Tag: Womens Linked Local Network

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Being Thankful

Next week is Thanksgiving.Hands of man in homeless shelter, New York City Call me corny but I’m one of those people that like to think about the real meaning behind the holidays that we celebrate. So today I’m taking pause to think about all the things that I’m thankful for this year. Sure there’s plenty of angst, jobs are less and money is tight but I have a lot to give thanks for.

• My health – for this I am most grateful.
• My family – both my immediate family and my far-flung relatives who I don’t get to see often but are always in my thoughts and I know are always there for me.
• My freedom – I think about this a lot. No matter how many times I feel that things have gotten off track in my country – I have the freedom to speak my mind, pursue my dreams and to change the things that I don’t like.
• My home – I’m lucky to have a home where I feel safe because I know there are so many who aren’t as fortunate these days. I never take this for granted.
• My passion – Sure I have my down days, but I’m thankful that I have an inner spirit that won’t let me give up on my pursuits.
• My friends and my peers – Because of my career and my collaborations with others, I have good friends – some I’ve recently gotten to know and others I’ve known for a long time. And some who I’ve recently reconnected with.
• My sharing of knowledge and making a difference. My husband and I trained a small army of volunteers in our town to shoot our town meetings and get them broadcast on our public access station. And I can see it has made a difference – people have become more civic minded and taken more of an interest in their community.
• I’m thankful that I am able to use my craft and create awareness through my personal projects in both stills and video.  I’m thankful they can be seen globally, via the Internet and the power that has.
• I’m thankful for the many volunteers everywhere who give their time generously to others who are in need.
• I’m thankful for all the little things that are so precious – the sun that warms me on a cold day, the rain that nourishes the land, the colors and calm of a beautiful dawn and the thousands of stars on a clear night.

I’d love to hear what others are thankful for. I have found many times that those who seem to be less fortunate are also the ones who are the most thankful for what they have.

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The Past Always Seems Better…….But Was It?

Chris Guillebeau struck a chord with his blog today ,“ The Past Wasn’t Better. Choose the Present Instead”, .  He relayed a story about a time his friends got together for a “gaming session”. They had ordered an emulator, which allowed them to play the games of their youth on the modern gaming console of the time.  They realized after a couple of hours of playing the “old games” that the games weren’t as fun as what they remembered.  They were very simplistic and hard – dying over and over again and not advancing to the next level wasn’t fun – it was frustrating.

Chris made the point that it’s easy to look back with fondness on the good ole days, but our memories get distorted as time passes and sometimes what we looked back on with fondness, never happened.

I had an interesting and somewhat similar experience this past weekend.  I had been invited to speak and coach at the 2013 Syracuse University Fall Workshops, which ASMP had contributed to as a sponsor.tumblr_muyzapUjbp1qe6iepo1_500  It was an intensely creative 3-day workshop where journalism students from the Newhouse School, came together with some of the best editors, designers, photographers and multimedia producers working in journalism. It was a hands-on workshop, where students worked with their coaches, to produce their projects (stories), under a tight 3-day deadline. What stood out to me this weekend, was that the “learning” wasn’t a one-way experience.  I learned as much as I shared – from the other coaches, as well as from the students. I’m sure I’m not the only coach, who picked up some tips from their students this weekend. I was also inspired and amazed at what is possible now, in terms of new ways to tell a story.

Sure, there are days when I’m simply overwhelmed by technology and the continued learning curve that comes with it.  And sometimes, I look back and fantasize how much better it was in the past.  At the workshop, one of my students had more than her share of technology mishaps.  At one point after losing hours of work, due to a software glitch along with not being able to access her audio files, somewhere in “the cloud”, she remarked with exasperation “ I wish things were like they used to be”.  She meant when things were tangible and analog. I quickly replied, “No you don’t because this 3 day workshop would have taken 3 months”. It was a moment when we both had the same realization that Chris Guillebeau had – our memories and perceptions of the old days are sometimes blurred and over glorified.

As much as we remember and long for the old days, the fact is we have it pretty good now.  There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t remind myself of that.  I choose to focus on what I am able to do in the present rather than look back at what was. If we choose to stay in the past and remember things being better then they are now, we’ll miss out on a whole lot of possibilities. As Chris beautifully sums it up: “Let go of the glory days.  Live in the present and build for the future.”

