Making the most of your time
Another thing i’ve learned during this process of blogging everyday is that I am even more hyper aware of what is wasting my time and keeping me away from the art life. Things in life will always try it’s hardest to get in the way of the things we would rather be doing, whether it’s living the art life, going to your local golf course to take in the smell of the great outdoors while whacking some balls, relaxing in your own space writing your next or first book, etcetera. It is impossible to not have things come up from time to time, and some people more than others will be interrupted. I call getting the most out of your days “windows of time” and having all the things you need at the ready at all times puts you in the best position to be productive during these windows of time. If you put everything away in desk drawers or a closet or in a different room than you’ll be working in, the chances of you actually doing the thing when, lets say, you have 20 minutes to be producing will be next to zero chance you’ll do the work since you’ll have to put your setup back together. If you have all the things you need in place, or with you in a bag when you’re away from your normal space. You've accomplished a very important part of making something happen during the window of time that you have. The next hurdle is getting back into your world. For me, outside of my world tends to be one that’s nothing like how I think and live the art life, so if its been a better part of the day where I am needed outside of my world, then I have a short time into my world.. it can be hard to flip that switch, at times, the outside life can linger. I often think of these times to the video of Jack Nicholson preparing for a scene during the film The Shining. He’s preparing his mind for a place it needs to be, and that’s how I feel I get back into the art life, sometimes it needs that preparation to get the most out of yourself.
Heels and shadows
“I love photography and first editions. I have that in my genes.” - Winona Ryder
The more I see prints and look through photography books it becomes more and more apparent that I need to get going on releasing the newly branded book I’ve been working on, but even sooner I can get more prints available. I am going to go through the archives and figure out which photos to make available next as prints, I also am doing them in editions of 5, with each new edition of the same photo will increase in price for every time a new edition is released. So the first edition of a photo will be the cheapest to get. I am thrilled to offer new prints and I am adding the photo from this post available now!
TRUE HAPPINESS
“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so, wants nothing.” - Seneca
One thing I feel like i’ve learned in my 30’s is to enjoy the present, it truly is sufficient. It is very easy to think and act a certain way by thinking of something that may or may not happen in the future, especially if it is something that is supposed to happen in a specific way you want to happen. When I work and do in the moment, embracing it, taking my time, I have learned that better results happen in more ways than one. In my case I previously would tend to think a lot about the future and it would have me slack in the present, getting less done and instead thinking about what I can do to achieve a certain arbitrary thing. Deciding on bringing the blog back, and really, myself back to how I am distributing content onto the internet and social media has been so fruitful. The way I am operating the blog is a prime example, even though I have things planned out for later dates, I am actually working and enjoying my work within the moment not just the blog, but actually photographing and living the art life. If I were to operate this blog like a did years ago, I would be thinking of tomorrow and what should I make a post tomorrow and it just is a bunch of what’s. I have been doing a lot more studies whether its online or in books lately as well, being organized has for sure made me a better artist. I still will be thinking forward though as well, because I think that is a positive way to think. It becomes a problem when you depend on the future to change something, or solve something, or just end up how you think it should. The actual doing is the variable as well, and that’s why focusing on the now is the key to long term thinking. Thinking about the future and not actually doing the thing won’t get far.
“Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven’t left any holes, that you’ve captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
ESSENTIAL TO MY EXISTENCE
“If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.”
― Richard Avedon
I am not sure if there is anything said that is more in tune with who I am, I know exactly what he is saying, and by my studies he truly means that to the depth of his soul. I connect with it so much, I know what its like to feel that way if nothing is being done related to photography at some point within the day I feel unsatisfied and truly feel like the day was wasted. “it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence” is as I’ve learned over the years a rare thing to have, its not obsessive, but just who I am. The other line “as though I had forgotten to wake up” which I can relate to where I just end up day dreaming about it, and I know I disconnect from a lot of what I’m doing to think about the art life, when I can get back to it, what I plan to do and work on when I get the chance.
