Liber Liberum Aperit (one book opens another)

[by Sean Kernan]

I’ve been riding a long slow curve from the activity of making photographs through the question of why I pursue it so hard, visiting the question of how we create, and winding up (for now) at the question of why we create in life-size our versions of how everything should be, using photos, movies, novels, art of all kinds, and also our life stories and beliefs.

So my reading list includes:
First, The Making of a Midsummer Night’s Dream, a diary of the rehearsal of the landmark Peter Brook production of Shakespeare’s play. The rehearsal process was a culmination of many inventions in the way theater discovered a play and what was in it, and people who saw the play say it changed their lives. It certainly changed the way theater was done. But the fascinating thing to me was that whole rehearsal was extremely uncomfortable for those involved. No one really had any sense of the scope of what they were doing or how it would influence things going forward. The experience was sometimes exhilarating and more often frightening at the time, and often seemed doomed…until the play opened and the amazed responses began to come in. I usually feel insecure in the middle of projects too, so this book reminds me that that is what I’m supposed to feel if things are going as they should.

Also, Laurie Robertson-Lorant‘s biography, Herman Melville, whose a vision so great and so far advanced, and his insistence on it so complete, that he gradually cut himself off from those around him. Of course, he didn’t know he was writing the Great American Monumental Novel, and that might not have been a compensation? Did he even have a choice?

And Son of the Morning Star, Evan Connell’s reading of the national psyche’s that led up to Custer’s demise and the exploitive mythmaking that followed. I read it as another kind of insistence, that of a young nation forming its identity by pursuing a belief in its own “manifest destiny” and remaining blind to the consequences on others and on itself. (This is something Melville was particular critical of, as he witnessed missionaries and diplomats taking it on themselves to “civilize” the cultures of the Pacific.)

The thread that I have followed through all of these is that there is often—or always—something behind what we’re aware of that is bigger than anything we have in mind, that leads to a much fuller outcome. It can be for good or ill, but it is there. Can a wider awareness harness it? That’s the next question, isn’t it? Anyone know any good books on the topic?

But I have all of Stieg Larsson series in front of me too. Maybe I’ll run a little sidetrack into that next, lest things get too serious. On the other hand, knowing new stuff is fun too.

My Number One Reading Recommendation

[by Gail Mooney]

#1  Reading recommendation:
From Still to Motion by Richard Harrington – Peachpit Press

Harrington has written 27 books on everything from Photoshop tips to Final Cut Pro and other software applications.  In his current book “From Still to Motion” he documents a field case study creating a video with the hybrid camera Canon 5D Mark II.  This book is a must have for any still photographer who is thinking of moving into motion.

Gail Mooney runs a video production company www.kellymooney.com.

Summer Reading List

[by Jay Kinghorn]

There’s no doubt that the business landscape is tough for photographers right now. Still, every day, green shoots are appearing in the publishing and advertising industries that will allow well-positioned and technologically savvy photographers to make and impact (and a good living) as the recession subsides.

Here are a few books I’ve found valuable in thinking about my business, assessing the services I provide clients and getting through my to-do list.

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. I find new insight from this book every time I read it. Blue Ocean Strategy offers clear guidance to rethink one’s business to focus on untapped markets and new opportunities.

The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change The Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen. In researching the panel questions for the ASMP Copyright and The New Economy symposium this spring, I kept coming across references to this book citing it as an influential source for understanding why well-managed companies, who fail to change to meet new technological needs and client demands, fail. Sure enough, Clayton M. Christensen delivers, offering strategic insights for managing any business through periods of rapid change like we’re experiencing today and giving us both the strategy and the courage to make the leap from our current business model to the new model that will carry us into tomorrow.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: This is a book I find more valuable with each read. Allen’s GTD method is well proven and will help you focus on addressing both day-to-day tasks and your big-picture business goals.

Our Data, Our Selves

[by Judy Herrmann]

Earlier this year, ASMP President, Richard Kelly, suggested I read Ken Auletta’s book, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.   Thought-provoking and packed with facts, quotes and well-researched information – I actually pulled out a highlighter pen for the first time in years – it is so well-written and organized that it’s an easy and inviting read.

Auletta, who has written the “Annals of Communications” column for The New Yorker since 1992, uses the rise of Google as the basis for a much broader thesis on the impact of the internet and searchability on business, communications, advertising and the creation, distribution and publishing of content.  He clearly outlines the struggle between old and new Media and his interviews with moguls on both sides of the line provide fascinating insights into the role of content in these vast distribution networks.  My new understanding of the data collected about consumers and how it’s being used to monetize the internet has completely altered my views of the future and how our industry and my business need to evolve to take advantage of these rapidly growing data mines.