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What Happened to Attribution?

English: Logo of LIFE magazine.
English: Logo of LIFE magazine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We lost one of the icons of photojournalism last week, Bill Eppridge.  If you haven’t heard of his name, then surely you have seen his photographs.  One of his photographs, a black & white image of the lifeless body of Senator Robert Kennedy on the floor of a hotel kitchen after he had been murdered, has become one of the signature images of the 1960’s. It has been etched into my memory since the first time I saw it in 1968.

Bill was one of his generation’s greatest photojournalists.  His images graced the pages of Life Magazine, documenting the tumultuous decade of the ‘60’s.  His colleagues at Life at that time included notables such as Alfred Eisenstaedt, George Silk, Paul Schutzer, Eve Arnold and Bob Gomel.  I know that because I used to pour over our weekly copy of Life Magazine and I saw their names printed under their photographs.

Imagine that, a photographer’s credit appearing under their image. I say that sarcastically because nowadays photographers’ credits seem to have all but disappeared.  If an image (especially a stock image) is credited in a magazine, many times it will only say “Getty Images” or “AP”.  Why is that?  It doesn’t cost the magazine any more money to credit the photographer who shot it – nor does it take anything away from Getty or AP.  Why not credit an image  ie: photographer name/Getty Images?  When and why did someone somewhere at Getty or a publishing house decide to omit a photographer’s name?

It seems to me, that in the virtual world we live in, where trust and authenticity has given way to blurred or hidden identities, we would want to know who the person was that took the picture we are looking at.  We all know a corporation didn’t go out and shoot it – sometimes putting their life on the line.

As a photographer, I insert a clause in my contracts that states that  a penalty will be charged if my credit is omitted. That is if it’s my contract, but too many times stock photo agencies don’t require a photographer’s credit and in fact don’t seem to want it.  Why?  I would love to know why. I also wonder if this new precedent will affect our future photographic archives by making them less tangible, less personal.  That would be a tragedy.  What makes an image linger in our minds, decades after a picture is taken is that it makes the captured moment – real.  I can assure you that when a photographer decides which moment to capture, it’s about as real and personal as it gets.  Why not give credit to that moment and that photographer who captured it? Don’t you think that future generations will appreciate it if we do?

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Don’t Let Resistance Win

“Resistance is fueled by fear.  Resistance has no strength of its own.  Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us.  We feed it with power by our fear of it.  Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.”

Steven Pressfield, “The War of Art”

Resistance manifests itself in many ways. Jaipur, India Most of us do everything we can, not to recognize the “resistance” in our own lives.  We plod along through life, just trying to maintain the status quo of our daily existence and habits, that we never “see” the sharp reefs buried beneath the surface of our relationships, our careers or how we are living our life.   We don’t see the reefs, because we don’t want to.  We think it’s easier to live a life of denial and that’s exactly what resistance wants.

Misery loves company.  Somehow, it makes us feel better about ourselves, when we compare ourselves to other under achievers, procrastinators, people down on their luck or just ordinary people who are extremely unhappy.  Essentially, people who don’t take control of their lives, but rather blame circumstances or others.  These people are victims of resistance.

There’s a saying “When a door closes – a window opens”.  I’ve always been one to focus on the “open window”, rather than the “closed door” but it’s not easy.  Any time I’ve had a shift in my life, or a “door closed”, my first instincts are to curl up in a ball, bury my head in the covers, admit failure and give up – or give in to resistance. But I know that if I succumb to those instincts, I won’t even notice the windows that have opened.  The funny thing is, most times, those windows were always open – I just never saw them.

I try to recognize those open windows in my life, but in order to do that, I need to battle resistance. That may mean, closing some doors myself.

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Past Predictions of the Future Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

One of the blogs that I regularly read is Copyblogger, which provides a lot of great information and insights into content marketing.  This past week, Brian Clark wrote a post entitled,  The Future of Content Marketing.   He writes:

“A bunch of really smart people got together in 1880 to predict the future, according to Jeff Stibel in his intriguing book Breakpoint. These experts were called on to predict how the rapidly growing Gotham would manage into the next century and beyond.

