I love exhibiting my work. I love having a project or a theme and building a body of work within that theme with the end result of a show! The first time I exhibited my work was in 1993 and I’ve been passionate to continue with exhibitions since.
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People have written me recently wanting to know what my take on the “glamourous” side of the business is. Do I love the parties, do I get invited to events often, how do I handle the social aspect of the fashion industry?? I live in Los Angeles, home to the never ending Red Carpet entrances, celebrity fueled events and paparazzi photographers. You sort of HAVE to be a part of it because choosing NOT be a part of it is somewhat of a strong statement. So I have had to learn how to “survive” the party side of being in the fashion industry. Don’t get me wrong: fashion photography is a serious business just like any other and you have to keep the upmost of professionalism at all times, even when you’re not shooting. But when you are invited out to a ton of events where there is a lot of free alcohol and potential clients lingering around you, you need to learn the balance of suiting up, showing up and making a quiet exit. I know there are photographers out there that party all the time. They hang out with their young models, they go to every event they’re invited to. They make it a priority to get on the guest list of every event thrown by the “elite”. They have a reputation of being “crazy” and “out there”. In my opinion, there’s a fine line between taking advantage of the “perks” and using social events in your favor for networking.
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We all go through it. Times when we are more inspired to shoot than others. Sometimes we’re just bursting with new ideas and concepts we have to shoot! Other times it seems like nothing comes to us. We pour through magazines, we search through websites. Still, there’s this empty void and we experience something similar to “writer’s block”. I go through this too, sometimes. We all have lives to live and sometimes our personal lives have a little too much stress in them to think creatively. For some, that stress is actually a catalyst to create. Some people are more driven when shit goes down in their lives. I know in the past that some painful experiences have led to some hugely motivated and productive times in my career. But for the most part, stress isn’t what I search out when I’m trying to inspire myself.
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I have received a lot of personal emails over the last couple of weeks from readers wanting to pick my brain on my use of photoshop. I think the most common question has been is if I decide before I even shoot how I will want the images to eventually look like and the steps I take to get from prepping a shoot to the final result. I can begin by reassuring everyone that I absolutely consider how the final images will look before I ever fire off a single frame. It is absolutely essential to have an idea of how you want your images to look so you can take that into consideration on how you will shoot. Will you need a lot of room around the subject to drop in walls or objects? Are you going in and doing major special effects on the model? Are you going to trick out the color and distort angles?
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Seems strange in this current internet age that photographer’s still need portfolios to show prospective clients in order to solicit work. One would think that with websites and email marketing campaigns, we wouldn’t need portfolios anymore. But it isn’t true. We still need to have a portfolio to show off our prints and tear sheets. It actually gets me a little irked, to be honest. I need a website, a portfolio (actually I need 2 portfolios…one I keep and one my rep keeps), a promo card and a business card. That’s a lot of money and a lot of time and energy to put into your marketing tools. But it’s an industry “must” and so I must conform. And you must too if you want to compete in today’s highly competitive market.
I intend to write a lot about the business side of fashion photography, with marketing yourself a main subject. Today I will start with the Portfolio! I have had one since graduating from college in 1987. “Back in the day”, can you believe I wrote that?, we all had the same style of book. 11″ X 14″ black leather Brewer-Cantelmo book (shown below).
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