Isolation in the Modern Age: Green Bubbles

This might seem like a weird thing to blog about, but it was so traumatic for me that it needs to be done. This entire blog will be to tell you about my horrible experience switching to a Galaxy S9+ recently. The funny thing is, it’s a great phone, and it has a great camera (which is big reason why I switched) but man, I didn’t know how terrible it would be to go back to Android after being with Apple. Let me tell you why.

Warning: This next paragraph might be offensive to Mac users.

Photo Credit Adam Andres Pawlikiewicz

Let me start with a little backstory and some interesting facts you might not know. For starters, I work on PC, almost exclusively, in fact I am writing this on a PC (I know, I know, just take a deep breath and keep reading). My laptop is a PC. I have a MacBook Pro, but I don’t use it and it’s old. I actually bought a Mac out of peer pressure, because that’s what “creatives” use, but I realized quickly that it didn’t matter, and I could build a PC for way cheaper than a Mac. That being said I might have just lost a ton of readers, but oh well, that’s the long and short of it. I think Mac is great, but I’ve never had a problem with my PC, and with all the stuff I have in this PC it would cost me over $4k with Mac, I haven’t even hit $2k with all the upgrades.

OK, let’s get to the meat of this blog. A few years ago my wife and I decided to try iPhones, everyone said they were awesome, and so we decided to give it the ol’ college try. They were great, I have nothing against iPhone…they had been really reliable as far as things go. Recently though, I became a little tired of the lack of compatibility and flexability that iPhones have. In a brash moment of stupidity, I researched phones and bought a Samsung Galaxy S9+. Really cool, and as I said earlier the camera system was getting great reviews, which is what I use it for most. It seemed like a win win, but there was no winning involved, it was very much lose lose.

Frankly, getting the phone going was rough. I bought an unlocked phone, and the SIM card from my iPhone didn’t work (shocker). I ordered another SIM card, which actually took a while to get. Once I got the new SIM card I switched everything over and had the horrific realization that if someone had an iPhone and I texted them I would not get the return text. It was going to my iPhone, on iMessage. The solution? After calling the phone company and researching online, I was told to text everyone who had an iPhone and switch my phone to text message only. That’s where it started, sending out a shameful little green bubble to hundreds of people publicly proclaiming that I don’t have an iPhone anymore.

Photo Credit Adam Andres Pawlikiewicz

Great, text message problem solved. I was good to go! Wrong. After that came some really bad realizations. First of all, I send images to people all the time, and I have people send me images and videos regularly, especially BTS from my assistants. I also send my wife a lot of photos and get a lot of photos/videos from her. I couldn’t do any of that any more, I didn’t get most of the photos, I couldn’t send photos or videos to iPhones because they were to big, and videos from other people came through as tiny pixelated movies that you could barely see, if they came through at all. On a positive note, there is something called Samsung Share (which is like iMessage for Samsung) so you can share stuff with all your Samsung pals! Oh wait, I only know three people who have Android phones and only two of them are Samsung.

That was the beginning of the end for me, I completely took for granted how many people have iPhones and what that means. There is an actual end though. It happened when we realized my wife couldn’t have the kids send me voice messages, and as I was walking her through downloading something in place of FaceTime while I was trying to say good night to the kids on set. I was getting ready for two big trips and this was definitely the straw that broke the camels back.

This might sound dramatic, and frankly this whole blog post is just a giant 1st world problem rant about how a big baby had to buy another phone, but it was genuinely isolating. It was as if I couldn’t communicate with people, especially my family and other people in my industry. It was terrible, and never once in all of my research did I see it mentioned that switching to Android would make it so you really can’t communicate the same way.

You could think of this blog as a review for people thinking about switching from iPhone to Android, I mean, A LOT of people said they were thinking about it when I switched. I can tell you now with great certainty that you shouldn’t switch, not if you’ve been on iPhone for any length of time. I was literally discovering things almost every day that either wouldn’t work or need a new app to work so I could do seemingly normal things.

