEast, now known as PhotoPlus Expo.

It was eventually bought by Helmut Horn, then president of Coastal Hotels, who owned the Carmel Highlands Inn.   He brought the car back to CA, back to its “home” just a mile or two from Virginia and Ansel’s home. Today, I think it’s still garaged at the Highlands, which is now owned by Hyatt, but a couple of years ago it was spotted in Yosemite for what was rumored to be a wedding in the Adams’ family.

The car launched my first cause-related marketing project raising money for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation; it launched a friendship with Helmut Horn, who is a major underwater photographer; Helmut insisted I get my scuba certification at one of his hotels in the Keys; that led to an incredible group of friends and trips to Cheeca Lodge.   Eventually, because of what started with Ansel’s Cadillac,  several of us wound up with President George Bush Sr. at a bone-fishing tournament where Al Zimmerman from Hasselblad won and was photographed by Tony Corbell and back to one of my first passengers in Ansel’s car, Terry Deglau!

One single photograph tells a story that involves most of my very best friends and a small chapter in my career.  One image, gives me the ability to travel down memory lane and cover at least 15 years of memories, every one of them putting a smile on my face!

So, the next time you’re on your way out to photograph a client, think about the power at your finger tips!  Think about the trust that client is putting in you and the responsibility you have to deliver a quality product.  One of those images you’re about to capture could be the key to a chapter in someone’s life.  If that doesn’t get you excited about what you do as a photographer, then it’s time to take a break!

A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.  ~Ansel Adams

Okay, so I’ll be the first to admit, I’m no Scott Bourne, but having a point shoot along on this morning’s walk gave me the opportunity to shoot something other than “neuro-chromes”.  It also gave me a quick theme for a short blog this morning.

It’s very simple – don’t go anywhere without a camera!  If you’re at a convention, have a camera in your pocket just to get a couple of PR shots for publicity releases later on.  If you’re checking out locations, whether for an upcoming wedding or a commercial shoot that camera will come in handy again.  If you’re on vacation you’re out to capture memories and today’s point and shoot cameras are memory-sized and easy to always have along.

Years ago I had a chance to spend the day with Richard Avedon.  While looking at an exhibit in Phoenix of portraits he did with his father he pulled out an old Polaroid SX-70 to take pictures of the gallery.   There I was watching one of the most famous photographers in the world photograph with an over the counter purchased Polaroid. 

Hundreds of people have written about it, I’ve tweeted it, you’ve said it to your clients – “Cameras don’t make pictures, photographers do!”   But for me this morning, it wasn’t about the gear, just a moment I wanted to enjoy and grab a shot of a heron that decided to join us on a morning walk!

American Express owns the slogan, but it sure does apply to your camera…don’t leave home without it!

“Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment – this very moment – to stay.“ -Sam Abell-