old project, new project

I’m at the point with Interim where every other day I either feel like it’s really about to take off or it’s never going to go anywhere, and I don’t really know which side the coin is going to land on. I do feel like my understanding of the project continues to change, so much so that I feel like I need to totally rewrite the statement and even possibly rename it. I fight my natural urge to give up and throw things away when they get this confusing and I’m trying to keep up the momentum, to keep pushing on because I have faith that there will be something to see and learn with each new image that I make.

I’m also not sure whether starting a new project now is the best idea, but that’s what I’m going to do. I will be working primarily with film, and with other people, strangers even, which I think will be really great for me but it scaring me a lot right now (I’ll probably write about that fear soon in an attempt to figure out exactly what is so scary). I’ve been setting appointments to shoot with friends of friends, with people from Craigslist, and I have some other ideas in the works. I’ll be posting more about it as the project develops, but right now I’m just trying to convince myself to take the first leap and get started, which I know is the hardest part.

For now, I post some inspiration:

Picture I love looking at today: $560,000 view by Julia Staples

Series that is most inspiring me right now: Jesse Burke’s Portfolios

Alec Soth on Portraiture:

Documenting my marketing actions

I just read a post by Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua on her blog, Burns Auto Parts, called How to Lose Weight. Of course it’s not actually about losing weight, but about how to make yourself accountable for taking steps each day to promote your creative business (with the analogy of a diet diary).

While I’m certainly not a fan of diets, I did use a small notebook once when I needed to save money, where I wrote down everything I bought for about a month. Flipping through the book every few days definitely helped me see the big picture, and made some purchases immediately stand out as unnecessary. So I’ve decided to try a marketing journal and make a goal of filling it. I just pulled a blank notebook out of my desk and wrote Marketing Journal on it. There, it’s done!

My goal is to complete a certain number of marketing steps each week. I haven’t decided on the number yet, but these steps could include any of the following: calls to entry/contests, updating my website, posting to Existing Light, sending print or email promos, making phone calls, attending an event and introducing myself to people, updating my mailing list, going to a portfolio review, etc.

Before photography school, I’d never considered taking a business class. After the three I took at NESOP, I’ve learned that I need little tricks like this to help keep me on target (I get distracted easily). It seems like an incredibly obvious task, but sometimes we can’t see those by ourselves. This is great advice for an emerging photographer like me, and I’m definitely going to use it.