This is both a very difficult and a very easy question to answer.

Difficult because there are so many photographers whose work I admire - Edward Weston, Joyce Tenneson, Man Ray, Jaques Henri Lartigue, László Moholy-Nagy, Minor White, Val Brinkerhoff, Cheryl Jacobs, Eric Boutilier-Brown, Sanders McNew … the list could go on for several pages - most of whom you’ve probably never heard of unless you’re a collector of photography, or a photographer yourself.

Easy because there’s one photographer in particular that’s right at the top of that long list of names, because he is the epitome of everything I aspire to be as a photographer: Jock Sturges.

I was first introduced to Jock’s work in the mid 1990s when, visiting family in Germany and upholding the long tradition that my mother and I had of attending museums, I stepped into the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main, and witnessed the most stunning portraits I had ever seen. I had been interested in photography for many years already, and had been dabbling here and there while pursuing other interests. It was upon seeing Jock’s work that day that I was inspired to seriously study the art and craft of photography.

Jock is derided and denounced by some because of the nakedness of his youthful models. Some even accuse his photographs of being pornographic. This is utter nonsense. Pornography is cheap, sleazy and superficial. None of those descriptions can possibly apply to Jock’s work. His portraits have a depth and an intensity to them that cannot be ignored. Indeed, when I look at the photographs he makes, I feel like I know these people as well as he does, and when I examine the prints I see a level of excellence in quality that can only ever be produced by the loving, caring hand of a consummate craftsman.

I have since had the privilege of meeting Jock, and being mentored by him. He is one of the kindest, gentlest, most empathetic people I have ever known. He taught me that a photograph of a person by another person is a record of the relationship between them at that moment. That’s what Jock’s photographs are all about. When you understand that he photographs these people as he finds them, that this is how they live their lives every day, then their nudity becomes just another aspect of the honesty with which he photographs them.

And that, above all, is what I admire about Jock and his work, and what I aspire to achieve with my own photographs: The truly honest portrait.

From the Nannies4Hire blog:
Do you know how to recognize heat-related summer ailments?

More information at CPRMom:
Heat Emergencies, and
Heat Emergencies, Part 2

For today’s inspiration, I want to recommend a favorite book of mine, written by Dr. Mary Ruwart called Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression, about how cooperation and non-aggression can enable us to overcome the challenges we face in the modern world.

Dr. Ruwart has since written a follow-up work, Healing Our World: The Other Piece of the Puzzle. There’s also an online edition available to read for free.

One Sunday in a Midwest city a young child was “acting up” during the morning worship hour. The parents did their best to maintain some sense of order in the pew but were losing the battle. Finally the father picked the little fellow up and walked sternly up the aisle on his way out. Just before reaching the safety of the foyer the little one called loudly to the congregation, “Pray for me! Pray for me!”

A daddy was listening to his child say his prayer “Dear Harold”. At this, dad interrupted and said, “Wait a minute, How come you called God, “Harold”? The little boy looked up and said, “That’s what they call Him in chruch, You know the prayer we say, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, Harold be Thy name.”

During the minister’s prayer one Sunday, there was a loud whistle from one of the back pews. Gary’s mother was horrified. She pinched him into silence, and after church, asked: “Gary, whatever made you do such a thing?” Gary answered soberly: “I asked God to teach me to whistle… And He just then did!”

One night Mike’s parents overheard this prayer. “Now I lay me down to rest, and hope to pass tomorrow’s test, if I should die before I wake, that’s one less test I have to take.”

A little boy’s prayer. “Dear God, please take care of my daddy, mommy, sister, brother, my doggy and me. Oh, please take care of yourself, God. If anything happens to you, we’re gonna be in a big mess.”

A rabbi said to a precocious six-year-old boy: “So your mother says your prayers for you each night? Very commendable. What does she say?” The little boy replied, “Thank God he’s in bed!”

