Are people hearing you? If not, ask the question the other way around. Are you hearing them? Because if sales matter, that’s what really counts.

Try this. Think of a song in your head. A song everyone knows. Happy Birthday or something like that. Now tell someone you’re going to tap out the rhythm by tapping your finger on a table, and see if they can guess the song. Go try it. For real. This article will sit here and wait.

They probably didn’t guess it.

The odds are overwhelmingly against you. When Elizabeth Newton conducted a study with just this scenario, less than 3% of the people guessed the song. But if you’ve been the tapper, then you probably … Read more...

What if no one knew who you were or what you did? What if you got no credit, and the only thing you knew was what you did and how it affected people. What would you do then?

There’s nothing wrong with caring about getting the credit. But one step better than recognition and even purpose is not needing purpose and recognition to find the joy – doing what you do for the simple fact that doing it matters to you. And though that’s something that’s found over the course of a lifetime, it’s something that always starts with simple questions.

So ask yourself what would that thing be? How can photography fulfill it? How can you make that part … Read more...

“This can only be followed by silence.”
-Bogdan Radu
In reply to the Ground Glass article, On Fearless.

Silence permeates. Silence purifies. It’s the stillness of an active mind. A peace afforded by focus. But it is never an absence. There is no true silence in the human spirit. Everything is signal. Everything is noise. Everything communicates something. We simply need to decide what somethings matter to us.

“A ‘mistake’ is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.” 
― John Cage

Poor craft destroys form. But craft is not form. Form is the final structure. Craft is what’s done to create it. Where flaws in form evidence poor craft, we lose the ability to focus on … Read more...

This is a gutless world. One that’s going to tell you how to make your money, how to purchase your goods, and how to be the person you need to be to make your money and purchase your goods. Too much of it is about distrust. About the loss of faith in who we are and who we serve. It favors the creation of the sellable over creation. Don Henley said it best in Hotel California. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

Serving your client is the job, but it’s not a get out of jail free pass. Get it right, but know it’s where you begin, not end. The wedding day may be … Read more...

Who’d have thought that the technology race would come down to a bunch of different screen sizes? It used to be about speed and interface and functionality. Now, we spend all of our time thinking about screen sizes connected to the Cloud. iPhone? Small screen. iPad? Big screen. Kindle Fire? iPad mini? Samsung Galaxy? Even the yet-to-arrive Apple TV. Really big screen. Which is two say two things.

First, small differences can matter. Not to say that screen size is a trivial difference. But that it’s an easy point of distinction. You can say your differentiator is your apps or your ecosystem or whatever else. All true. But phablets are a hit, Samsung has one, and Apple doesn’t. For those … Read more...