My personal work has always directed my commercial work. A portrait project here led to a magazine assignment there. A personal documentary led to a non-profit capital campaign. An experimental video led to a music video. Personal projects feed both my creativity and professional bottom line.

When I’m face-to-face with a client or potential client, I always include my personal projects. Sometimes they stand well enough alone, perhaps as a separate book or a box of prints. Other times they integrate into other photographs already in my primary presentation. Depending on the person and their interests, I tailor my book for each meeting.

I also position these projects as something special I am working on. Many times this has led to longer meetings, introductions to higher up decision makers and even to a few print sales. And because clients want to know you’re an artist as well as a business person, it also closes the deal on the assignment.

Many buyers I work with love photography in its pure form and they also love working with photographers, so my projects are inspirations to them as well. For many Art Directors that box of work prints is like a box with a big red bow on Christmas morning.

Richard Kelly is a photographer/producer living in Pittsburgh.

When I look at photographers’ websites they are mostly built on the stuff they do for clients…you know, the stuff we all do. And there are lots of reasons to set things  up that way.

But often there’s a page called Personal Work, or something like that, shyly tucked away.  And I head right for it.  I’ve found that that’s where the life is. That work is just better…more authentic, more passionate, fuller, richer, more alive.

Some buyers think that if they have a widget job they have no reason to look at your portraits. But the best know that a really good photo of even something so banal as a widget is a portrait. I once showed a portfolio that included personal stuff to a table of creatives. When it got personal, one of them said, “What are you showing us this for?” I knew at once that I would never work with this guy…and I never have. But the others got the connection between what I do for exploration and what they do for work.

I think this is the reason: the ADs and designers we work with are usually artistic types who realized that they need a job. So if you want to get their attention, show work that is strong and artistic. Seeing it wakes them up, they remember what they saw, and who did it. It’s like the Artist’s Secret Handshake.

The trick is to integrate the strong personal stuff with the assignments, treating it as an important part of your work rather than a side line. By doing so you demonstrate that your own vision informs your client work, giving it resonance and overtones. Lots of people are unaware that this is the way vision works, but it does, whether they know it or not.

Integrating personal work into your commercial portfolio has to be done judiciously, and isn’t going to land on everyone you reach out to, but it can make a difference to those people you actually might want to work with.  They’ll get that you’ll go beyond the bare parameters and bring life to their project.

There are a lots of factors that give people a sense of what you can do, but this is one of big ones. It tells people who you really are.

So, if you want to attract interesting projects, show interesting work.

Sean Kernan is currently working to bring a multimedia dance project called The Drowned Man into theaters everywhere…or somewhere, anyway.

Websites are often the first place we show our work to prospective clients. The prospect arrives at your site via an Internet search looking for a photographer to fulfill a specific assignment. In these tough financial times, the searches usually include a specialty and a business location. If you fit these criteria and they come to your site, the next step is to view your work. It seems increasingly common for photographers to organize their portfolios by subjects; such as people, places, things, environmental portraits, products, architecture, interiors, corporate, lifestyle, fashion etc. In addition, many have a “personal work” portfolio.

I challenge you to look at your photography from a different perspective. Focus on your vision not the subject. Consider putting a portfolio together that speaks to your unique way of seeing the world. One tightly edited portfolio of forty or fifty images will tell the buyer more about you than six portfolios of ten to twenty images each. The latter may look like you are trying to fit any project or worse yet, the portfolios may simply get tiresome as the buyer weeds through to see if you can produce what they need. Many believe it is critical to show your personal work, but if that work is totally out of sync with your client work I am not convinced it helps you. Your vision needs to be honed to the point where your personal work can be integrated into your client work without it feeling awkward.

Prints are still the fastest and most compelling way to edit your work. You can stick them up on a wall, move them around and view them over time to make sure they hold up as your best. The most compelling commercial portfolios I see weave all types of subjects together into a narrative about the photographer’s vision. If you do want to share a personal project that should be seen as a specific collection that is fine just make sure your vision rings through. And, title the portfolio the name of the project rather than “personal work.” All the work on your site should be personal.

As we move into the challenges of our Internet dominant economy, your unique vision is critical to building a sustainable career in this profession. It is the one completely unique offering you bring to the table. Vision is key to your success.

Susan Carr recently published her first book, “The Art and Business of Photography“, which focuses on finding the delicate and productive balance of creativity and business.

For most of us, we got into photography because it was fun.  Sure the prospect of making a living off something we enjoyed was exciting; it was a dream job. But then reality set in… what was once fun increasingly became work.

I liken the entire dynamic to that of a marriage.  I started dating my wife almost 15 years ago. What started as young romance, turned into newlywed bliss.  Add in two jobs, two kids, and other pressures and its easy to find yourself sleeping next to a stranger.

