Download: Maxims

From time to time I'm going to throw some words of wisdom directed at yours truly that I've collected or written down various places to help me remember not to be a schmoe. Here is the first such download, taken straight from the "memos" section of my Treo.

John's assignment maxims

Follow the light
Tight & wide
Ask for more, and more...
...make the subject say no
Fill every hole
What's your sign?
Finish twice

Maybe some explanatory text is in order... since those probably only make sense to me, and also probably won't make sense to me if I see them again in 12 months without Cliff Notes.

Follow the light... well, I've already talked about the golden hour, and my passion for waking up early and staying late. But, on assignments, even when you don't have any control over time, there are still moments where you can make decisions juggling content vs. aesthetics... and its important to let aesthetics win some of those times, because often the content is total shit anyway. Also, in a sense, follow the light also means for me not to try so hard to recreate my own light in a place that is against the natural flow of what I've been dealt... even if I have my light kit, or reflectors, its still an easier path to modify or fill in nice light that is already there, than to totally create my own system of light.

Tight & wide... not brain surgery. I like to make it a point of each assignment to show as much context, and as little; either shooting wide and long, or shooting very close and far away. Editors love choice. Seriously, its crack to them... and as a former (reformed?) newspaper photographer, its something that is very easy for me to deliver.

Ask for more... make say no... This is something I've developed over the last couple of years. Basically my thinking is that your subjects, the vast majority of them, want to please you and the magazine you represent. They are flexible, often very very flexible, so why not take advantage of that? If I have a crazy idea, or want to try something, I ask. The only times you'll find me not asking is when I either don't have any time at all (less than 10 minutes total) or if I really don't like my subject and don't want to spend that much time with them. To date, the only people who have said no to me have been Clay Aiken (who said yes to everything but laying on top of the grand piano Fabulous Baker Brothers style) and a couple of athlete ass holes. Being told no is often very useful in another way... it lets you leverage your crazy idea against your not that crazy idea, so that they say NO to your bad idea, but agree to the 2nd idea just because they've already "stifled" your creativity.

Fill every hole... this is a professionalism thing. You've been hired to perform a service for a client. Do just that. Do other stuff also, yeah, if you have the time or energy. But make for damn sure that you have checked off every thing on the "what the client requires" checklist along the way. This is where I don't have any patience for photographers whose ego or "vision" means that they can't get an assignment done in a manner that is publishable by their client.

What's your sign?... I'm a scorpio. But this is about following the signs of your shoot and taking action based on what is happening, or going wrong. I had a shoot recently for a new client, and things kept going wrong. I'd set up this shot, have my flash just so, starting snapping frames, and then... whamo, the flash stops firing. OK. I check the transmitter, I check the flash, still nothing. What can I do? I'm not going to fiddle with the thing for 20 minutes and try and figure out what is up while my subject waits there... so instead, I say, "fuck the flash," and I move on. Same thing goes for almost anything. I don't believe in whatever would cause this or that to happen, but I'm not going to fight some unseen foe on assignment in front of a subject either. I try and take my cues from the situation, and if need be, improvise. Seriously, there are sooooo many ways that you can take each assignment; so many types of styles, lens combinations, environments, lighting set-ups, etc., that there is no reason to just not relax and enjoy the ride... as long as it doesn't interfere with the above-mentioned check list.

Finish twice... lastly, when I'm having a hard time making pictures that I like on a job, pictures that are above and beyond what the client wanted and are really more for my personal satisfaction, no matter what kind of job, I use this technique. I shoot and then finish the shoot, and then start over and finish again. Everyone has a sense of when the shoot is over... its that feeling you have. Well, suppress that feeling. It doesn't have to mean the end. Once I reach the end, I keep going right through and start trying new things, like I was approaching the assignment for the first time. And when I'm through finishing twice, its all over, and I say goodnight.

What these mantras are the most applicable to, in my experience, has been assignments that we all take because we are in business and must pay our rent or mortgage. The other assignments... dream jobs, personal projects, all of that... these may be a little less important to consider, and another set of mantras that are a little more idealized can be used. But when you are shooting something that you would definitely not be shooting unless someone had hired you to do so... that's when I force these little nuggets onto myself.

Lastly, by way of an apology... when I was in college I spent hours each week in a bookstore pouring over the major publications that I hoped someday to be working for, comparing what I thought my ability was against the stuff I found in the pages. I really thought that I knew something about the photographers whose work I was seeing, and when it was bad work, I thought... fuck, it seems like anyone can do this and get assignments! I was wrong. Or not wrong, but I didn't understand that what you see in a magazine sometimes has very little actual representation of the quality of that photographer, or even of their shoot on that assignment. Now years later when I have a very strong shoot and then am totally amazed about how fucking awful the picture is that got into print in the magazine the week after, or 6 months later, I think about those college days and want to say sorry to all of the photographers that I thought ill, just as I hope the kids in college today may learn to give me a little more credit when they see some of the horrible shit that I've mistakenly let my clients get their hands on from otherwise decent takes.

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