This new way of working, going back to the roots of blogging and having posts at 6:00am has given me a lot of positive feelings day in and day out. I go to bed knowing I have content being released automatically on my website at 6:00am which has actually got me to sleep easier because I would before continue to think about what I would plan to post and when and just keep myself up thinking about it. This takes care of that problem, pre-planned. Then the next bonus out of this is that when I wake up I had that content posted already so I wake up feeling refreshed, I have already distributed content, and depending on the blog post and what I plan to do with it I can either decide to post on social platforms when I wake up or whenever I get the chance to do so. As of now I pretty much randomly post on social whenever I get some time, sometimes I did them all at one time across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with other times spacing out when and where I distribute them.
The Obstacle Is The Way
The timing of this Retweet was pretty much insane, I received the medallion The Obstacle Is The Way on Monday. I immediately knew it was going to be a heirloom that I would pass down to Ryder later in life, it is made in such great quality, and timeless advice. I decided when I received it Tuesday that I wanted to post it on Instagram and Twitter, took a few shots in my house and a few out, I ended up liking one from outside the most. So i ended up posting them throughout social media Tuesday night, woke up the next morning, pretty early because my brother was coming over to help me move a freezer. My day started off busy and I had my phone resting on a wireless charger because my charging port on my iphone is kinda wacked out. When I had a moment I checked my phone and had a dozen or so Twitter notifications and when I opened twitter I immediately was surprised, happy, and even more inspired, Ryan Holiday retweeted the photo I posted. After a period of time just smiling and doing my work being stoked I realized my blog post this day was “Phantom mentors” and besides the crazy coincidence it also made me notice another thing about how I mentioned how easy it is to think of search and find and then watch interviews from the greats, but also how you can potentially get in contact these days. If I was sitting here when I was a teenager and being hyped on works like Perennial Seller and The Obstacle Is The Way, there would be a very low next to no chance I could get in the type of contact I just had made. It’s so interesting how early we actually are in the current social network world. Special thanks to Ryan Holiday and The Daily Stoic for not only for the retweets but the timeless knowledge and inspiration.
A journal in action
I am launching a show exclusively being seen first on patreon. It is a deep dive look into the creative process, what its truly like for me living the art life. I want to treat it in a way that would be the equivalent to visual journal, I may experiment with the way each video is made from style and what not. I started filming some scenes while photographing. I plan to have videos with voice-overs, guests, documenting the process, even if that is a quiet feel, because the art life can be a quiet place. I am excited for it, its a different way to think, it’s something I know will be for my community and lurkers. Over time, these videos will eventually become public, but most likely would be put together as a documentary as a digital download to the public at a later date, but viewed for free on patreon. If you are interested I set up my profile here
Phantom mentors
“I look at where I'm at today and realize that most of my success is owed to the mentors that was in my life.” - Kendrick Lamar
As I’ve been blogging I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction of it. I want it to be open to everything that defines the art life to me. That is the beauty about the art life is that it is defined by you. To me, it is a way of life. It’s who I am. Over the years it has either hindered personal relationships or grew them. My opinion on it is that it is okay either way. Everyone is different and has different needs, whether that’s giving or taking. For me, I know it takes a certain understanding to get who I am and where i’m coming from. I’ve known since I was a kid that I had a drive that didn’t make sense to many, I was always into production from filming with a VHS camcorder with my brother in the mid 90’s then making copies of the tapes, which led to skateboarding and that led to me learning about photography and how that’s all I wanted to do. That’s ALL I wanted to do. Started this website January 1st, 2006 by the way.
The most important thing I’ve learned and you could apply to your life whether you are trying to live the art life, or just living life. Is to believe in yourself and your needs, people tend to think this would be selfish thoughts. To me being selfish is ignoring someone else’s needs for your own gain, if something isn’t vibe’n communication is so important.
Having mentors is so important, lessons learned can be used in all situations moving forward. These days its so easy to have a “phantom mentor” that’s what I call someone that motivates you online that you don’t have direct contact with. Might not make sense, but to me it makes so much sense. If youtube was around when I was a kid and I could watch interviews with legendary humans I would have freaked out, I would have learned things I couldn’t have learned elsewhere. It’s to the point in time now where it seems weird that back in the day I would have to wonder if a video interview of Stanley Kubrick existed. Now, if I have that thought I can know and watch in seconds. The whole idea of a phantom mentor is getting information on guidance things that you can apply to better yourself.
Books are also a great way, best selling author Tim Ferriss made the book Tribe Of Mentors that features “short life advice from the best in the world” some people in the book are David Lynch, Stephanie McMahon, Robert Rodriguez, Arianna Huffington, Tony Hawk, and many others.