How does this story end? With me shamefully walking into the Apple store and buying another iPhone. Let me tell you, if you think new cars don’t hold their value (which they don’t) new phones are even worse. I sold my Samsung for $340, after using it for 2 months, I lost almost $400. On top of that, I had to spend almost $900 on the new iPhone…I’m not great at math, but it wasn’t good. My advice, just be happy with what you have: I have an iPhone and I’m happy with that.

2017...the adventure continues.

2016 was an incredible year, we were extremely blessed to shoot with some amazing companies and individuals. Our last big shoot of the year was with Elizabeth Marks (pictured above), and to say the least she is one of the most inspirational people/athletes you can imagine. With that incredible momentum, and new year's in the recent past, I thought it would be good to get the year started off with a blog about what's coming in 2017!

First of all, you might wonder why I haven't really posted on any of my social media channels (or at least I like to tell myself you've been wondering) and that's actually pretty easy to answer, I've been with my family. One of the main things I want this blog to be about is the importance of priority and scheduling. As I have blogged about before, I am a husband and dad before anything else, that's what my main priority is. When we ended 2016 I was working anywhere from 70-100 hrs a week just to stay on top of the deadlines, and we needed to take a minute to regroup as a family and get some quality time. Next week I will be back in full swing, but I wanted to take a second to challenge you as you go into this next year with a couple of thoughts:

1. Get yourself into a good headspace - This can mean different things to different people, whether it be through prayer, meditation or even just sitting quietly, take a minute every day to visualize your day and your career. I still struggle with this, but every morning I wake up, make coffee and take the first few sips just for me. You can look to people like Chase Jarvis, Marie Forleo and I am sure a million other succesful people for more ideas on this.

2. Take Care of your body - I definitely struggle here, but I have been working really hard at making sure I exercise and eat as healthy as possible. I hate the gym, but I go, and try to take a minute to breathe. We all work long hours, and this industry takes a toll on you, but you will be able to handle it better if you are healthy. Plus, for all my fellow dads out there, it will help you be focused and have more fun with your kids if you can still pick them up at the end of a long day :)

3. Take time for creativity - This can also mean a lot of things, it could be sketching in a coffee shop, walking through the city, watching a visually inspiring movie, etc. Make no mistake, creativity is nurtured, it needs love and time just like any other skill. 

4. Schedule it! - I think one of my favorite quotes from Marie Forleo is "if it's not scheduled, it's not real!" I totally agree with this, and as crazy as it may feel at first you need to make sure you are scheduling yourself. I am not just talking about scheduling those meeting you have, I am talking about scheduling personal deadlines, projects, e-mails, marketing, etc etc etc. If it's important to you it should be in your schedule.

Alright, so with those nuggets in hand, what can you be expecting to see from us in 2017?! I am excited for what's coming, and while I can't talk about all of it, there are some really exciting projects we are working on. In the next couple months we will be finishing our huge video series on composite photography, shooting in studio and on location to show you guys how it goes together. I am also working on more Photoshop tutorials to give you guys all the puzzle pieces you need! A little birdy has been chirping unconfirmed rumors of a podcast...but you'll have to wait to hear more about that one :) Of course we have a bunch of shoots coming up, and we'll be posting all the bts and images through our different social media channels.

I am also planning on broadcasting live on Instagram this year, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

In closing I wanted to open the floor to all of you! I would love to hear what topics you'd like to learn about in 2017, whether it's lighting, business, composite, Photoshop, or anything else, please feel free to leave a comment below and I will do my best to respond or possibly do a tutorial!

Thank you all for an awesome 2016, and now, go BE AWESOME!

Ideas on Social Media

I recently had a conversation with a friend about social media, in fact it wasn't the first time I've had this conversation in recent history, so I thought it might be of use to talk about some of the things I am doing to grow, maintain and use the following I have. Let me be the first to say these probably aren't original ideas, but they are compiled ideas that seem to have worked for me. I'll try to keep it brief and useful!