The prognosis was not positive.

NYC was a major source of American innovation in 1880. Skyscrapers, subways, stock exchanges — and it was doubling in size every 10 years. abb36e44-0c30-4a09-9279-0cd3c3fefa9b-A01867The experts were concerned by this growth, because they projected by 1980, you’d need six million horses to transport all the people who would live there.”

Folks were predicting the future of New York City, looking at it through the eyes of what was technologically possible then.  They were more concerned about all the horses and the “crap” that would be produced, than they were about greenhouse gases, because nobody knew what that was.

When I re-ran a blog post How Motion is Changing the Future of Photography, I used a similar analogy, that Ray Kurzweil had given when I heard him speak at NAB.  Ray said that, at the turn of the century (the beginning of the 1900’s), if you thought of yourself as being in the “horse and buggy business”, you were doomed to fail because of advent of the automobile.  But if you saw yourself in the “transportation business”, you thrived, no doubt because you broadened your view to include the automobile.  In my blog, I compared that analogy to what is happening in the still photography business, as the mediums of still imagery and video converge.  I received a lot of responses from that post, mostly from people who argued that still photographs would always be around. I don’t disagree with them.  I do think there will still be still images in the future – however, I think the still photography business will drastically change from how it is now.

Interestingly enough, every year I’m asked to bid on a still photography assignment for a tourism client.  Yesterday, I received the bid packet and there was a profound change.  They were not asking for a quote for still photography.  They were asking for a quote for video – and not just video – but video shot on a RED camera so that they could pull frame grabs from the footage and use those “still images” in their ads.  Now, that’s a game changer.

There’s always a danger in predicting the future and that’s because we tend to use and be influenced by the information and the knowledge that we have now – in the present.  What I’ve learned in my many years on this Earth is that the future will be nothing like how we imagine it will be.   I know that because what I imagined the future to be, some 35 years ago when I set out to make a career as a still photographer, was very limited in terms of how technology has changed things.

The human need to create will continue to mold a future that is way beyond what most of us could ever imagine.

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Hitting a Nerve

English: camera Français : video
English: camera Français : video (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What an interesting week it has been. This past Friday (the day before a long holiday weekend), on impulse, and feeling a little lazy, I shared a link on Facebook to a blog that I had written 8 months ago, How Motion is Changing the Future of Photography.  I didn’t expect to get thousands of hits in 2 days time – it had barely gotten noticed when I posted it the first time, back in February, 2013.

What had happened was that Rob Haggart linked to it from his blog, APhotoEditor and it went viral after that – all around the world.  That’s what amazes me about the age we live in, that something someone says, or writes can be heard globally in record time.  It truly demonstrates the power of “one”.   It’s staggering and something I never would have imagined some 35 years ago when I began my career as a still photographer.  In fact, most of what is happening now in photography. I never could have imagined – not in my grandest dreams.

What surprised me most about the comments I received from that post, was that most folks just couldn’t begin to imagine the future that I was contemplating in my writings. With the convergence of cameras, in regards to stills and video, I imagined a future, where a still image might not be captured by a “still camera” or by a “still photographer” for that matter.  A still image may come from a “frame grab” captured by a video camera.  I struck a nerve for sure, and most people thought I was predicting the demise of still photographs – perhaps because of Ron’s headline, excerpted from my text “ I think we are at a tipping point as far as the future of the still photography business”.

To be clear, I do think the photography “business” is at a tipping point, but not just because of the convergence of still and video cameras, but because of the glut of imagery.  The iPhone has been the game changer in that sense. Everyone has become a photographer and has a camera on them at all times, taking, sending and sharing millions of still images globally every day.  What that means in terms of the still photography industry is that if you want to stay in business as a professional photographer, you will need to create something that is authentic and unique to only you AND more importantly, you will need to provide a product or service that a market is willing to pay for – and pay enough that will sustain you in an industry that requires a reinvestment in tech and gear every two years, minimally.

