It really is incredible all that’s happened in the last 10. In 1999 the big talk was Y2K. Despite that I think most of us were excited about the direction of the internet and other technology. I must say that 10 years later its been impressive. We’ve seen wild advances in digital photography and video and their respective distribution online. 10 years ago I had little to do with video because it was largely unaffordable. Digital still cameras existed, but were pretty costly as well. The resolution wasn’t so hot and film was still the heart of commercial photography.

The technology has been largely overhauled, but have the actual skills of photography and image making progressed much in the last 10 years? This is kind of a controversial question. I’ll be positive and say that yes it has. Not fundamentally as a science so much, but the accessibility to equipment and the evolution of social networks like Flickr have brought a whole new group of professional and amateur photographers to the table. Its opened up the fun of making photographs to a large number of people in a way similar to George Eastman with Kodak back in the day. Has the quantity gone up? Absolutely. Has the quality? I think so, but not all would agree. Is it important to break these down – no.

Does any of this matter? Not as much as people make it out to.

What really is important here is how we benchmark ourselves. How has your creative talent improved over the last 10 years? This is a highly subjective question, but one we need to ask ourselves. We all have different ways of answering this. Some of them good some of them critical. But the really exciting prospect is where is your own work going in the NEXT 10 years.

I’ve had a nice week away from home to think about all this. I have big plans and ideas and a lot of enthusiasm. The important thing for me is that I find some quiet time over the next few weeks to start turning these things into tangible tasks and reality. This is key. I think its great to be excited. Its inspiring. But what’s really great is when you can sustain that enthusiasm and start to build results. You will surprise yourself. A 10 year chunk is an important one. I’ll be 10 years older the next time this obligatory reflection comes up. Its important to control your path and destiny as much as life allows.

Here’s to the next 10!

I know people who find it a little crazy that I devote the time that I do to these since there is no direct financial gain involved, however I don’t think I could do what I do professionally without them.

1) Personal Enjoyment and Satisfaction
When doing professional work you are being paid for your skill to turn some type of product. A client wants what you do best, but they don’t want the experimental, learning side that we all have. Sometimes clients have very specific wants and sometimes those wants don’t agree with your own opinion and vision. This can be frustrating – but having personal projects to work on does give you an outlet and an escape when this comes up.

2) Complete Control
There is no one with ultimate say influencing your work except you. Its all yours.

3) The freedom to experiment and make mistakes
Working in technology and creative fields can be difficult. There are always new things to learn and new concepts to explore. You should naturally want to grow your skill-set as a professional. This is what makes some people better at what they do than others. Clients however, are paying you to be your best. They’re not paying you money to learn on the job. They want your best product. For me, having personal projects provides a pressure free zone to experiment, make mistakes and try new things. I use them to iron out all of the kinks and learn all the possibilities preferably to the point where its mostly second nature when doing a paying job. I don’t have to think nearly as much. This in turn, makes it easier to be creative “on the job” and continually produce better quality material. When I don’t do personal work, I start getting stale and in a rut.

4) A better benchmark of accomplishment
One of the most dangerous traps creative people can fall into is identifying self-worth with their “work”. Sometimes paying work doesn’t go like you want it to. Sometimes clients are difficult. Some days you just don’t feel creative. There are lots of factors that go into professional work – most of them are things related to being organized and dealing with people. You’re being paid to do more than just what you’re interested in and love to do. When a job goes bad or a client gets difficult or we just have a project we’re not proud of – its easy to start measuring your own personal worth from this. This is a terrible mistake. You’re only as good as your last job, but you should never let it define you. Now personal projects can help with this. I’ve found that when I have my own projects to identify with, its makes things a lot easier when things become difficult or stressful.

I’m writing this with 2 weeks left in the calendar year and I always find this the perfect time to take inventory on what I’ve accomplished in the last 12 months and to get excited about what I want to achieve in the next 12. Now if you’re not used to doing a lot of personal work – start small. Maybe plan several small projects that are easy to do and won’t leave you frustrated if they don’t get completed. If you’re a photographer, plan a series of portraits of friends. Make yourself go somewhere you haven’t been and do a documentary series. Start a podcast. Start a blog. Blogs are great projects in that you contribute over time. If you have experience with smaller projects, try sometime a little bigger – write a book, plan an exhibition of your work. Whatever you do just be realistic and don’t expect something you can’t deliver. Remember the idea is to create an escape – not a nightmare.

