I now have a portfolio up on ViisualPro.  ViisualPro (yes, there are two i’s) is a cool portfolio website with a great selection of photographers.  It’s not like other websites that accepts anyone who wants to put up a portfolio.  Here is their approach:

We take a curated approach. To better serve photographers on Viisual, we do not accept every artist who would like
to use our service. We look for work that is more creative and contemporary; and that has an advertising or editorial
focus. We also consider other factors to ensure a good match between your creative direction and ours.

And with my addition to the collection it clearly shows it’s possible to slip through the cracks.  Someone was clearly not paying attention when reviewing my work.

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Bigger: A little
Better: That’s subjective (but I think so)
Faster:  Maybe
More:  Yep

The new website is up and running.

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Photo Editors, Art Directors and anyone with an email address at your magazine or agency (thanks for the feedback Bob the Janitor), get your SPAM filters ready!  Once my new website design is up I’ll be sending out my first promo for the new site.  My old Livebooks site has been upgraded and I now have larger images with the old design.  I’m still in the process of resizing my images for the new site so there’s a mixture of old and new.  The new design should be live sometime this week or early next week.

To date I’ve been doing my own design work, so I hope you like the new site (and promo piece).  I think for the next round of revisions and promos I’ll be seeking professional help… and a designer.

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A couple months ago I visited New York City. It was my first time in New York since about 1984. I would have been 12 at the time. I was surprised by how much I liked the city. I guess the image of New York I had in my mind had no basis in reality. I found myself liking New York so much that I wondered what it would be like to move there.

Moving when you have a real job is usually not a big deal. Either you get moved to a new office by your company or you move for a new job. But when you work for yourself it’s a bit more tricky. It’s as if you would be starting over from scratch.

Quite often for editorial work, with both new and old clients, I get called on because they need a photographer in the Bay Area or Los Angeles. With editorial work I rarely get called to travel outside California. I’d love to travel more for editorial work, but so far that hasn’t been the case (That isn’t true of commercial work… for commercial work I’ve traveled all over the US and Europe)

I’m not suggesting I have some great name recognition as a “San Francisco Photographer” or potential clients instantly think of me when they have a shoot in the Bay Area (I hope they do). It seems that most of my new clients tend to call when they have a shoot in the area and find me on sites like Workbook, Blackbook, Photoserve, or they have been receiving my promo pieces and finally have a project for me. So, does this mean getting new clients after a move is as easy as updating my location information in the places I promote myself and sending a move notice to my current clients? Will my existing clients start sending me on shoots close to my new location just as they would at my old location?

So how do you do it… how do you pick up and move and start over as a photographer? Especially when you’re in my position: someone relatively new to photography (about 4 years now) who is constantly seeing an increase in work, types of clients, size of jobs, and actually discovers people do already know who and where I am when I contact them. Is this constant progress due to a response to my work and my promotional efforts? Or, is it because of where I live? Will I loose that if I move or will it continue in my new city?

I’m not suggesting I’m moving any time soon… or ever for that matter. But it has been on my mind and New York would be first on the list (in the U.S. anyway).

And I know you come here not only for your photography related information, but also political commentary, so… Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

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I was talking about my lack of blogging over diner with a friend the other day. She only recently has taken the time to read some of my writing and said she thought it was funny. I think she was just being kind. I thanked her in my typical uncomfortable with compliments kind of way. I stated the obvious and mentioned that I hadn’t really been blogging much lately, to which she asked why. I didn’t really know how to answer. I mean, I’ve actually been fairly busy with some interesting projects and there’s no reason I shouldn’t be writing about them and other things I’ve been working on lately.

One problem is, I usually think of how to write about something at the strangest or most inopportune of times. By the time I’m in a place where I can get my thoughts down, they’ve already left me. Even with this post I was lying in bed just about to fall asleep when I started thinking about what I should write. My initial thought was to wait until morning but I knew if I did I wouldn’t remember anything I was thinking. So, despite my quickly approaching sleep, I sat up, grabbed the laptop and started typing away…. and I know what you’re thinking… I should have just gone to bed.

I could take a que from other bloggers out there. Take Thomas Broening for example… he always has something to say… sometimes even two or three times a day. I know Thomas and I’m sure he knows I respect his work and blog so I think he’ll understand when I say this: His posts are a mixed bag from the long and fascinating to brief and interesting to the lengthy and mind numbing to the quick and useless. The posts mix his personal life, at times with no photographic content, to his professional musings.

Should I do the same? I’ve always thought that I couldn’t imaging anyone being remotely interested in what I had to say if it didn’t have something to do with photography (and even when it does, only slightly). Do I start talking about my personal life here? Do you want to know who I’m dating? With the exception of my mom, I seriously doubt it (I’ll fill you in later Mom). While my personal life is often the source of great amusement for some of my close friends, I doubt it has broad appeal. So, I think for now I’ll stick to the photography related posts (or blog writing related posts)… but who knows, if I get desperate again maybe I’ll let you know my plans for Saturday night.

Like I said, I’ve had some interesting projects over the last month or two… so I’m going to do my best to get back into the swing of things with this blog. But, that will have to wait for another day… I want to get to sleep now.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why there’s a picture of a bus at the beginning this post… This last weekend I finally came across one of the many busses driving around San Francisco with a recent campaign I shot for SPM Advertising for Brown & Toland.

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