We’ve all been Googled in one way or another.  We owe it to ourselves to understand a little more about what that means.

Judy Herrmann, photographer, business consultant and former ASMP national president volunteers on ASMP’s Strategic Research and Web Oversight committees. Learn more about her at www.HSstudio.com

Big Changes can Happen while Reading on Long Summer Days

[by Carolyn Potts]

Instead of a best-selling mystery or a trashy summer novel, pack one of these into your beach bag and you’ll have more than a tan when you’re done.

You’ll end up with some different perspectives regarding where business is headed–and how you fit in.

I think it’s essential for any small business owner to get a  macro-economic business perspective. Reading outside your industry niche gives you the business equivalent of a liberal arts education vs. trade school education. Both kinds of education are very valuable. But added together, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

In the same way, maintaining a well-rounded and broad business perspective can generate new insights about marketing your photography. So in between reading the CS5 manuals, check out a couple of these.

The first few books will give you a wonderful dose of confidence about being in a creative industry.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin

These two best-sellers by Malcolm Gladwell really make you think.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
and
Outliers: The Story of Success

Here are two of my favorite big-picture guides–one for a perspective on the global economy:
The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Friedman

and one to help you manage day-to-day priorities.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey

And finally, for a different perspective on what might be really holding you back, have some fun examining your foundational beliefs with this help of this book:
Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life by Byron Katie & Stephen Mitchell

Have fun in the summer sun!

Carolyn Potts, perpetual photo evangelist; international consultant & speaker; and former rep, shows seasoned & proactive photographers how to get more work. Find her at www.cpotts.com , http://bit.ly/FaceBookPottsConsulting and http://carolynpotts.net/

I Highly Recommend “Free, The Future of a Radical Price” by Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson’s new book is a provocative look at the growing economy of free. I know many of you may roll your eyes at the thought that “free” is our new competition, but do not judge this book by it’s title. Anderson provides a careful investigation outlining the history and future of this economic driver, and in so doing, removed my fear and replaced it with new ideas for my business.

Like most photographers, it has become increasingly difficult for me to maintain profitable fees let alone institute increases, so when I read, “Products that can become commoditized and cheap tend to do so, and companies seeking profits move upstream in search of new scarcities,” I realized this book has a message for photographers. I kept reading and my copy is now dog-eared and underlined.

Vision And Art: The Biology of Seeing

Many of the corrections we make to photos, burning and dodging, and adjusting contrast or saturation, are designed to exploit quirks in our visual system. In Vision And Art: The Biology of Seeing by Margaret Livingstone, you’ll learn the biological and physiological foundations behind image sharpening, selective focus, contrast and the rule of thirds. This is an engaging and informative book written in plain english for anyone who enjoys the visual arts. In my opinion, it is mandatory reading for photographers, film makers, designers and illustrators. More than any other book, Vision and Art has helped to shape my approaches to photography and image corrections in the digital darkroom.

Summer Book : TRIBES by Seth Godin

It is summer 2009 and while some of us are packing the car for vacations to the sea shore or the mountains, many of us are choosing to “staycation”, or rather staying close to home or taking day trips to area attractions. Today’s economy is forcing us to re-evaluate, not just the family summer vacation but our business priorities as well.

Seth Godin the master marketer and author of the book Tribes, recalls that often quoted phrase, that life’s too short,  “…too short to fight the forces of change. Life’s too short to hate what you do all day. Life’s way too short to make mediocre stuff. And almost everything that is standard is now viewed as mediocre.”

It sure seems that business like we know it has changed forever, and that everyone with a camera is a photographer. Many companies require employees to self evaluate their work performance. These performance management systems feature not only an evaluation of the job description but also a personal development track. As self-employed photographers we rarely take the time to self-assess our development.

This summer I am staying close to home, spending time with my wife and daughter and taking the time to evaluate my personal goals, my business goals and even my photography goals. Am I making the kind of photographs that mean something to me? Am I working for the clients who use the type of photography that I want to create? Is my business plan providing the rewards that I expect? I am optimistic that the economy will recover. I am even more optimistic that I will emerge from this summer with a better picture of where I am going. Life is way to short.

If you are packing books for your summer, consider the Seth Godin Library and at the very least check out Tribes.