A woman invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to her six-year-old daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?” I wouldn’t know what to say,” the little girl replied. “Just say what you hear Mommy say, “the mother said. The little girl bowed her head and said “Dear Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?”

Johnny had been misbehaving and was sent to his room. After a while he emerged and informed his mother that he had thought it over and then said a prayer. “Fine, said the pleased mother. “If you ask God to help you not misbehave, He will help you.” “Oh, I didn’t ask Him to help me not misbehave,” said Johnny. “I asked Him to help you put up with me.”

A little boy was overheard praying: “Lord, if You can’t make me a better boy, don’t worry about it. I’m having a real good time like I am!”

I don’t really know what more can be said about this one.

I struck up a conversation with this young man’s mother while I was participating in an artists’ collective exhibit at the Valley Fair Mall in West Valley City, Utah some years ago.

A little shy at first, but very quick to warm up, full of energy and enthusiasm and curiosity, I found myself captivated by his depth and centeredness. We made some photographs, he taught me how to play Ratchet and Klank on his Nintendo, and mom had me stay for dinner. It was a most enjoyable afternoon for all of us, and we came away with this:

A question I get asked quite often as I network with other businesspeople is “How did you get into photography?”

I suppose the story starts back when I was about 6, and got a little Kodak Instamatic camera for Christmas. It was one of those long, slim ones that used the 110 cartridge film and the tall narrow flash-bulb-on-a-stick things. It had a little push-lever on it to switch from “Photo” to “Telephoto” mode, and I can still remember squealing with delight at the TV and magazine ads featuring Telly Savalas calling it “Photo” and “Telly Photo”. Back then, that seemed like the funniest thing in the world to me. It still kinda makes me chuckle.

My interests varied and drifted over the course of my youth, as I went through the process of finding myself, but my real interests and passions always came back to three things: Aviation, computers and photography. In my teen years, my greatest ambition was to join the Air Force and become an F-16 pilot. In college, I ended up leaving the ROTC program because an administration change altered the process (I would still have to sign a seven-year commitment, but would not be guaranteed entry into flight school, and I didn’t want to spend seven years in a missile silo or working intelligence ops, both of which were likely assignments given my existing skill set and choice of curricula), majoring in Computer Science, and then working in that field for several happy years.

In 2001, the “dot-bomb” hit, and with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a lot of investors got antsy. The young startup I was working for at the time was forced to make some tough cuts, and I lost my job, along with thousands of others across the country. Rather than fight for the remaining crumbs, I decided to swap my profession and my hobby, and started my photography business.

In the years since, I have learned many things about owning and running a business (things they never bothered to teach me in school, making me wonder why I spent so much time there in the first place), and have found myself surprisingly happy and fulfilled, even though it doesn’t pay nearly as well as being a software engineer did.

I love what I do, and I don’t ever want to give it up.

I was never good at classroom learning. The school system didn’t much like me, and I didn’t much care for it, either.

Over the years, I have met many, many people with similar experiences, and a select few who understood the root of the problem, and have proposed solutions.

We’ve been so indoctrinated with the idea that there’s only one right way to learn, that it’s killing off our culture’s future. A system of schooling designed to produce factory workers or function as a drawn-out college entrance exam is just not suitable for everyone. Yet our governments and our communities have become so vested in this system, that we as a society and a culture have come to undervalue and even stigmatize many things that add richness and depth to our lives, because they’re not left-brain intellectual pursuits.

In a 2006 speech at the TED conference, Ken Robinson relates the story of Gillian Lynne - a world-class choreographer whose works include “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera” - who, as a child, was taken to see a specialist because her school teachers couldn’t deal with her disruptiveness, lack of attention and fidgetiness in class. Today she would be almost immediately diagnosed with ADD or some other such nonsense, when in fact she’s just one of those people who can’t think unless they’re moving. Young Gillian, after having sat through a long, tedious interview of her mother by this specialist, was left alone in the room, with a radio turned on. The specialist, watching from outside with her mother, saw her immediately get up and dance, and the specialist told her mother “Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn’t sick, she’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school.”