What we figured out a few years back is that we were better parents the more we were in love with each other.  Hence our standing tradition of having our own date night at least every two weeks.  We step away from all the parts of the relationship that are work and instead work on our relationship. We’re happy, we’re in sync, and we’re a better family.

What’s the lesson here? Are you married to your job or do you love your job?  By taking the time to make photography fun again and giving you a chance to grow and explore that relationship, you will be far better off.

Take on some personal projects.  Do something because you want to and not because you have to.

For me, that’s time-lapse photography.  Capturing scenic views and letting the passage of time get recorded.

• I walk out with two camera bodies and two tripods.
• The process of finding the shot (which often involves the quiet of a sunrise or sunset) relaxes me.
• I find a good view and set the cameras up.
• After carefully composing both shots, I meditate.  If I’m not feeling introspective, then I read comic books on my iPad.  Both help me relax.
• I then get some fun time in Adobe Camera raw and After Effects to make beautiful images that others enjoy.

I’ve started sharing my techniques through Triple Exposure, which has been socially fun and let me meet some great colleagues.  I find the end result and the creative process beautiful and rewarding.  Photography is fun… the images I’m creating cause a reaction.  I am proud of the work, but the only person I need to make happy is me.

Just as my family is stronger because my wife and I love each other… so is my work.  I enjoy what I do and on those days when there’s a gap in work it doesn’t seem so depressing and worrisome.  Even if I’m busy and I’m on the road for clients, I still find myself getting up early to catch the sunrise.  Worst case scenario… I can even just set the camera on a timer to shoot out my hotel window.

But I’m having fun and making time for me… and my client work is all the better for it.

Richard Harrington is the founder of RHED Pixel, a visual communications company in Washington, D.C. You can read Rich’s blog at www.RichardHarringtonBlog.com as well as follow him on Twitter @rhedpixel. If you’d like to check out his books, just swing by his Amazon page.

Personal projects give you the freedom to think beyond the limitations of your client photography.  Yes, digital has allowed us to experiment a little more while photographing on assignment. Unfortunately we can only use so much of our client’s valuable time for personal experiments and pushing the limits.

Take time to pick up the camera and try something completely different to make yourself a better photographer.

Keep the fun in photography. One way I do this is when I am on the road. I enjoy photographing the people, the landscapes, and the distinctive details of the cities I visit.  Many of the images are touristy.  Just have fun with it. This is important for all photographers.  It is especially important for those who have been photographing for decades.

When we regard photography as a job, it shows in our work.

Look for inspiration in magazines or on Flickr. Do a Google search for a unique photography topic to get ideas and concepts that challenge your creativity.  Look for ideas that will help put the excitement back in photography.  If nothing else, pick up your camera and explore your neighborhood.

Have a little fun.

Rosh Sillars is a Detroit photographer.

While I get that the “sh*tty first draft,” as Anne Lamott calls it, is a necessary step on one’s way to beautiful, polished prose, the perfectionist in me still balks at throwing a bunch of words on a page with the faith that I’ll be able to sort them out later.

What’s worse is that I have a similar block towards outlining–I want everything to be perfect from the get-go. (Pro tip: this is NOT helpful.)

What finally broke my terror of facing the blank page was literally breaking up that page: instead of sitting down to write or outline on a screen or sheet of paper, I jot my ideas–all of them, in whatever order they come to me–on individual index cards. (And to metaphorically break things up, I do all of this while standing at my “analog desk,” aka the dining room table.)

It’s a variation on mind-mapping as described by friend, the prolific writer and writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant. If you don’t share my terror of affixing your thoughts permanently in space on a gigantic sheet of paper, you may enjoy following her instructions more precisely. (You can get them by signing up for her excellent free newsletter.)

But whether you stand or sit, use individual notecards or whiteboards or rolls of butcher paper, getting away from the computer and jotting down thoughts freeform is a great way to unstick yourself for any task of writing.

Colleen Wainwright is currently grappling with writer’s block from the road while she travels to various ASMP chapters with her lively talk about marketing, “Making People Love You Madly.“

Some photographic subjects come pre-equipped with a “cool-factor”.  Hipsters in hipster clothing.  Musicians.  Designers dressed in black.  A piercing here, a tattoo there.

I work in several areas, but my primary focus is architecture.  Los Angeles, where I live, was a center of cool architecture even before Europeans delivered us their fully-formed modernist aesthetic between the World Wars.  Buildings rarely have tats on their walls, but they can contain trendy decor and exhibit trendy exteriors.  Not everything trendy is cool, but cool is always trendy.

The aesthetic that makes a contemporary building cool bubbles up from the same deep well that makes so much post-war photography cool: roughly speaking, less-is-more. What goes on in the mind of a modernist photographer is the roughly analogous to what goes on in the mind of a modernist architect. Advertising and editorial layouts, and the commercial and fashion photography inside those layouts – even photojournalism – can exhibit the same modernist aesthetic.  We’re all swimming in the same cultural waters.