1. Brand yourself - If you went to Art School you probably had this rammed down your throat, like I did. If you were anything like me you said it was stupid and a that you could do ANYTHING! Well, turns out I was wrong. People (especially agencies and art directors) want to see who you are, and that's really hard to do if you don't have consistent branding. All I can say is find your style, your look, your feel, whatever you want to call it, and hang on like your life depended on it! I should know it's you, they should know it's you...we should all know it's you, without having to check the name.

2. Post Consistently - I have found that posting between 7 am and 8 am every day is the best time for me. If I miss that window then I will typically wait until the evening to post, all those tired people getting off work like to scroll through an endless sea of photos...it reminds them of the desk job they left. Please notice that I said EVERY day, and yes it's a lot of work. Sure, I will miss a day from time to time, but for the most part I wake up and post first thing. (I woke up at 4:30 today and I started getting my posts ready, no joke.) You might be saying "What the heck am I supposed to post every day?!" That's kind of dependent on your brand and what you do, but there are a million ways to post stuff, like BTS, Gif's, Videos, your work or work in progress...the list goes on and on, and yes you will need to be creative. I find that I am typically either creating work, planning work, shooting work or retouching work...all of those can be posted with an image. When I am planning work I typically will find inspiration to use in the mood board, this can also be posted (see point #6) Sometimes you might even throw a selfie in there...or not.

3. Have a Purpose - I think the black hole of social media happens when you don't know why you're there, and I'll give you a hint, it isn't to waste time and avoid work you should be doing. Social media is a tool that should be used to gain exposure to the people you want to work for and with. If you really think about it, we have access to an audience that the photographers before us never had, EVERYONE! You used to have to pay thousands of dollars to put your pictures in print so that Art Directors and Agencies would see your work, now you can send them a tweet for free. It's said that it takes more than 7 times having your face/work in front of someone for them to have a chance of remembering you, today it's way way easier, but I would say you need to be in front of them even more than 7 times because of all the noise. 

4. Know your audience - This point is definitely not original, but it ties directly into the point above. One of the most depressing thoughts is to send out a tweet, instagram, etc and just be hoping that someone special might see it. I spend time researching and following potential clients, even creating work just to send their way. It's a lot of work, it takes a lot of time, but it's worth it. One of the most pertinent sites for this is Linked In, and I will give you a cheat for that in a minute.

5. Don't buy them, earn them - I am not a fan of the whole "buying followers" idea, and while I do use Crowd Fire to control who I am following (which is a paid service), I also use it to follow specific people and the people who are influenced by them. Think about the people you want to see your work and who they are following, the photographers you want to be like, the agencies you want to work with, and start to grow your list. Then make sure you are posting things that are relevant and they will notice.

6. Be Social - I know this is cliche, but you should be engaged with the people that follow you. They took the time to follow you and look at your work, and it isn't that hard to say thank you. Also, and this is especially for Twitter and Facebook, don't always just post your stuff. If you see things that are helpful, especially pertaining to your audience, then SHARE it! Don't be afraid to share awesome work, it all comes back around.  

This last part isn't a point, but it has been one of the most useful tricks I learned as a photographer. This is specifically for Linked In, which I strongly believe every serious photographer should be active on...at least for the moment. When I started Linked In it seemed impossible to reach out to the people I really wanted to connect with, that is without paying gobs of money every month to send invites and e-mails. So here is what I did. Start connecting with photographers who work with the companies you want to work with, and yes you will need to research that. Photographers tend to be much more welcoming then many other professionals when you are first getting started, especially if you have posted some rad work. Once you've connected with those people then you have access to the people they are connected with, and while it's never a guarantee, it will most definitely start helping you to connect with and network inside of the companies you want to work for. I have grown my Linked In network to thousands of industry people, and yes it has turned into clients. I have found that the mobile app is a little more friendly when connecting with new people...so you might want to try that, wink wink.

Ok, so those are 6 things and a bonus that can help get things going. Just so you know, it takes time...or at least it did for me. Maybe you are a social media phenomenon and I would love to hear if you have any radical tricks that have worked for you!

Until next time...be awesome!

P.S. The image below is of actual human interaction...and yes, it can be used on social media.