A mentor can be anyone in life though, and some can be for a small portion of your life, some can actually be with you throughout your life, Don’t forget about things you’ve learned from mentors even from the past, because the knowledge is useful throughout life.
“Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who had real positive influences in his or her life.” - Denzel Washington
Give yourself fully to your endeavors
“You have to love the doing of what you're doing and not wait for the phone to ring.” - Robert Stack
The new dad hat “blog is thicc” is all sorts of rad! embroidered and also features the bsmitty head logo on the right side
The legendary host of Unsolved Mysteries is right. I actually think that is top tier advice because that can be used for all things in life, whether you are a photographer, writer, landscaper, t-shirt printer, musician, the list can go on forever.
I started my website in 2006, if I had the mentality of just waiting around for a phone call for some thing that I thought up and glorified in my brain to happen, I would have closed down the website and stopped paying for it all. I was asked by a friend somewhat recently why I still shoot photos or why do I shoot photos, the question threw me off because I just live the art life, its who I am. I didn’t have an answer at the ready, but for me its not “why” it’s “when” when can I shoot, when can I edit, when can I blog, when can I study. This mindset is what got me to continue the doing, instead of waiting for that call. Another thing that I have found to be so important to the creative process is organization, and I’m not talking about making sure my files are backed up on hard drives, or my camera bag is organized and batteries charged. Those things are important, but I’m talking about mental organization. For many years, over a decade of time I pretty much would just stay up till 2am because that was how I made time for the art life. The problem is, it’s still cramming, being exhausted, zoning out, until the inevitable passing out in bed.
I started scheduling everything, time is super important when it comes to living the art life, I would like I said just save that time for midnight work. I would try to edit some stuff and post, post, post, basically like a robot cause I felt like things had to be immediate. The idea of getting the work out fast seems to be the way things go with social media. What I’ve learned is that you can actually deploy not just more content, but better, more engaging content by taking your time.
How?
Here are some ways I’ve maximized my time, making more and better content.
create over consume - I’ve been consuming in a way that doesn’t take my attention away from the art life, for me, that’s been audiobooks, youtube interviews and such for audio, some classic unsolved mysteries for the background noise, and some music.. I usually listen to the same song on repeat at the particular time or bounce around a few songs back and forth. Consuming content in this way keeps you working and entertained if you are in the mood for that.
use internet like you would in life - I don’t watch the news or read the newspaper, I never did when I was younger. The internet is designed to grab your attention with headlines just like the news and newspapers. Here is a title I’m making up for an example. “Woman shoots man from rocket into the Grand Canyon.” Seems interesting why not read it? This is not to say that it’s something you have to ignore or whatever but for me, that event means absolutely nothing and wouldn’t matter if I knew it or not, I still do consume things like we all do, but I am deliberate at what I am doing, getting trapped into those websites that make you click NEXT 40 times to see behind the scenes photos of say The Shining exist for a reason, to retain your attention to get clicks for ad revenue. How to change the consumption to something better? Let’s say you seen that headline of behind the scenes photos from The Shining and you (and I would) consider that to be something actually positive to consume because it could be meaningful to you. You click on the link to realized its one of those NEXT sites (they are called click funnels) my suggestion would be from there go to Google and actually just search behind the scenes photos from The Shining and you’ll find a better site that actually hosts the photos in a more proper manner, or just browsing through Google images as well. Also, YouTube could be another option. - side note it doesn’t matter if you don’t mind browsing sessions, its just what I’ve been more aware of to pay attention to lately if I’m browsing. I’m not a stickler about it, not going to feel really bad if I laughed and rewatched a guy that was gliding down from the air and flew past a girl to smash into a van, or watch the video of Kawhi Leonard laughing 41 times. It’s more about being mindful of your time, because that is a huge variable with the doing.
