also, as one who just posted a first blog and struggled far too much hitting the GO button– I got to say you are of the most prolific writers out there–thanks for all the energy, insights, and inspiration–you’ve got me motivated to sit down and cobble something else together!!!!

No problem. I will have to be brief of course.

I started as a musician and still play drums and piano.
My degree is in Music Theory and Composition.
Which means I can teach High School or College Music.
To College students. At a University.
Rather have root canals with no drugs than work at a fkn Uni.

So I ended up being a photographer.
In the context of what we were talking about, let’s look at how I did it.
This is not a “look how cool” I am, or how much sacrifice… yadda yadda…

It is just the way I did it.

After traveling with a band I discovered that I hated that. A lot.
I started photographing and designing stuff on down time.
When you are the drummer there is a hell of a lot of down time… hotels frown on 10 piece Roger’s kits on the 14th floor… ya know.

I came back to Phoenix and started making images as a hobby and writing chamber music for dancers at ASU.
That led to designing a lot of stuff for the dance and music departments at ASU… and I was totally self taught, so I started sitting in on the design classes.
No one asked who I was, so I simply sat through a ton of design classes.
My hobby as a photographer took off into shooting models for local modeling agencies and I though I was “All that” – and more.

I figured that it was time that LA had a taste of what the Don had to offer.
Big fish in small pond became tiny fish in bigassfrickin pond.

I knew I was in over my head.

So I took my hobby as a designer and parlayed (lied my ass off) to get a job at a small ad agency in Long Beach. I kept shooting and learning from the photographers I worked with.
I picked up gear and started shooting in my garage. Work got better and better.

Quit being an Art Director and started assisting in LA. Worked with a lot of really talented people and learned a ton.

Got my first assignment almost by accident and it worked out great. For WANG computers.

Stayed focused on the beauty and fashion work I wanted to do… and was very careful to not take jobs I couldn’t do.

Had a studio in Chicago for a while and also a place to stay in New York. Started getting shots that were what I was showing.
My book was mostly monochrome with a lot of toned and split-toned images. That style was getting some hits so I kept it up.
I loved it, but wonder how many years of life I lost processing Cibachrome prints from Polaroid Positive Slide Film…

Kids came. Decided to move the studio back to Phoenix… traveling wasn’t that much fun with my kid at home.

Small studio led to larger studio which led to humongous studio.
Discovered that I didn’t like having employees and having to shoot crap every day to maintain overhead.
Took a year to pare down and move back into a smaller space with only two assistants.
At that time we were starting to handle design work from several catalog clients.
The internet was starting to become interesting so I decided to learn more about that.
My first site was built for AOL…
When Mozilla broke… I was ready for it.

By 2000 Ocean Integrated Marketing Group was the third largest ad agency by billing in Arizona. We handle clients from a national pool of healthcare and healthcare technologies.
I became quite good at working with Pre-IPO and small tech companies and I found myself in a suit far more than behind the camera.

We downsized quite a bit after 911 and the Tech bubble burst, and I have been working with clients and companies from my studio in Phoenix.

When I took a gig on, I had to do it the best possible way I could. No compromise. One shot I had to do was of a bunch of lamps for a local client. My first attempts sucked.. so I kept on shooting. We worked on that damn shot for nearly two days with no sleep. I finally delivered the chrome to the client and they loved it. I lost about $300 on that gig. But I learned a ton… all that was continued on for every shot I ever did after. I never delivered anything that wasn’t my best. No matter what the fee or the intended use.

There were many times that I would feel I had bitten off a little too much. OK… my decision. But also my responsibility… keep at it till it works. No compromise… no failure. If I lot money, that was OK because I kept my promise to my client to deliver. You can see my design studio site here.

As far as establishing a style… It is something that I am still working on.
My self story is this: “Intimate images that reveal something about the subject that otherewise seem to elude us in the moment…”

I will continue to work on my vision, as I never see it as something finished… but something ongoing.

Hope that helped.

“Amateurs work until they get it right. Professionals work until they can’t get it wrong.”

The RF piece said you had started out as a musician, moved into the ad-agency field, and eventually became a photographer — which I’d think would be a challenging career arc. Did you have a learning curve during each of those transitions? Or did you go into all of them with the pre-built ability to deliver a home run every time without any excuses?

It may sound as if I’m calling you out here, but I’m not — just trying to relate theory to practice. For example, it would make perfect sense to say, “It’s different now because the pace is so fast and there’s so much competition in every segment of the field.” Or… “Sure, I had some kack-ups, but part of the skill set is to make sure your ‘learning experiences’ happen in fault-tolerant situations.”

We all know that growth requires risk-taking, and risk by definition implies the possibility of failure; the trick is to make sure the failures aren’t catastrophic. Bet you have good insights on how to do that… care to share some?

What you are talking about, and I thoroughly agree, is making good on that promise no matter what. I was trying to say that this is probably the most important aspect of any job or profession or even of life itself. There was a great book I read many years ago on this called “The Go Getter” and I just found what appears to be the entire short book on Google books http://tinyurl.com/2uqxj5w I think you’ll like it.

I agree. Being able to deliver what is promised or advertised seems almost like an anomaly these days. That is sad.

But I do want to point out a few things.

Restaurant staff are producing what the cook has prepared, planned for and written/taught them to do. They have a prepared set of parameters that don’t change. What happens when the Wok goes out and the manager doesn’t show up… do they still deliver the best possible experience? If they are professionals they do.

Software developers have a chance to work with, test, refine, and test some more. (Except for Vista) and then they release the product. Fixing bugs along the way is part of the job.

Professional Athletes… obvious? Not to me. I see all kinds of overpaid athletes sitting on the bench. We had a guy here in the Suns… nice guy, helluva player I understand. He sucked all kinds of suck… but still kept his contract and got paid millions. And baseball players making millions strike out… a lot. Not with you on that one.

Doctors, hospitals and bad nursing kill nearly 50,000 people in the US alone… soooo.

Airline pilots… you betcha. Every step up is a homer. Gotta be that way. Of course it is a team effort.

“…Hell everyone in an honest job has to do that. …”

Well, I was going to point out how many wrong orders Starbucks gives out, but I cannot find that little factoid. Accountants make mistakes all the time… sometimes at great peril to their clients.

The part about “honest business’ prevents me from talking about lyingthroughtheirteeth politicians and lawyers… so we will leave it at that.

Thanks for the comment.

The only difference in photography is that most so called photographers out there don’t think there is any work involved in achieving their product.

To give you an idea of what it’s like, I had a corporate P/R shoot booked at a resort opening in North Scottsdale and on the way to the shoot I got into a car accident that totaled my car and messed up my neck for years afterwards.

I still went to the shoot. And took lousy pictures because I totaled my car 45 minutes before the shoot. Car wrecks have a way of messing with your concentration… After I delivered the film (which tells you how long ago this was), the client complained that my shots from that night weren’t up to snuff, and I lost the account. Was it unreasonable for her to expect me to be on my game after a bad car accident? Yep. Could I do anything about it? Nope.

Looking back on it, I should have cancelled, but that was kind of a no-win situation for me. The bottom line is, though, that the client doesn’t care about you or your issues, he/she cares about what you can do for him/her, period. If you aren’t proving your value as a resource, he/she will move on to the next shooter in line, or buy from a stock house.

The client pays the money. Therefore, the client is what it’s all about. If you can provide value to the client each and every time you shoot, you’re ready to go pro.