Scott makes a comment about Flash which got some defensive comments in the “twittersphere” as the Flash argument usually does. I agree with Scott’s position on this. I can’t directly speak for Scott, but for me its not the technology that’s the problem, its the workflow and ease of use that is.

from the 2004 blog

I kept a formal photoblog back in 2004 for a two year run. This was my portfolio. Back then I used MovableType and posted daily. I was at a point where I really wanted to change the style and type of work I was shooting and the blog format allowed me to experiment publicly with new work I was doing. I must say that I got more milage out of that blog and made more friends (who I still keep up with today) than any static portfolio site I’ve done. I wasn’t doing any photo work for a living at that time – I was doing design work only for financial means. So for me it was all about love and making it happen.

I’m in a similar mode of thought today but I am now shooting client work, personal work and doing a podcast. But why did I go back to this format?

First off blogs are really easy to update. So easy that they encourage your attention when you have the drive to write or photograph something. This regular updating sparks conversation which is important. Its a reason people want to come back often to see progress and the reason you might reciprocate and look at someone else’s work. This is not limited to other photographers. I keep up with illustrators, designers and even clients. Blogs keep a stream of communication open. Their ease of use allows you to concentrate more on your work than the site it lives on. This is key.

from the 2005 blog

Static portfolios are just that – they are static. They represent static works created at a point in time and your career. This is not bad, its just not driving any kind of continuity in terms of visits, use or this conversation thing that I talk about.

Flash has the tendency to be over designed most the time. Animations get tedious, music has nothing to do with your work, etc etc. Is Flash bad? Flash as a technology is not bad. Can it be designed well? Yes. But the question here is NOT whether to Flash or not to Flash – the question is does your work need it? If it does you might consider spending more time on your work – not how its displayed. Plus any good designer will tell you the hardest thing about design is knowing what to leave out. Simplicity and minimalism is key – its about your work, not animations or other distractions. I’ve already seen millions of images fade in from the background – I don’t need to see another. A good photography site is more important than a bad flash site.

Portfolio galleries are important as they usually represent the cream of the crop of your own work. The best advice you need though is to get a content management system that makes these easy to update and use. I have a background in web programming, so I built my own for my portfolio (my blog is wordpress). I built my own because I’ve not seen anything that I really felt I was willing to commit to. If you don’t have this kind of background you should consider maybe a tradeout or hiring someone to build you one… but the most important thing, like the blog, is your work – NOT the site. My portfolio uses PHP to read directories on the server, resize the images and render them into HTML so I don’t have to do it with each new image. I just upload a folder of images to the server via FTP and I’m done. I delete the folder to delete the images. Couldn’t be easier. Simplicity is the key.

Its no real mystery that this is one of the weaker links of the phone from a technical perspective. Being a photographer I own a lot of cameras, good bad AND ugly. I even used to be notorious for telling people that “I don’t have a phone in my camera why would I want a camera on my phone.” I went several years and never saw the point. But recently I’ve had a big change of heart. Its not the camera I got excited about as much as it is all the things that go around the camera.

For example lets look at a major event in the not so distant history of photography. In the 1950′s when 35mm became popular, photography was changed forever. The 35mm size was considered an amateur format much inferior to larger sizes of roll and sheet film used at the time. But the size of the camera made it possible to get photographs that had never been taken before. Henri Cartier-Bresson called this “the decisive moment”. You didn’t have to miss intimate images because it took you 10 minutes to set up a tripod or measure light. The camera could now be taken places where it would have been too cumbersome before. It could now capture from angles that were previously difficult if not impossible. Photography became more personal, improvisational, intimate and prolific. 36 images on a roll – you didnt’ have to spend time changing the film as much.

Jump forward to the 21st century and we are now well in the midst of a second wave that is changing the way we share photos. You can now with a smart phone: make an image, edit the image and share it with your friends just about anywhere in the world in under 5 minutes. This is a game changer.

This technology has been around for a while actually. Sports publishers and news agencies have invested in all kinds of expensive equipment to get photos from their photographers in the field – the winning home run is on the website 2 minutes after it happened.