And by the way, researching, studying, and learning more about what you are doing is a completely different thing. I encourage that for sure and is essential.
work ahead of time - everyone is unique and everyones time is unique. This is something that’s really changed my process and has made me a happier human. I was pretty much always and forever working on the thing I was about to post, whether its a photo on instagram or a post on facebook, it was the creating and deployment of thing one after another. Social media makes you think that this is the way. What I’ve learned is that taking the time to work ahead of time has been the key to not only creating content, but creating content that is more engaging, thorough, and even more fulfilling because more time has been put into the the process. Scheduling is critical for this, not just for the deployment of content, but when you are actually going to be going through the creative process. Whether that’s late night binges or windows of time, knowing when you can work will produce better work, randomly sitting down to work is a tough thing to do, that’s basically being a switch going from outside the bubble of the art life, in. Then actually scheduling the release of work, again whether that’s a instagram post, facebook post, or even a tweet. I’m not saying everything has to be that way but the main work. Scheduling whether mentally, within an app, or written or typed down and getting ahead of time will actual create more time to spend on a piece of content. For example if you take the time needed to get your content ready for the next week you have all the time within the week to work while having content to post so you can stay ahead and not feel rushed, some days you can get another day done, or even days, and you can days away without feeling like you need to work. This is all subjective knowledge, if you don’t care about posting on social media this can be used for your next cookbook if your a chef, scheduling the creative process and keeping things mentally organized will give you better results instead of working randomly without a plan or system in place.
That’s a lot to take in, but remember at its core it’s about making more time to create more and often better work. It is certainly not a literal only do this, or even only I do this. Enjoy the process no matter how you do it, just don’t wait around for a phone call.
“Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast...and one day you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential.”
― Epictetus
The Magical Garden
“Perhaps the most tragic thing about mankind is that we are all dreaming about some magical garden over the horizon, instead of enjoying the roses that are right outside today.” - Andrew Carnegie
It’s easy to sit at home, work, coffee shop, or during transportation thinking about taking new photos. The obvious first step into making new photos is having a camera at all times possible wherever I am going. Having a camera is just the first step of creating new photographs. Going out and trying to find a grand photograph, a thought that you think you will find a masterpiece is not a good way to go out and create great work. In fact I believe it can create a negative effect, and worse, a long lasting negative effect. Obviously you want to be optimistic, confident, and be open and aware. That is different then having a narrow plan of finding your great Bresson, Eggleston, etc. going out having some preconceived notion that you’ll find the magical garden over the horizon will most likely end up with a feeling of doubt on your capabilities and questioning your decisions.
Over the years I have been shooting more, and then more. A few years back, I actually was about to take a photograph and then questioned if I was going to like the photo and decided not to take a photo. As I took a step away it dawned on me how ridiculous that was. I went up, brought the camera up to my face, and didn’t shoot the photo. I shoot digitally, I’m not on some Joel Sternfeld 3 frames a day because I only have so many rolls of film to get me through my trip. I can shoot that photo 1,000 times and it wouldn’t matter. Where i’m going with this, is that I did all of the work and then did not press the shutter. I have so many times realized I liked a photo more than I thought I originally would if at all. I’ve also learned that photos age well, being a critic before a critique can even happen is all sorts of bad. Life is so special, even the mundane, or especially the mundane. We will look back to these days and miss them. I want to bring the camera up to my face with enjoyment from here on out. I may or may not get a great photo. But I will be able to look back and know I enjoyed the moment.
Always be shooting
I knew in the morning on our way out I was going to drive in the opposite direction of where we needed to go, but it was the closest post office that would actually save time going too, it was a Saturday and I had to get a package shipped out and they close early on saturdays at the ol USPS. Anyways, after the usual running a little behind getting out the door with Ryder, and talking about Pokémon in the car, I not so surprisingly didn’t go that opposite direction that I needed to go, we had about a 40 minute drive to our actual destination. We were about 8 minutes from that destination when it all of a sudden dawned on me that we didn’t go to the post office. “We forgot to go the post office.” I frantically said out loud with Ryder’s response being “oh no!” Out of pure luck I thought of this right before a intersection where we ended up being stopped by a red light, I looked at the time, it read 11:52 am. I pretty much figured it was a loss cause and was annoyed at myself for forgetting, but out of pure luck and a quick google search I realized I was only 4 minutes from a USPS location that I didn’t even know existed. Still, the area we were in was busy, but Ryder was down to try to make it happen. We turned right, and ended up making it just in time before they were closed. On our way out I drove down the parking lot a different way then we entered, and I noticed this sign “GO SLOW” it was another one of those countless photographs that wouldn’t normally happen, these are the ones that inspire me even more to carry my camera with me whenever and wherever I possibly can.
