The rules

Coming up on my 8th year as an artist, and my 64th year as a human, I have learned a lot about people.  In most cases, they are kind, thoughtful, generous, and many have become good friends.

There are those few who are pretty self centered and in their own world.  Those with a total lack of respect for other's time.  These people are the ones who have generated a good number of the rules I have, over time, created.  Up to this point, they have been in my head.  Today I will put them here for all to see.  

Why share these rules?  So I can point them out to those that break them.  A form of hitting them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper when they have shit on the carpet.  I doubt they will learn from them, but being an old guy who doesn't put up with shit, on the carpet or in life, I have to give it a try.  Some may judge me as an ass and egotistical.  Maybe I am, but I don't care what others think of me.  It's not my business.  So there!  Neener, neener!

So, without further babbling, here they are.  The list may continue to grow over time of course.

1. I never ask twice.  When I ask if someone will do a certain type of posing for me, such as implied or nude, their answer is in stone.  And I do mean stone.  If that model then tells me he or she has changed their mind...sorry, but no.  Why?  If I go ahead and shoot someone in a manner they previously didn't want to do, they could and have, just as easily, changed they mind and asked me to remove all of our work.  That's hours and hours of my time wasted.

2. Hook ups by models.  This is when I shoot a couple for a book cover, and one of them hits on the other.  I know, right?  This shouldn't be any of my business.  When I spend hours editing images and hours doing the shoot, and I'm trying to market our work...and then get a message from one of them saying they broke up and they want me to pull all of our material.  Yeah, that sucks big time.  This is a professional operation and I value everyone's time, not just mine.  So yeah, I make it known I don't want to see any 'hook ups' and if it happens, well, no, I'm not going to waste our work.  It will still get posted and sold.  And yup, we won't be shooting again.

3. I won't shoot models who are living with photographers.  That sounds a little high and mighty and judgemental of me, but it's not.  I don't care about their relationship or marital status.  Not my business.  But I have learned that if a model wakes up next to a photographer it changes everything about how they respond to my camera and I.  This one I can't put my finger on exactly, it just doesn't work well for me.  I have a few exceptions.  In all of them, they are either friends or we shot long before they started with their new relationship and our established creative relationship seems to stay functional.

4. No shows.  If we schedule a time and day and you don't show up, I don't care what the excuse was.  You have my number and you could have let me know.  If you care that little about my time, well, I'd be a fool to give you more to disrespect.

5. I only book with the model directly.  I certainly don't go through agencies.  Nothing I shoot is good for an agency portfolio.  And there has never been an exception that this hasn't bit me on the rump.  Every time!!  So no middle men (or women) when I book or communicate.

So, until I think of other times I ended up with bite marks on my ass, and reasons I got them, that's the rules.  Having them written down is helpful for an old guy like me.  

And, in case you were wondering, yes, this afternoon I had a shoot set up that broke THREE, count them, THREE! of my rules.  Messaged the guy after 30 minutes late and he said 'sorry, baby sitter flaked'.  I asked why he didn't think to message me and let me know, and I get another 'sorry'.  Yep, wasted the whole day.  Well, other than getting this blog done finally.

Have your own rules, written or not.  It may keep the bit marks on your ass to a minimum.

Just imagine!

When we enter the world of photography it is full of technical things we need to learn.  Settings on the cameras can seem confusing for a while but is easily mastered over time.  Lighting systems and all of the variations of those.  Learning what the difference is between hard light and soft, and the ways to direct, combine, and reflect the light.  What seems overwhelming at first becomes easy.  Like pretty much anything else.  It takes effort and thousands of images to get there.

Those are very important to doing any kind of photography.  Eventually, it will get to a point where you will not even think about what you are doing with the camera and lights...it will just come naturally to you.  Everyone is different in this respect of course.  When someone asks me what I have my camera set at or the lights I rarely have a clue.  I have to look and see where my mind had put things to get what I want.  Kinda' like jumping in a car and driving off.  You don't think about all of the things you need to do to get there.

This is all important...but there is something else that makes it really work.

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I'm always talking about photography as my art.  I'm an artist and in my blogs I assume you are or want to be too.  If you are a perfectionist and want to take images that are exactly like they look in real life then I'm sure I drive you nuts. 

Art is what I see in my head, not my eyes.

So, this brings me to the part a lot of people miss.  Imagination.

Most of my shoots involve a model or models.  Lately I've done more landscape and it still takes some imagination.  So it works in every area of photography.

When I plan a shoot I don't plan down to the last detail.  For me, that stifles the creativity that I feel makes a session work.  Being light on my feet and keeping my eyes and mind open.  Watch, listen, and imagine what the possibilities are.  Remember that our creative 'eye' is actually calling on everything we've ever seen that we liked, or didn't like.  Not specific things of course.  But a bit like a recipe...you can't always taste individual ingredients, but without them it tastes different.

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Take your time, and don't hesitate to change the lighting or direct the model or makeup and hair stylists to bring your vision together.  Especially lights.  Those are probably the biggest element of creating a certain image and you control those.  Even if you are out in natural light, there are endless options to have reflections, shadows, shade, and (gasp) direct sunlight to create what you see in your mind.

Don't hesitate to cheat.  Well, I call it cheating but it is common.  Before a shoot I pick out a couple dozen images from the thousands I've downloaded that inspired me in some way.  I pick them out based on the look of the model and any known talents the MUA might have.  Interestingly, I very rarely want to try to duplicate the image.  Not that this is even possible.  Nope, the images are picked because of some lighting I liked, or to remind me to do one thing or another.  In many cases the end result isn't anything even close to the inspiration shot.  Much like painters use 'reference' images to help them see how muscles, ears, and hands might look, I use 'inspiration' images to remind me how some lighting or poses might look.  It keeps the shoot moving forward as we move from one idea to the next.

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Moving at a good pace is important during a shoot.  No breaks.  Heck, I've found models that need smoke breaks tend to dent my creative zone a bit.  That five minutes of inactivity busts the flow.  

The result of a creative shoot, with a heavy amount of imaginative sets, is an exhausted brain.  For me, I get to a point in a shoot where my mind just stops...it's exhausted and that's when we end the shoot.  Nothing after that works.  I just run out of anything to try.  This is typically 3-5 hours in and many sets later so it's not a bad thing.  Great creativity only works in spurts.

So, use your imagination.  Write down that idea you just had in the shower.  My favorite place it seems, to have interesting ideas pop in my head.  Pay attention to cinematography in movies and TV shows you watch.  Study other artists styles and figure out what you love and what you don't, and think about why.  This all gets your mind thinking creatively.  It's an endless pursuit because we are always growing and changing.

Just imagine!