I knew this guy. He just did not look good, and he had the personality to match. Not so much ugly in character, just a little rough around the edges. Sorry to say it. But not that sorry, because he was happy, and he had exactly what he wanted. Lots of hot girls. Always. And we’d all look and wonder, and think, “How?” And, you know, this I do hate to say, but we were all a little jealous too. “There must be some secret…” Nope. The key to his success was dead obvious. You just had to watch him in action. It was a little painful. He was a little awkward. He didn’t seem to have the social graces … Read more...

Process this:

“Hi there. I’m good looking, sexy, smart, and rich.”

What have you just communicated? Of course, the literal meaning is just that. But let’s take this out for a spin and put some wheels on it.

A guy says it to a girl in a bar. What the girl hears: “I’m full of myself.”

A girl says it to a guy in a bar. What the guy hears: “I’m into you.”

Get it?

Now with the return of Mad Men, I’d be remiss if I didn’t slip in some sort of Don Draper reference here. So let’s take a look at Don, shall we? See, in basic terms, Don is an ass. Who the hell really wants to … Read more...

OK, I tried this before. I failed. It was one of those projects that never got off the ground, as I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into the season. My apologies for those who did submit work that I couldn’t get back to. Thank you, as well. I’m going to give it another shot. I’ll probably just pick one or two people – it definitely won’t be everyone. I’ve realized I don’t have enough time for it, though I really wish I did.

So if anyone out there is game and interested in having a critique (published on this site), shoot me an email or post a comment. … Read more...

As my friend Sharif said to me the other day, “If you’re hungry, you know what you want. You get food, and you’re happy. But when you’re rich, there’s nothing you can’t have, and that’s hard.”

Desire and denial are necessary components of satisfaction. The cycle can’t exist without them. And that’s the great thing about goals. They make you want things. They connect you deeper with your own life. But they also leave you hanging. Worse yet, the further you get, the murkier it becomes, as complexity grows and predictability declines. It can be rewarding and wonderful, but it can also leave us queasy and uneasy, as change shows us more of ourselves than we really want to know. … Read more...

Here’s the thing. For the most part, it’s not really the capturing that’s the hard part. It’s the seeing. And, yet, here we have an entire industry focused on the capture. Better autofocus. More sensor zones. Lower apertures, higher ISOs – simple digital nirvana. Trends ignite for the simple fact that copying is deceptively simple. Once someone has proven something works and our brains lock onto it, we can reverse engineer the rest. Yes, no doubt, some shots are harder to capture then others. But it is not rare that people can spot the light, see the form, read the emotions, and know the composition.

Here’s what it really is about pretty pictures. It’s not that they don’t look nice. … Read more...