Troy DiFranco
I want to begin this blog post by paying my respects to Troy DiFranco and that I am sorry to his family for the loss.
I would like to share a story.
Without going into a full high school story, which deserves its own documentary, I want to condense it for the purpose of remembering Mr. DiFranco, and perhaps lend a smile to people who knew him, because it’s unlikely they would know about this.
Before his passing when I caught word that he was at the hospital after suffering a heart attacking I posted this on Facebook “I have a few people that were “life hammers” in school. Troy Difranco did two major things for me that I will be forever grateful for. Hoping for a full recovery 🙌” It was shocking to me, and kept me up.
So this dates far back, these days seem like a lifetime ago, and also like earlier today, because I was lucky enough to have a few extremely influential, positive, and straight up great humans that happened to understand my drive in life. To be honest, and will go further in depth at another time, I didn’t really believe in the school system, it made no sense to me. I wanted to become a photographer and run my own business, but school was designed for workers, especially before social media (I graduated in 2004) I wasn’t the kind of student that would be a trouble maker or anything like that, I just didn’t have the interest in majority of what was being taught which led me to not taking the time to learn certain things which led me to being terrible at tests, which ultimately had me having bad grades, solid D’s if you catch my drift. Throughout most of high school through graduation I dated the valedictorian, star athlete and now in the hall of fame. I’ll just say the older adult folk did not like that. I was the skateboarder wearing skinny jeans when all of the other guys were still wearing baggy jeans. Teachers didn’t like this at all, probably thought I was a bad influence. One of my teachers took me into his office one day asking what my intentions were, like he was going to relay the information to her parents. Which I obviously was tipped off on the possibilities of relayed information. He later told me a year later I should break things off, which I didn’t. I was looked at as an outcast, adults around wanted a “Steve” not someone who was original, forward thinking.
I want to cut myself off, I can go deep into the back story and enhance the meaning Of the story even more that I’m going to tell, but you get the idea.
I had to pass his test, I had to or I’d fail his class. I don’t remember exactly but you had to pass a certain amount of tests back in those days (could be the same now) so it didn’t matter If I passed the semester, I had to pass this test. I knew, and without talking to Mr. DiFranco, he also knew, I was not going to pass this test, no way.
I was fashionably late to every class in high school, we “shared” lockers, I’d walk with her to her class even if my class was completely on the other side of the school so the bell would ring and I would full sprint, running so fast to each class, I can still get the feeling of flying by seeing the lockers rush by thinking about it. On test day, Mr. DiFranco knew I’d always do that, and I could see him from a distance outside the door barely into the hallway as I was now jogging, when I got to him he said “take the test, then meet me after school so you can take it again.” When I sat down I still can remember feeling like he was doing something special, but at the same time I didn’t know what that really meant. After school we would all walk out through the art class door to my car, a 1980 Chevy impala with a rad bench seat, I said my goodbye quick so I can get back to take the test. His classroom was just about completely on the other side, I remember walking it, thinking about it. When I got there I sat with him and he asked me how I’ve been doing, he would take me down to shoot some hoops because he knew I loved the game of basketball but didn’t have the grades to play. He took his own time out, pulled a chair next to me and he made sure I passed this test. When we both stood up and walked towards the door as he was leading me out, as I was about to leave he said “You’re a great kid, I’m proud of you and don’t let anyone bring you down.”
He was a person that genuinely cared about people, he didn’t have a one track mind when it came to teaching and students. When I think back to that moment I always tend to think of that scene from Donnie Darko with the teacher talking about time travel. Mr. DiFranco understood that people can, and should be different. I could be wrong but somehow he knew what I was going through with the “older folk” from the dating situation, home life, to my I’m going to be a photographer conversations... either way he was willing to reach out to me, and what he did wasn’t just helping me pass a test, he was teaching me a life lesson of gratitude, empathy, and self confidence.
Troy DiFranco. In my heart forever, thank you. Rest In Peace.
