When Apple sucked

I’ve been using Macs forever – since the very first one, back in 1984, and I’ve long been a fan. Now, I’ve done my fair share of bouncing back and forth in my life, so I know what PCs are about, but at heart, it was always Macs that I loved. But it wasn’t always that way. Set the time machine way back, and you’ll find me as a young boy thinking “What the hell type of name is that?” After all, that was the age of IBM – International Business Machines. Companies with serious names. Real names. And here was…Apple? Apple?!?

But if there’s one truth I’ve learned about business, it is this. You define what good is. Good should not define you. It’s a fool’s errand to chase goodness. It’s a mirage that disappears when you get there. If you put out the name Apple, and you don’t have the cojones, you’re a joke. But, then, who really cares? Who wants to be the company that puts something out there that’s crap? If you put out the name Apple, and your products are amazing, then you’re a bad-ass. People talk about you. They herald you as visionary.

So, let’s take, for example, the “beloved session,” which is something I’ve been hearing here and there in lieu of the more pedestrian engagement session. Now, I guess it’s better sounding than engagement session, which always sounded silly to me, but, still, the sappiness of the wedding industry knows no bounds. It is so predictable in its saccharine-soaked synthetic charm that it makes me want to barf. Just a little, but enough to feel that churning in my stomach. Mind you, not so much that I wouldn’t whore myself out maybe just a tiny bit and copy it if I thought I could really make a killing with it. But enough that I’d rather not, and I’m sure I’ll never get around to trying.

But, boy, it sure sounds cute, doesn’t it? Couples in love are a drug-induced bunch willing to swallow a whole lot of that sweetness. Men doing things they’ll be utterly embarrassed to have done once sanity returns, and women, putting everything into a dream before reality sets in. I just took some portraits for a couple a few years after their wedding. They were two of my favorites, but there was something different. They seemed more real. Not that they weren’t before, but there was just something in the way they interacted that was both less impassioned and yet more deeply felt. They mentioned how sickeningly sweet they were back at the time – how they held hands through entire meals while sitting across the table. And we all know that feeling. You can see it on the faces of the couples in love when you dine out. Not just the ones who love each other – that’s wholly different – but the ones in love. You know exactly who they are, because they can’t stop looking at each other, touching each other, finding ways to be together. They are one.

If that’s what you’re about, and you absolutely must name your photoshoots “Beloved Sessions,” then do what you need to do. It’s no business of mine. After, all, if you’re drinking from the same well as your couples, you’ll wear it well enough. I think there’s better, but at least it will fit. But for some companies and photographers, I see that type of verbiage, and it just smacks of plain wrongness. It’s a cheap suit, badly-tailored, copied from another – a label slapped onto a product that hasn’t found its ground.

And I’ve gotta think one of two things. Either the wedding world is the most romantic and loving industry of all time, or it is the most hypocritical and cynical. We are either all madly in love with love, or we are preying – feasting – off of the craziness that is both love and weddings. I suspect we are all of the above.

Whatever the case, you don’t come up with a name like the Beloved Session in a vacuum. The reason it fills me with an utter sense of meh-ness is not because it gives my stomach that queasy feeling. It’s because it’s the type of name you come up with when you want to make sure that your words conjure and summon every ounce of romanticism that anyone could possibly imagine. And how predictable is that? Yes, we all know – love, love, love – what a wonderful thing. As are weddings, truly. But that type of language is not you trying to be you. It’s you trying to be the you that someone in love is going to like. Maybe it works, but it’s it’s not two moves ahead. It’s one behind. It follows instead of leads. It’s another three letter computing company after IBM. Peach after Apple (yes, there was in fact a Peach Computer – anyone remember them?).

Impact is so easy and so hard. What could be easier than just being what you already are? But what could be harder than putting yourself on the line, out there, exposed and unguarded? I say do it. Try it. Fail a little, then reap the rewards when you nail it. It will be so much sweeter. Life is too short to go for the predictable and chase the market. It’s too full to let your own sense of style be overcome by the whims of an industry that never stops changing its mind. People are waiting to hear from you. Not the pleasant and serviceable you. Not the likable you. The you who that is waiting to be heard and is nervy enough to throw out stupid names for companies like “Apple.”