In my attempt to “get off easy”, by rerunning a blog that I had written and previously posted more than a half a year ago, I learned a couple of things:

  1. Timing is everything
  2. It’s all perspective.

That’s the one good thing about getting older; I have a lot more perspective.  I’ve learned that the future is not at all like I imagined it would be.  I never could have imagined half the things that are happening right now.  And I’m sure that if I’m still alive 20 years from now, it will be a future filled with things and ideas that I could never even begin to imagine.

I will be moderating a panel at PPE this year, sponsored by ASMP “How Motion is Changing the Future of Still Photography”.   Our panelists include, Vincent LaForet, Brian Storm and Chase Jarvis.  Join us, it will be a discussion you won’t want to miss.

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Change

  • “The secret of change, is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”  Socrates
  • “Change before you have to.”  Jack Welch
  • “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”            Margaret Mead   block-isle-jetty
  • “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”  Lao Tzu
  • “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”  Charles Darwin
  • “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”  Steve Jobs
  • “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”  George Bernard Shaw
  • “Change brings opportunity.”  Nido Qubein
  • “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”  Winston Churchill
  • “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.”  Woodrow Wilson
  • “There is nothing permanent except change.”  Heraclitus
  • “It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change.”  Mignon McLaughlin
  • “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”  Frederick Douglass
  • “Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.”  Robert Kennedy
  • “One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.”  Frank Zappa
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5 Tips for Filmmakers (and other artists) for Building an Audience

The good news for Indie filmmakers, musicians, photographers and new media artists is that technology enables us to take control and distribute our own work to the masses or a more targeted niche audience.  The bad news is that even though we are able to reach a global audience without giving the lion’s share of our profits to an agent or distributor – it’s a lot of hard work.

When I completed final production on my first feature documentary, Opening Our Eyes, I knew I was hardly finished with this film, not if I wanted people to see it. theater interioeIMG_0150Since most filmmakers make their movies to be seen, they need to decide how they want their movies distributed and marketed.  As a filmmaker, do you want to delegate this task to a distribution company or do it yourself?  Will you be one of the lucky 1% of filmmakers who get their films picked up for distribution?  If not, do you have a plan on how to do that?

1. Identify and build audience – Regardless if you decide to sign with a distributor or distribute your work yourself, the most important part of marketing and distributing a film is to identify and build your audience – and you should start building your audience before the film is finished.  As soon as I made a commitment to make a film, I started blogging about it.  I created a blog specifically about the film where my daughter and I talked about preparing for and taking a 99-day journey around the world. I also wrote about the making of the film on this blog where I talked about gearing up for it as well as the post-production process.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was building our niche audience.

2. Have a social media plan:

  • Decide on platforms – Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, YouTube, Vimeo
  • Carve out the time to engage
  • Decide where the content will come from – behind the scenes photos or footage, blogs, podcasts?
  • Who and where is your audience? Find other Facebook groups or pages and followers who are interested in the same topic as yours.  Collaborate. Build your Twitter followers same way.

3. Finding true fans – Since most filmmakers will most likely NOT have a mega hit with huge profits, the best thing a filmmaker can do is build their “true fan” base.  First you should ask yourself how many “true fans” would you need to sustain yourself as a filmmaker? And by true fan, I mean people who are willing to buy whatever you are selling, be it a book, a DVD, a music download or a t-shirt.  The key to growing your core “true fans” is to engage them by sharing interesting content as opposed to just selling something.

4. Be consistent and stick with it – Like anything else, building an audience takes time.  Be prepared to constantly interact and engage your audience by sharing relevant and interesting content with them.  You’re building a tribe or a community.

5. Find likely partners – Making films is a collaborative effort.  Similarly, for filmmakers to be successful in marketing their films they need to find their core niche.  One great way to find your niche audience is to identify like minded groups and share links.  The non-profit my daughter works for partnered with us and we frequently share each other’s news with our followers.

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Karma and Being Real

I had an awesome night last night.  My husband and I had tickets to a Jackson Browne concert. The seats were way up in the up most reaches of an old theater in New Brunswick, NJ.  They weren’t great tickets, but nevertheless, they were tickets to a concert by Jackson Browne, my favorite singer/songwriter.