Book update
I’ve recently mentioned that I am rebranding my book previously titled “This is for you.” After the time thinking, planning, deploying my new direction of work and how I go about it, that book came to mind. I believe I did a really great job in the process of editing it, I’m not sure if anyone as ever live-streamed on Twitch the edited process of a photo book from the beginning point of deciding which photos and to actually edit each photo and then deciding which photos would make it into the finished book. I’m not sure if anyone has actually live-streamed that process on any platform, ever. What I didn’t do well at all is the deployment process. I fell into the zombie effect. The typical what everyone does which is here is my Instagram post, my twitter post, my Facebook pages post. The furthest thing from giving any type of chance of being perennial. That book was major factor in my recent thinking because of the month long dozens of hours streamed for the book, to literally, and I mean literally, put 30 seconds into distribution. Clicking share, being a zombie.
The beauty of self publishing is that, I am giving that process another chance, or should I say, an actual chance to become perennial. I have a couple titles that I am considering, but I am taking my time on it. I haven’t fully invested into that quite yet because I have at the same time put in a lot of work on this process im doing now of how I deploy my content, focusing on what is actually mine and distributing from there, a funny thing with how during this process, I was reading the book perennial seller, and I was discussing my platform on my last stream where my website is mine and the social media outlets are a part of it. I thought of a scene from a trailer of the first book offering of Ryan Holiday titled “Trust me i’m lying" and its somewhat a good example of how I am thinking about things, starting with the content on my platform and creating links in a chain.
The photos of the book are not being edited differently and the actual layout and decisions from that when I live-streamed is going to stay the same, what is changing is the title and most likely a cover change, because like it or not people judge by the cover of books. So just a couple changes, but big changes for sure. That is just the beginning of my rebranding process. From there I want to plan and schedule out what I want to do on the actually deployment of it, creating something way bigger than just a one time simple click of a share button.
I’ll be keeping you updated on this, I also mentioned this time it will be available on Amazon.
Twitch schedule
I started live-streaming the creative process on Twitch earlier this year, I streamed every second of editing my latest book, which is going to be available on Amazon very soon. Almost every photo I have posted on Instagram this year have been edited live on Twitch. As you know, I am changing how I use social media to focus more of my attention to my platform. I’ve streamed around an average of 60 hours a month since I started streaming the creative process. I have even talked within those hours that I wanted to make a schedule, but would not work the way I was streaming, which was about as many hours as I could. As I am focusing on my website and blog I want to be focused on social media sites. How does that make sense with what I’ve been talking about? I talked about it live on my most recent stream that, for me, Instagram (and other social media) is like a zombie and I was bit by it and became one myself, infected and just being a zombie with all the other zombies. Taking more time to prepare and plan on distribution will create more perennial content, or at the very least, giving a substantially bigger chance of doing so.
On the top of the mobile site under “menu” or on the left of desktop you’ll find my new tab titled “Twitch Schedule” I have the date and time scheduled when I will be live on Twitch. The great thing with this is, before I would just go live randomly, no one knowing, I can now have the schedule for a reference and if I need to make a date or time change I will be able to, so you can always keep up to date and know when to come hang out with me and chat.
Newsletter with Free Lightroom Preset
Being a subscriber to my email list you’ll receive an email from me personally once a month with exclusive content. PLUS, when you sign up I’ll immediately send you a FREE Lightroom Preset that I designed to be the base of your next edit.
I shot this photograph back behind a restaurant in North Olmsted, Ohio yesterday, afterwards using the Free Lightroom Preset I will send you by subscribing to my newsletter. This is how I begin every single photo, depending on the light, what i’m photographing, etc. I’ll slide things around and work out the photo how I see it. This Preset named “becoming bsmitty” is the starting point, even this photo above I could go further, but wanted to example it. It certainly isn’t designed as a click and done, as no preset is universal. If it does work right away for your vision, that’s great. The beauty of photography is that it is your vision, that’s why for me its the base, I have my own way of a complete photograph, I hope you enjoy this preset and that it inspires you to find your complete style as well.
Free print with no shipping cost
One thing that I feel is important to me and my work, and to truly become perennial, is to also be out of the screen. If you’ve followed my work over he past 13 years you have seen me release prints, zines, books, merch, etc. Even though I have done those things, I haven’t done nearly enough as far as the photographs go, prints and books. I do want my work on walls and books on a table or shelf. I need to work in the direction to make that happen, there are billions of photographs out there, and I know, with the right mindset, distribution, and content. I can start making my work seen in the real world more often, as the last post talked about, instagram is a split second consumption. Refer to the 3 questions from that post. I was thinking, how can I get moving on this? I have prints available already but what if I made getting prints easier, more affordable? Why not free? This may not make sense in the world of the cost of materials, having websites, domains, shops, storage, all cost money to operate. What does make the free aspect sound right is that it is a opportunity to be on more walls, reach more, and potentially new people. In return could create The Lindy effect.