A big part of my job is to communicate a building’s inherent coolness, or, at the least, to isolate the viewer from any boring or non-cool elements – including the ones next door.  I never doubt my client thinks their building is cool, so I’m always hoping they think the photo I produce of their building is also cool, otherwise it might just be the last time I work for them.

And that’s not cool at all.

Barry Schwartz is a photographer, designer, and writer in Los Angeles, who, because he lives in Los Angeles, long ago abandoned any notion he could be competitive in the arena of coolness.  www.barryschwartzphotography.com

Great fashion photographs are a reflection of the moral, social and economic imperatives of our time in a way that other photographic genres are not. From war time to economic booms fashion photography has shown us where our boundaries were and how we alternately sought to embrace or break them.

Beyond addressing larger social mores a great fashion photograph is about lifestyle, desire, fantasy, sensuality, and, unavoidably, commerce. It is about wanting to be the person inside in the clothes, or wanting to have the life shown within the image. It is also about identity, individuality, subculture and the desire to belong. A fashion photograph is quite simply one of the best arbiters of the time in which we live and have lived.

There are a million small details that go into the creation of a great fashion image. Once you get past casting, make-up, styling, lighting, teamwork and the other technical and pre- and post-production issues, there is the movement of the garment, the gesture, the turn of a head, the gaze, the personality of the model, and the social and commercial concepts that the image define. A great portrait informs and entertains, but a fashion photograph engenders a much larger conversation.

Fashion will always have the ability to press and break boundaries. As our social mores change the envelope within which fashion exists changes as well. There will always be boundaries to push against, and designers and image makers willing to test those boundaries. This exploration does not always need to involve shock though, as companies such as Benneton, Kenneth Cole, and Prada have shown, fashion has an enormous capacity to address social issues in a diverse and intelligent manner.

In terms of the freedom in fashion to explore, the essence of creativity is freedom. Without the ability to challenge one’s own boundaries one loses the chance to be truly creative.  The beauty of fashion and fashion photography is that it allows its creators to indulge their creative capacity on so many levels. It is this freedom that has allowed for the creation of so many fashion images and campaigns that have endeared, challenged, and engaged us over the years, and what gives fashion photography its unique and powerful voice.

“When you create something out of nothing, the first rule is to agree.”

~ Tina Fey talking about the process of improv at Google headquarters with chairman Eric Schmitdt.

What else is it that photographers do, but exactly this?

The first part: creating something out of nothing.  The second part: getting your client to agree that what you’ve delivered is appropriate. You paid attention to what they said.  Not all that complicated.

But wait, there’s more: being a professional means you can produce high-quality work on a consistent basis.  To accomplish that, you have do something your client doesn’t need to know about: you have to believe that your own taste, your standards resulted in what you produced being, at the very least, what you set out to produce.  Or better.  Preferably better.

Furthermore, I don’t know about you, but I have to generate agreement with myself in a larger context, which is paying attention to the process I use producing each job, each photo, because each is a piece of the continuum of my career.  Paying attention, micro and macro.  Attention to what I produced, how I produced it, why I did it the way I did it, even what mistakes I might have made, including the ones I left in because they were an improvement.

But for all the attention I pay to my work and my process, I worry less all the time about my ability to control everything because, well, I can’t control everything, and besides, I get positive reinforcement about my work: I get paid for it.   The attention that goes into each product – the history – is not important to the people that pay for it.  They just want a good product.

I’ve been reading all week about the late Steve Jobs, and the dominant theme has not been about the products he made, but the kind of person he was, and, more to the point, the processes he used to help make those products, which were based on his own, personal, process.  It looked like a crooked road, but it wasn’t really.  No one’s is.

From his now famous 2005 Stanford lecture:

“If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Barry Schwartz is a photographer, writer, and designer in Los Angeles, who, try as he may, can’t much tell the difference between his work and his life.

“There are no short cuts to any place worth going.” –Beverly Sills

One of the gifts of the internet can also be one of its curses.

Every minute of every day, we’re exposed to amazing achievements–all of which, because of context, seem to have sprung fully formed, like Venus on the half-shell.

The truth, of course, is usually quite different. Scratch the surface of a killer portfolio or Pulitzer prize-winning book or dazzling TED talk and you’ll usually find years, if not decades, of missteps, wrong turns, or just plain hard work of the head-down variety.

More often than not these days, I trust my path and am spurred on to work harder when I see some great thing put out in the world. But on those days when I’m feeling a little frustrated or fragile, I look to this simple line from Beverly Sills, which I have set as my desktop wallpaper.

And then I get back to pushing my particular boulder up my particular hill.

Colleen Wainwright is flying to many cities as part of her ASMP chapter tour, a constant reminder that there are, indeed, no short cuts to great places.