OK, I’m a little late to the game here, but I love the Grand Rapids Lip Dub. I just saw it for the first time over the weekend, and it blew me away. It was produced in response to a Newsweek article declaring Grand Rapids one of the ten worst cities to live in, and, wow, what a reply.

It’s just the type of idea that would never survive the wedding world. If it were placed in the hands of wedding vendors, it would have been styled to the hilt and built to show off every ounce of skill we had. Maybe you’d get the high contrast, deep-shadow toning. Maybe you’d get the magenta tinted, soft-focused vintage film look. Maybe … Read more...

There’s a scene in the movie The Hunt for Red October, where a submarine captain turns right at a torpedo. The music builds. The tension mounts. We brace ourselves for impact…and…nothing. The torpedo hits the sub and falls apart. No explosion. No nothing. By heading towards the torpedo, the captain didn’t give the torpedo the time to arm itself. A torpedo needs to travel a certain distance before becoming active.

And that’s pretty much what clients are like, too. I’ve heard a lot people talk about clients like adversaries. People to outmaneuver and outwit. And there are times when clients overstep their bounds, no doubt. But, more times than not, dissatisfaction comes from misunderstandings, and whether or not the fault … Read more...

The great thing about taking a break from Facebook is that I suddenly have all this free time. Time to live. To go out. Notice things. Like Facebook’s intro statement. I was always logged in, so I never saw it before. But now, it’s right there staring me in the face along with a picture of a floating chair (don’t even get me started about the video). It reads:

We honor the everyday things that bring us together and celebrate people everywhere opening up and connecting.

I hate it. Not because of what it says. That’s all fine. I hate it, because I don’t buy it. When Nike said “Just do it” and Apple said “Think different,” I bought it. … Read more...

If you haven’t seen American Color by Constantine Manos, spend some time with it. I’ve shown it to a lot of people. Not surprisingly, hardcore street photographers always seem to get it. As for everyone else? You never know what you’re going to get.

I’m sure photography like this would die a quick death in the wedding industry. It’s not pretty. It’s not stylish. Lighting is hard. Thoughts are abstract. And it hits all too hard in this age of f/1.2, tilts, and blur. But this is smart photography. Costa is a guy who’s been around the block and knows how to work light and color on the street. In this age of Instagram and Martha Stewart it’s a great … Read more...

They say if you want to succeed, act like the successful. Beware. What you really want to do is to act the way successful people acted when they were in your shoes. Or, better yet, how they would act if they were in your shoes now. The problem is, almost no one is privy to this information. When we look at others, what we see are the byproducts and not the process that made it all work. We might see how often someone posts, what car they drive, and what they do. But we don’t know the whys and hows behind it all.

Compound that with the fact that the nature of success is something specific and tenuous, and you … Read more...