During intermission, a guy, who had climbed four extremely steep flights of steps, walked into the “gallery” and announced that he had one available ticket in the third row and asked “Does anybody want it?” After a minute of trying to comprehend what the man had said, I spoke up and said “I’ll take it” and then asked  “Is it really in the third row?.  He confirmed, and then I asked my husband “you don’t mind do you?, gave him a kiss and flew down to my “new” seat.

It was an amazing night, JBto sit so close and be able to see and feel the music.  Jackson is one of the most intimate and real songwriters around and I got totally absorbed into his performance. I thought about my stroke of luck in getting that seat.  I thought perhaps my luck was changing after a very “trying” month. It was like a karmic blessing.

As I watched and listened to Jackson, I saw an artist whose talents and music have endured the test of time.  His topics and lyrics are just as relevant as they were when I first started following him, some 40 years ago.  That’s because he writes about the human experience – the triumphs and the failures that we all have.  He strikes a nerve with his truth and honesty.  Some say his music defines a generation.  Perhaps.  But Jackson’s music certainly defines who he is.  He’s about as authentic as you can be.

Jackson inspires me to create from my true self and do the work that I am meant to do.  He also inspires me to be a better person. After his encore, he waved to the audience and said, “Be good to each other”.  That said it all.

 From The Pretender, by Jackson Browne

I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
I’ve been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it’s the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
You’ll get up and do it again
Amen

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Wipe Your Knees Before Entering

I just learned that Bob Gilka, legendary Director of Photography at the National Geographic for over 20 years passed away yesterday.  He was 96 years old.  Bob was the “real deal” and he will be missed by many, but his legacy lives on in all the photographers careers that he shaped and mentored. I am reposting a blog that I wrote about Bob on December 1, 2009.  Rest in peace Mr. Gilka.

Back in the eighties when I was starting out, every six months or so I made the pilgrimage to Washington DC to see Bob Gilka, The Director of Photography at the National Geographic Magazine.  He was the guy who decided if you would shoot for the magazine. doormat2  He was accessible, answered his own phone and made appointments to look at work. How times have changed.

Gilka was a man of few words and because of that seeing him was always a bit intimidating.  If all you had were images to show – and nothing to say, you’d pretty much be in and out of his office in the amount of time it took to click through your slides. Knowing this, I did my homework prior to the appointment. I’d come up with about 10 query ideas, research back issues of the magazine to make sure they hadn’t been done before and have at least one idea written up in a story proposal.

I’ll never forget the first time I went to Gilka’s office.  His secretary met me in the lobby, and led me to a small area just outside his office.  There on his door was a doormat –with words that read “Wipe Your Knees Before Entering”.  Talk about feeling intimidated – as if it wasn’t intimidating enough just to be meeting with the Director of Photography  at the  National Geographic.

So every six months or so I would show my images and pitch my ideas.  This went on for about two years.  Each time I went I would almost test myself to see how long I could stay in his office.  I would do my best to sell my story pitches that I felt the strongest about and he would reply – “done it –doing it – or – don’t want to do it”.  This coupled with a few words of encouragement in regards to some of my photographs would pretty much be it as far as feedback.

Then one day he kept me waiting.  He had been detained in a meeting.  I had scheduled a pretty tight day to maximize my trip to Washington – so the delay had thrown a wrench into me keeping my other appointments that I had scheduled.  When Gilka did show up and apologized, I was already feeling quite anxious and showed it.  I told him that I didn’t have much time because I had to be across town at the Smithsonian in 20 minutes.  He picked up the phone, called Declan Haun, the picture editor I was headed to see at Smithsonian Magazine and explained that Gail Mooney was running late due to his tardiness.  Then he proceeded to look at my pictures and hear me out.

When I did get to the Smithsonian, it was amusing to see how curious Declan Haun was to find out who this Gail Mooney was that got Bob Gilka to call ahead for her. The very next month, I got a call from Bob Gilka offering me my first assignment.  Guess I just needed to show my real self. I had sufficiently shown my interest and determination in wanting to shoot for them. And I had demonstrated my photographic ability through my images.  But it was when I showed my true spirit that he knew that I could shoot for them.  I just had to get over my fright.

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