How many of our children, or even we ourselves as adults, could profit by following that advice, give up our irrational attachment to our fear of being wrong, and get out from behind the desks that we loathe, walk away from the day-jobs that we hate, take ourselves off the Ritalin and the Prozac, because we’re not sick — we’re dancers or artists or musicians …

Original available at TED Talks

If you’re in business, you’ve probably heard that it’s a good idea to give your clients what they want.

I completely agree. Good business - good salesmanship - is finding out what people want, and helping them to get it. Zig Ziglar, the guru of salesmanship, teaches as the underlying principle of all of his lectures and writings, that the best way to get what you want in life is to help as many other people as possible get what they want.

So how do you find out what your clients want? The obvious answer, of course, is “Ask them!”

It’s a great idea … in theory. In my business, I’ve found it’s practical application a little more difficult. I’m not the only one. One of my favorite quotes from Henry Ford says “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” What he gave us instead was mass-produced automobiles that were affordable to everyday people.

In a talk from 2004, Malcom Gladwell relates the story of Howard Moskowitz, who was approached in the 1970s by Pepsi to help them figure out what to make Diet Pepsi taste like. He followed the “ask them” strategy, and polled a huge number of people, and was confounded by the data he got. It didn’t show any kind of preference at all, but was scattered all over the place. This disturbed him greatly until one day the answer hit him: He was asking the wrong question! When Campbell’s approached him to help them rescue their struggling Prego spaghetti sauce brand, he took a different tack. Instead of asking people what they want in a spaghetti sauce, he went into the Campbell’s kitchens and had their chefs whip up over fourty different kinds of spaghetti sauces, varying everything they could think of to vary, and then he went out and asked a huge number of people which one they prefer.

Interestingly, he came up with not one, but three different answers! About a third of people liked their spaghetti sauce plain, about a third of them liked it spicy, and to everyone’s surprise about a third of them liked it … extra chunky.

In decades of holding focus groups and asking people what they want in their spaghetti sauce, nobody had ever said they craved an extra chunky spaghetti sauce! Ask as they might, they would never have come up with this answer by asking people what they want, because people had no idea that they even wanted this! They had no idea they could ask for extra chunky spaghetti sauce, they had no idea it was even possible until Howard Moskowitz came along and let them experience it for the first time.

I’ve experienced the same effect in my own business. The vast majority of my clients didn’t know they wanted what I have to offer, until they experienced it for themselves, or were introduced to it by a friend.

When I first started my business, I struggled long and hard to figure out exactly what to offer, how to price it, should I be a generalist, should I specialize, what makes people happy … and business floundered. One day, with the help of a swift kick in the pants from Paul Elledge and Leasha Overturf, I discovered that what I really needed to do, was to please myself with my photography, and then go out and find the people who also like it. As JoJo Jensen wrote in her book Dirt Farmer Wisdom, “You cannot feed others if you are starving, but when you take care of yourself, your own plate becomes full, and then you can go out and feed the world.”

Think about your business. What do you have to offer that’s different, unexpected, out of the ordinary, non-mainstream, bohemian? What can you enrich people’s lives with, that they don’t even know they can ask for? What’s your “Extra Chunky Spaghetti Sauce”?

The answer may surprise you. It certainly did me.

I hope you find this talk as informative and inspirational as I did:

Original at ted.com

From an anonymous source out there in internet-land:

Jimmy Olsen: “I didn’t have my camera with me.”

Perry White: “A photographer eats with his camera, a photographer sleeps with his camera!”

Lois Lane: “I’m glad I’m a writer.”

Looking at the camera isn’t always necessary for a portrait. Sometimes, it’s much more telling when the subject is looking elsewhere.

Much like last week’s photo, this one was a surprise to me. Looking around, trying to keep an eye on two rapidly moving kids while also trying to find a good vantage point from which to make photographs, I look up to find that she’s clambered up this post. Where preparation met serendipity, I found this: