Third Trip Around The Sun

Three years have now passed since we first published this thing on the weird wide web... CTL, now three years old. That should count as some sort of milestone, don't you think? Many of my favorite photography blogs of the last few years have vanished... well, not exactly vanished... the blogs are still online. The authors, however, have gone missing in action. Perfectly understandable. People are busy, there's stuff that must get done... And, as much as we, they, I struggle to bring relevancy on a weekly basis or more - blogging is, overall, an exercise in vanity.


Even my initial focus when I began this thing three years ago - primarily to bring information to my peers, to offer support in the necessary art of minding the store  when engaged in the business of art - has shifted. 


The world has changed. The new world is as image-hungry, image-driven as the old world was... even more so. The flip side to that equation is that now, thanks to the rise of affordable digital imaging tools, there is now a flood of available imagery and an army of producers of that imagery with little interest in putting in the sweat-equity of learning the business end of things; over-eager are they to gain exposure and/or to see their work and their names in print and believing that to be more than adequate compensation. Trade organizations like ASMP, APA, EP, even PPofA have been around for years, disseminating plenty of great information & support - free to members & non-members alike - easily accessible on the web. Most of the fresh new talent I talk with have never heard of these organizations. Worse yet, most appear to have little interest in exploring the very educational and helpful information at any of these organizational websites... at least until they get into trouble.


Selah... the world has changed. Learn the new dance or be trampled, eh? I was never a good dancer. Even though the world has changed... now that the economy is beginning to show signs of life... my work load is improving and I'm finding that clients both new and old continue to value creative work, are willing to pay to commission it, appreciate a professional approach to doing business, remain somewhat flexible in negotiating use and are less likely to seek out work done on the cheap by individuals with little proven track record.


So... here we are... marking an anniversary of sorts. And with all of the above now committed to bytes and out of the way, I can say that I have no intention of allowing this commemorative entry to descend into a rant. What's the use? There's the shift in focus - less ranting. 


Yet fear not, loyal reader, as I will continue to post or link to relevant info found during my daily morning trolling sessions in the photo world. I know there are a lot of you that do, in fact, find those little tidbits of information & encouragement to be useful. I find it useful and posting it here keeps it in front of me and easily accessible. 


And, as always... maybe even now more than ever, I will continue to provide twisted bits of wisdom, imaging successes, more peeks behind the scenes... 


So with that in mind, Happy Birthday to CTL. Now, on to the meat...


Found this during my morning troll around the blogosphere... a letter
penned by photographer's rep, Heather Elder entitled: Dear Art Buyer. An open letter from a photographer's rep. Heather's letter is a heartfelt plea for a spirit of collaboration & communication between creatives, their agents & those that commission them. Much of the content with the letter seems like basic common sense, common courtesy... after all, we all have the same goal in mind, don't we - to communicate the client's message to the best of our abilities? Thanks to Leslie Burns Dell'Acqua & Heather Morton for the find.


Friend & client Joan B. sent me the following link via email today... leading to the BBC News website where there is posted an amazing audio slideshow highlighting the human condition by photographer Timothy Allen. The slide show, entitled Human Planet, features amazing imagery of people living in extreme parts of the globe all captured gloriously by Allen's lens. See your yourself HERE. Thanks for that, Joan!


Otherwise, things have been quite a bit busier that they were this time last year. The past week or so has brought assignments to produce new campaigns for not one, but two different tourism themed venues, a weekend event that was more freak-show than usual, a six day architectural project in the Princeville Resort area on the Island of Kauai, a proposal for three different remodeled & refreshed resorts on Oahu & the Big Island.


Thursday, the team & I will be capturing friend & legendary drummer Mick Fleetwood at his home & rehearsal studio high on the slopes of Haleakala, all to be published as an editorial At Home feature in one of the local lifestyle magazines. 


Images from all the above to be posted soon...


And lastly - two weekends ago, legendary entertainer Elton John inaugurated the new performance stage and Yokouchi Pavilion in the A&B amphitheater, outdoors at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. SPECTACULAR is the only way to describe the pyramid-shaped dome now offering solid weather protection & production rigging over the outdoor stage, as it's glass panels light up during an evening performance. Two shows, packed houses each night and a non-stop, three-hour roll through the greatest hits catalog with a few new tunes thrown in for good measure. Though not really a fan, myself... at least not since the early 1970's, the show was impressive as Sir Elton pummeled the keyboards, sang and occasionally looked quite pleased with himself through a marathon lasting a full three hours, barely stopping to catch his breath, engaging the audience & shouting out to other celebrity musicians hidden within the 4500+ audience (Eddie Vedder & Mick Fleetwood).


Yours truly had an all access pass for both performances and have finally gotten around to posting a few images from the night:

Yokouchi Pavilion Pre-show, First Performance Sound-Check

Just Before Sir Elton Takes The Stage

Honky Cat On A Hot Maui Night

Thanks to all of you who have stuck with us throughout the last three years, Happy Birthday CTL!

Real World Estimating... Wading Into the World of Fine-Art... Book Signing Schedule...

Always an educational & informative read, today's entry at the blog A Photo Editor gives us another glimpse into the process of estimating and bidding an assignment. Jess Dudley, producer with the production company Wonderful Machine, takes us inside the process of estimating a still life product assignment for a national brand glass manufacturer who's products are sold through big box stores.