Excited to launch the first completely free print, the 2016 photograph of Alex Drouhard on standard photo paper first edition of 5.
Furthermore I am also offering FREE SHIPPING in my print shop! Each 5x7 print in the print shop is on archival paper and now only $10 total!
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Perennial photographer
I read the book Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday upon its release, I really enjoyed it but even though I did enjoy it I wasn’t converting his context to mine properly. I would assume as many would think of how these thoughts be practiced with social media, his first book Trust Me I’m Lying should be a book that’s taught in schools. My thoughts and process and distribution of content after reading Perennial Seller for the first time was definitely not a waste of time, but personally felt fruitless. Rightfully so by the way, because I was completely wrong in my thinking at the time. To be honest I couldn’t have been any further away then what I should have been doing. Being a photographer and documenting the creative process along the way makes sense to focus on Instagram right? Just taking all the knowledge from that book to deploy on instagram is completely wrong. Yes, Instagram is popular right now. Notice I say right now. What is interesting over the years i’ve contradicted a lot of my thinking, I’ve said during my live-streams on Twitch many times, and within YouTube videos also years ago is that I ask
“How many photos do you remember seeing on Instagram yesterday?”
“How many photos do you remember seeing on Instagram this morning?”
“How many photos do you remember seeing just the last time you opened Instagram?”
Yes, instagram is important. Probably, at the time of this post the most important social media for distributing photographs. But clicking “Share” on Instagram to fight through all of the other posts, algorithms, and ads that are littered in the feed has very little significance in the process of being a perennial seller. It’s a marketing distribution channel, as Gary Vaynerchuck said that it is like todays version of CBS (or something along those lines) each social platform needs to be treated properly, I agree on that. But when it comes down to it, just hitting share with the thought of something happening from it is not the way to go.
What I should have taken from the book (Perennial Seller) is that it has many elements to that process, deploying originally fully to instagram, which instagram 100% is short term by day. Again, refer to my three questions above. Though instagram is important, it is just a fraction of the MARKETING faze of the work. Sadly, for years now I have been so focused on almost exclusively on instagram, while still distributing things around with Facebook and Twitter. I can kind of sum up my thinking with something Jerry Seinfeld said in the documentary Comedian that goes something like “You are the age of how long you been doing the work.” as in, I am only 13 years old in the world of photography. So, like a teenager I wasn’t really thinking long term at all. Even though I launched my website early on as a photographer online January 1st, 2006.
You may be wondering what this all means. That is a question I should have been thinking and answering all this time. But now I know, can someone be a perennial seller exclusively on Instagram? Of coarse not. It is an app, a very popular one yes. But it will not be over time. More importantly you cannot create perennial photograph on instagram. Who is scrolling to a post from 2014? Instagram is a marketing tool, a distribution channel. For me, to become a perennial seller as a photographer is to market what is MINE. this website bsmitty.com is my exclusive content. My book, prints, shirts, hats, etc. is MINE. I own my domain, and it is who I am. My energy needs to be creating the work for MY domain and then marketing it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and so on. The interesting part about all of this, is that before the term social media even existed, I worked this way. I posted on MY website and then would use myspace bulletins, AIM, to post about my new photo/blog entry. Instagram for me ended up being in a way like being bitten by a zombie, slowly becoming one. Social platforms will fade, but my url will be here. Having a perennial viewer like you go through my content on my website is extremely more likely than a profile on social media. Social media is designed specifically for the split second now moment placed in between insurance or political ads and content they think you would like. Yes, I’ll still be using social media, this isn’t even me hating on social media at all. In fact, I’ll be able to use social media in a much better way. When you are here, you see my content, with my ideas, suggestions of things I like that if you are into what I’m doing and the creative process you may like too. So much more can go on here, while writing this so many things are going through my head. I’m so used to How social media is, quick. I want this to be the place you come to every morning, or afternoon, or night.
side note: I know my grammar is probably wack. It always will be. It is truly as scattered as my brain.