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We are known by what we leave behind

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100 years from now, no one is going to care who I am. I know this. I don’t mean that in a bad way and I don’t say it in the hopes someone will contradict me and shower me with praise; this is not said as Compliment Bait.

No, I say it because it’s true. 100 years from now, no one is going to care who I was. The same probably goes for you, too. In fact, with a few exceptions, it goes for most people. Command an army, serve as president, discover the cure for stupidness…history will remember you. But for most of us, this simply isn’t true. History won’t remember us. The wonderful every day glorious things we did: raise a family, work hard, bake a mean apple pie, help our neighbors…these things will never make it into the history books.

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The Photography Mafia – A fictional work in progress

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“The Photography Mafia? That’s ridiculous,” she said. “There is no such thing.”

I knew she didn’t want to believe it and yet, I saw a flicker of terror in her eyes. She had seen too much to believe with all certainty that what had just happened was a coincidence. We all had seen too much.

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If the real world worked like the online-photography world of stolen photos

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If the real world worked like the online-photography world of stolen photos posted to websites and ads:

<insert crying>
Why is everyone so mad? I never said it was MY car. And I didn’t know it was wrong. I mean, I saw a car that I really wished my car looked like, and it was unlocked and the keys happened to be inside and so I just used it to run errands and go to work and drive around town. And when people said, “Hey, I love that car!” I said “Thank you,” because I love it, too.

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How to shoot an HONEST styled wedding shoot

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Saw an ad for a “Styled (Wedding) Shoots Conference.” For those of you unfamiliar with the styled shoots, it’s where models play fake brides who fake marry models playing fake grooms at a fake wedding filled with fake guests and then cut a wedding cake at a fake styled reception while photographers who have paid to photograph the fake-ness happily snap away at the event and then post all the styled fakery in their portfolio as samples of “their work.”

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Grown children looking at their childhood photos 20 years from now

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“Hey, mom, what is going on here?”

“Oh my goodness, let me take a look. THAT is you at 2 weeks of age.”

“Why am I hanging from a tree in this one picture? That’s weird. And, holy shit, mom, I’m in a nest of fire in this other one.”

“Stephen, don’t be ridiculous. You weren’t really in a tree or in fire. We just wanted it to look that way.”

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Photographers who think the rules do not apply to them

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An historic building in South Florida burned to the ground a couple years ago because in the dark of night, a trio of photographers set it ablaze while trying to “paint with light.”

An historic plantation in Louisville, Kentucky had to issue this statement via its Facebook page a few years ago because people with cameras could not manage to respect the property:

“We are implementing a ban on photography sessions on our site…we are first and foremost a historic site, not a photography studio. Many photographers have been deliberately disregarding our site rules, moving benches, photographing in areas that are off limits, showing up and refusing to leave when the site is closed. Until we can guarantee that the photographers we allow on our site will be courteous and respectful, we have had to take this course of action.”

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The photography teacher that nobody wants

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There is a teacher of photography that few speak of in today’s industry. She is shunned by many and with good reason.

Nobody seems to like her.

She has taught photography and business for as far back as anyone can remember, but bring up her name today and it will be met with the rolling of eyes and a heap of indignation.

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Print your photos before they become everything you have left

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She can’t remember things like she used to. It started gradually-she’d forget a name or a birthday or where she parked her car. And then, she found herself forgetting every day things, those things one must remember in order to live life. She would forget to go to the grocery store; she’d forget a conversation that occurred ten minutes earlier; she would forget to eat dinner.

They call it Dementia, and it is, although the word is more of an umbrella term that covers many types of memory loss. And Dementia, well, it’s a tricky thing, because even those systems and techniques created to stir the memory and bring things to mind don’t always work. I mean, a calendar does no good if you can’t remember to look at the calendar each day, right? You forget that you don’t remember.

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Print your photos: they are meant to last

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My mom was a florist. She used to say you can always tell a florist by their thumb. Each floral stalk must be cut prior to refrigeration and cut again when incorporated into a design, so if the inside of the thumb is rough and slightly discolored, with tiny slices lining the soft padding, like a hundred tiny paper cuts, you’re talking to a florist.

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A Message to the Portrait Photographers

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She came in for her senior session. Her hair was a mess of tangled waves, unruly and uncooperative. Her face was covered with freckles and dotted with acne. She wasn’t model proportions and the clothing she wore required careful adjustment to keep it from bunching up in places.

She was sweet and shy, a girl not used to attention being focused on herself. But 10 minutes into her session, the shyness wore off, leaving behind a girl full of life and laughter. The session ended, she came back for her screening and the order went into production.

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