The Lean Forward Moment: Create Compelling Stories for Film, TV and the Web

If you’ve been following Gail Mooney’s multimedia and video posts and are beginning to experiment with video, you’ve found that video and multimedia require different approaches than still photography. The pacing of cuts, pans or zooms through the frame, or edits in a timeline are foreign concepts to photographers. In The Lean Forward Moment, Norman Hollyn illuminates the thought processes that will drive your editorial decisions and provides a fascinating insight into the minds of movie producers, editors and directors. He uses examples from classic movies, from the Godfather to Finding Nemo to emphasize his points. Well written and insightful, this book will help you understand how to plan, execute, edit and direct multimedia and video stories.

Book Review Week

I love reading biographies and these three very different stories are some of my favorites.

Limelight is a memoir by Helen Gee and traces her history opening this country’s first photography gallery. If you love photography and photographers, you will enjoy this immensely. It is a charming tale of Greenwich Village and the coming of age of photography as an art form.

Walker Evans a biography by James R. Mellow. Much has been written about Evans, but this exquisitely written biography is my favorite. Mellow’s carefully researched book rewards the reader with new insights and lots of wonderful stories.

Another biography favorite of mine is de Kooning, An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan. This biography tells the story of de Kooning’s life, but it also provides an in-depth history into the New York art scene from the 1930’s to 1990’s. The book was published in 2004 and won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.

This DAM Stuff Is Important

Managing your digital images can be a daunting task. Imagine a world where you can retrieve a specific image for a client in seconds or pull up everything you photographed on a specific theme instantly. You will not only save time, but you will improve the quality of your customer service, your marketing materials or your next project proposal.  Peter Krogh takes you step-by-step through the process of digital asset management in the latest edition of his book, “The DAM Book.”

This second edition has been almost entirely rewritten, updating the material for the changed technical landscape. Chapters were added that covered the use of Lightroom, as well as an entirely new chapter on backup and validation of image files. Peter also covers the use of GPS devices and software to geotag your images. Check out Peter’s blog and get a taste of the valuable information he provides.

From the Amazon reviews,

“If you want to get your collection of files (note not only photos, videos, music, but all of your files) under control and make sure they are safe this is the book for you. The book lead me to solutions to several of my issues. The book would be worth several times the cost!”
- Scott Buckel

“Peter Krogh’s updated DAM Book is essential for anyone working with a significant number of digital images, if for no other reason than the basic time saved by learning which techniques (and software) are most efficient.”
- Thaddeus Watkins

Business is down for all of us, so use some of your new found time to get your archives in order.

Don’t Ignore This Book Review

The second edition of Tom Reilly’s Value Added Selling: how to sell more profitably, confidently, and professionally by completing of value, not price (McGraw-Hill ISBN: 0-0714088-19, 256 pages) boasts 70-percent new content from the first edition.  I was given my copy by a fellow airline passenger who had finished it while on a flight we shared.  He said, “You won’t believe how valuable this information is.”  When I asked him if he was sure he wanted to give it away, he said, “I want you to have it, it sounds like your industry could benefit by what the author talks about, and I’ll buy another copy for myself.”

Was he right!  Reilly’s “Value Added Selling Philosophy” is based on demonstrating your value to clients during the early stages of the sales presentation, instead of waiting until the time in the sales process that you have to overcome price objections presented by the client.

Reilly helps you to identify your value added, what it is that you bring to the table that perhaps your competition won’t or can’t.  He talks about differentiation: what are your definable and defendable differences?

Reilly challenges you to look at what he calls process support: how easy do you make it for your customers to do business with you.  But perhaps the most valuable part of the book is his seven strategies for dealing with price resistance.

So, somewhere out there is a traveling salesman I didn’t thank enough for his gift of Tom Reilly’s book. In today’s difficult economy, this book is a must read.  I’ve read it and re-read it, and it has definitely helped my business.

“Marketing Management is now Tribal Leadership” Seth Godin

If you haven’t yet read TRIBES  - We need you to lead us by Seth Godin, today is the day to do just that, at 160 pages it is easily a weekend read. The basic tribe concept is that groups of people form  tribes around a person or an idea or a product to create change. For  a photographer this can lead to many opportunities, , but the one that stands out for me is that “Marketing Management is now Tribal Leadership.”

Back when I first started out as a photographer, I had dinner with very successful and famous fashion photographer. His advice to me was , “you really only need five clients in your career.” In essence he was advising me to create  a small and devoted tribe. You build that tribe with your story and with images in your portfolio that confirm that story. Your Tribe wants to be “lead” by you, their leader.

TRIBES follows tribal innovators using the social networks of new media to build tribes My advice is to follow along while creating a plan for your tribe, and make it a part of your overall tribal strategy.