The client needed pictures showing several variations of each of the bowls, plates, and cups so that they’d have different options for use on packaging, point of purchase displays, and on their e-commerce site. They wanted everything shot on white background. Their in-house designers would process the raw files and handle the silhouetting and any retouching. The client would plan to bring a hard drive with them and simply take all the raw files with them at the conclusion of the shoot.

 Additional information going into the thought process in preparing the estimate:

Whether I quote the high end or the low end is going to depend on how prominent the brand is, the complexity of the pictures, how prominent the photographer is, how busy he is, and the exact licensing. The number of shoot days and the regularity of the work is a factor as well. If a one-day shoot suddenly becomes a five-day shoot, I would probably discount the additional days.Location of the photographer and the client can also factor in. If the client (even a big one) is in a smaller market and you’re competing with other photographers in that small market, you might not be able to charge as much as for a similar project taking place in a bigger market. In this case, the client and the photographer were in a big market, and I felt that all of the other factors together pointed to about the mid-point of the range, so I quoted 4000.00/day. The client specified the exact usage they needed, which I quoted on the estimate. 

Jess includes in his estimate fees for a digital tech and one assistant, studio & equipment rentals, expendables (set-paper backgrounds, etc.), milage, and fees for shipping & delivery of the work and catering for breakfast & lunch. The client planned to provide the stylist. ( I also note that no fee was included for digital post-production to prepare the image files for delivery & publishing. For this particular assignment, I am assuming those duties fall to the on-set digi-tech who will correct the Raw files, color correct, sharpen, etc.)

For some time now, the trend among mainland photographers has been to charge fees for studio & equipment rental, even when the photographer may have his own shooting space & gear. This is a trend I would like to see happen here... especially the equipment rental which suffers much wear & tear and is very costly to purchase & replace.

As for catering, it has been my customary practice to include expense items to cover meal per diems on shoot days for myself & crew. Catering would be quite a luxury and something I don't think most Hawaii producers or photographers include in the estimate budgets. Fortunately for me, the bulk of my work involves either food & beverage or architectural photography for resorts, hotels & dining establishments where food is easily accessible. For us, it's simply a matter of breaking for lunch in most cases. For major resort assignments with large crews, talent and early, pre-dawn call times, it's always a good idea to plan ahead and have the F&B folks and/or Room Service deliver to the location an assortment of juices, coffee, teas, fruits & pastries.  This helps to insure that the cast & crew are always on set when you need them and are fed, happy, awake and ready to work. When the body is nourished, feeding the creative hunger is much easier. 

The APE post should be an eye-opener for many of the up & coming photographers around this state. Though much of the assignment work generated in Hawaii is, for the most part, for local & regional brands where a day rate of $3K-$5K would never fly for a myriad of reasons (local or regional brand & marketing, lack of education-self confidence-Wall Mart pricing strategies and rabid undercutting amongst out newer talent pool). There are many new additions to the talent pool here that have never had the opportunity to work on or be exposed to productions of this type and simply haven't had the opportunity to be educated as to real-world values of the work they produce. Information like this post by APE provide some of those opportunities to educate yourself. Please take the time to read it here.

In other asides, I'm feeling a bit schizophrenic these days as I float between the world of commercial assignment photography and the world fine-art photography. The weekly gallery set-ups & sittings at the Four Seasons Resort & Spa in Wailea has been a learning experience indeed. 


While I could argue that what passes as a fine art market in Hawaii is more of an expensive souvenir market (and do argue this point frequently with the Art Hash Harrier gals), the point is a moot one given that I have been given the opportunity to get my personal work in front of a large & captive audience of very well-heeled and very pre-qualified potential buyers. I am further enthused by the fact that my sales thus far have been of work I am emotionally attached to, feel very proud of and has been anything but "Hawaiian" in subject matter. That I haven't yet resorted to producing tropical sunset pics or ripping off the wave photos of Clark Little, like so many others, is comforting. Mrs. NC insists that I need some of those types of images in my display and I think she may be right. Gotta get right on that! What a great luxury it would be to be generating income in this manner, freeing me considerably from the concerns of the commercial side of my business to pursue work of a more personal nature. 


And I'm enjoying my time sitting the resort gallery too; enjoying getting to know the other artists working in other mediums, enjoying the people watching, getting to meet the celebrities visiting the resort, watching what images people seem most drawn to from week to week. I'm paying close attention. My first five weeks of sittings has been during the traditional pre-holiday slow time for tourism in the islands All the better... allowing me some time to develop the learning curve as to what works , what might work and what doesn't. By Christmas peak season, I should just about have things fairly well wired. Already, new work is being produced to meet what I'm beginning to sense is the market. New work will be on display this coming monday and I will get a chance to evaluate how well it will potentially be received. Drop by on mondays between the hours of 7:00am & 1:30pm to say "hi" and check out the new work if you plan to be near the Four Seasons.


Old dog, new tricks...


I will be joining authors Mark Ellman & Barbara Santos next weekend for two books signing events as the launching of the just published Practice Aloha book continues. Next Saturday, November 27th, we will be at Borders Books & Music on Dairy Road beginning at 2:00 pm.  Word is that legendary drummer, book contributor and old friend Mick Fleetwood will be joining us for the event, signing copies of the book and greeting fans. Here's an opportunity to pick up a few excellent gifts for friends and family as you prepare for the holidays. 


On Sunday, November 28th, we will again be signing books at the Maui Ocean Center in Maalea beginning at 11:00 am. Please come & join us!