One of the reasons I like the iPhone so much is the 3rd party apps sold in the app store. The magic of using apps is in the ability to edit images right from the phone. You’re not going to improve the quality of the photographs as much as you are going to be able to change the quality to get more interesting results.

Some apps I use…

Photoshop.com

Released by Adobe, you can think of this as Photoshop-super-extra-light for the iPhone. No where near the power of Photoshop, but extremely useful. Excellent for simple exposure, color and toning adjustments, they’ve taken most of the meat and potatoes features of Photoshop and put them in the iPhone app. There is a companion site for sharing photos which looks beautiful but misses the boat being built entirely in Flash. But the app is completely worth having despite the useless sharing feature.
Get it on iTunes

CameraBag

CameraBag offers a simple, no frills interface that gets straight to the point. The app simply offers different vintage camera “looks” (with copyrighted names changed for legal reasons). There’s no fine tuning or editing, but if you want the quick look of a Holga, Lomo or Polaroid camera – this is the app for you. I use it for the simplicity and speed.
Get it on iTunes

QuadCamera

QuadCamera takes a series of images that are user configured for either 4 or 8 photos that are sewn together. You can adjust the interval setting between shots as well which is nice. You can also split up these small images to make old school animated gif files. I documented an entire day with this app and technique a few weeks ago.
Get it on iTunes

Mill Colour

Mill Colour is one of the best apps I’ve seen for fine tuning color, gamma, gain and lift on images. Its free and beats just about every paid app I’ve seen for what it does. You can start with preset “looks” and fine tune using those as your starting point.
Get it on iTunes

Photogene

Photogene has to be the worst in terms of interface and the cartoonish look to the app, but its extremely useful – I’d even say essential for an “all in one” app. Features cropping, rotation, simple color correction – all the standard stuff… but what’s great is the levels slider and the sharpening feature – not found in most photo apps I’ve tried…
Get it on iTunes

1. iPhone

The iPhone is a complete game changer and at the moment its number one for me. The camera is junk, but it doesn’t matter. Good photos are good photos – that’s what I strive to do with the iPhone. Its always with you and it allows you to casually shoot throughout the day. Even lugging a compact camera around can be a pain if you run out of pockets – the iPhone is much more convenient in terms of form factor. The apps you can get for your phone turn the quality from crap to something that actually looks interesting. Plus you can do all of your post processing from the phone and upload to something like posterous and have your pictures distributed in various places in seconds. I really can’t go on enough about how great and handy this is as a photography tool.

2. Nikon F3HP

Ah – 35mm… I personally think the old Canon FD lenses were the best ever made, but old Nikon’s are not far behind. In a perfect world, I would have Canon FD lenses on Nikon bodies. But since were talking about cameras here… the F3 is my favorite out of the old Nikon lineup. It lacks many features of modern cameras – there’s no auto focus and the 2 shooting modes are manual or aperture priority. But if you know what you’re doing – this is a great combination. The camera is big enough to shoot serious pictures with and its not so heavy you get tired doing street photography (like the wonderful, but too large F4).

3. Canon 5D mk ii

Another game changer I really think this is one of the finest cameras you can buy (as I write this – its digital and will be obsolete within a year I’m sure). What makes the 5d mk ii so awesome? Full frame sensor, extremely high low light performance – 3200 iso is very usable, and HD video. I also personally prefer Canon lenses so this makes it a wonderful camera.

4. Holga

No frills, oddball, crapy medium format and I love it. Its so lacking in features that you can come up with all kinds of weird creative ways to push the limits of this camera. Mine was modified by Randy at Holgamods – which is essential I believe. Mainly because Randy modifies this with a bulb shutter and built in cable release (and interior flocking and corrected aperture and tripod mount). This enables night exposures and adds a wonderful element to this camera.

5. Cambo Legend

I like to refer to this as the concert camera – the thing is huge and solid like a grand piano. Its not portable or convenient at all, but its one of the most powerful cameras I’ve ever owned. I have the 8×10 version with a 4×5 reducing back. It features full tilt/shift control and macro extension. With the right lens this camera has the most incredible performance.

Anyway – that’s the list… for now… wait – I might change my mind… oh well.. you get the picture.