Southern California got its share of winter this week. It seems that our region likes to pack its annual rainfall into a one week period to get it over with. The drama is always exciting to catch. Above, La Jolla Cove seawall, below La Jolla Shores ad Scripps Pier.
I am constantly amazed at how versatile and varied San Diego terrain and environments can be for photography. I love scouting new areas and I have a nice running collection of places I can use for just about any look. Yesterday I added a new one and it may turn out to be one of my favorites. We needed an old growth pine forest and I was set to drive out to Cuyamaca or Laguna Mountain to get it. Then I drove down the 163 highway past Balboa Park and saw giant glorious redwood trees. A quick Google satellite search showed me the way there and there we had it: A woodsy mountain trail in the middle of the city. I love San Diego.
Photo © 2009 Gary Allard, All Rights Reserved.
During the countdown to the holidays it’s easy to get a little harried. This is just a visual reminder that things can always get more complicated so be happy for the simpler moments in between.
Big storms always seem like photo opportunities to me but keeping gear dry poses an issue. Choosing to shoot through the car window today.
Now that the Holiday Season has been unofficially replaced by Shopping Season I’ve had a strange obsession with taking shopping cart photos. Maybe it’s like when you get a new car and then suddenly start to see twice as many just like it on the road. Once I snapped a lone shopping cart in a parking lot I began to see them everywhere. In honor of the start of shopping season here are some of my favorite recent iPhone snaps.
Had a lot of fun this past month coming up with ideas for my side project Thursday Happy Hour. October brings a change of season, shorter days, new beers, harvest, Oktoberfest and one of my favorite holidays, Halloween. Getting to come up with images to go along with the great editorial that the writers construct was just too fun. Got to break out the fog machine for the Smokejumper ale from the Great American Beer Fest then use it again for the sleepy hallow effect on the Hobgoblin English Ale. Carved pumpkins (almost) for the Oktoberfest brew and shot some grilled brats at the local festivities. My favorite though was the series made for the Corpse Reviver #2. This is a very classic drink, meticulously mixed and perfectly named for Halloween. I knew exactly what I wanted for the shot; 6″ plastic skeletons, of course.
Luckily I didn’t have to go far. The Spirit store down the road had a package of two for 2 bucks. An X-Acto, a little hot glue, a cocktail sword and I had my corpse to revive. We had too much fun posing the little guy in all sorts of ways but ultimately had to choose one. The others are above and I like the little story they tell.
If you enjoy beer, wine, cocktails and entertaining, pop into Thursday Happy Hour and drop us some love or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
Cheers for now!
New season, new inspiration. This morning I came into my studio and it was a wreck. Admittedly it was a wreck yesterday too. And, well, last Friday also. Truth is I have been slacking on the housekeeping as projects old and new have been piling up and cluttering my creativity. Time to tear down the walls and start over. This is What’s Inspiring me Now:
1. Film! Recent contact sheets from my 35mm (Ilford Delta 3200 is SO cool)
2. Funky fashion shoots I like – flaws, blur and all. Kudos to the brave creative directors/editors.
3. “You Never Know.” Still my motto.
4. Various membership cards (MoPA, REI, etc.)
5. More great images. Coach eyewear nails it. Paul Smith: Cool guy, great threads and slick ads.
6. “OFC” (Off Camera Flash) magnet from David Hobby at Strobist.com. I met David last month at a party in Seattle. Great guy that has built an amazing photo community.
7. Urbanist city guide. Loads of great spots listed around San Diego.
8. My expired passport with some really great stamps inside (Singapore! China! Osaka! British Virgin Islands!)
9. Promo postcard and various prints of mine from the Mamiya.
10. Killer Bose headphones. Simply amazing on the plane.
11. New [old] Mamiya m645 and spare body. These are so fun and so cheap right now.
12. 120 film for the Mamiya and Holga (also pictured).
13. Box of 1,000 Thursday Happy Hour business cards for our Super-Fun side project.
What’s inspiring you? Tweet it to me or hit me up in the comments!
I’m not a licensed professional. I have a license to catch fish and to operate a vehicle in the state of California but nothing that says I’m a pro photographer. In fact, I don’t even have a degree or much real formal training to be a photographer. I operate my business as an S-Corp but it has nothing to do with my photo skills. So, where do I gain the privilege to be called a “professional?”
Reading through some of Milton Glaser’s essays recently I stumbled into the “Ten Things I have Learned,” part of a London AIGA talk he gave. Number 10 is “Tell the Truth.” While it’s assumed we all should do that, it got me thinking about how many books and seminars about ethics in design and advertising are out there. In my art director days, I was a member of the AIGA. I own an aging copy of the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook on Ethical Guidelines. I refer to the ASMP Professional Business Practices in Phototgraphy often. I’m an active member of the APA and part of the San Diego chapter board. The main message for all of these organizations is clear: Be good to your clients and help your peers do the same.
For me professionalism is much more about how one conducts him/herself than the level of experience gained. It’s about doing what’s right at the moment it’s needed. It’s about being true to yourself and your art. Someone could probably write a book about that but I think we already know what it would contain. We just need to practice it.
I just finished this image for Thursday Happy Hour and I’m happy to report that it’s pretty close to what I envisioned. We wanted the look of bright moonlight with flares of directional incandescent light to resemble patio lighting. The catch was that it was 9:00 this sunny morning.
Without getting all boring with the details I went all Joe McNally on this thing and bashed the heck out the sunlight with full power strobes gelled to the desired color temp. Whatdaya think? Kinda moonlighty?
I’ve been putting a lot of thought into marketing recently. Maybe it’s because I’ve been speaking to other photographers about their strategies, victories or failures with their own marketing efforts. One thing that seems to be a common topic is the use of social marketing tools. Just about everyone is using some version but when it comes to using social media in an effective way, I’d wager that more than a few are not getting it right – myself included.
Case and point: Seth Godin’s recent post regarding tactics vs. strategy. There are plenty of tactics to help you market yourself or product – more than enough in fact. But the real effectiveness comes when those tactics (social media in this case) are applied to a bigger picture or strategy. Otherwise your talking just to hear your own voice.
Know who it is you want to connect to. Take the time to find out the best way to engage them and how your message can be conveyed to help tell the story of your brand. Some photographers like to speak to their own. That’s great and helpful and I fully appreciate it but it probably won’t attract photo editors or art buyers. Other photographers use blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc., to help put a face to their name and share a little more personality. This is group I hope to fall into.
Tonight I’ll be moderating the APA | SD Social Media Roundtable and I hope to gain some insight to what others are doing to add to their strategy.
Have any thoughts on this? Tweet it to me @gee_allard
