It finally happened: after countless months of wandering around, going to places where people say they’ve spawned, after using lures, and being patient, I managed to add a... Eastern Whipbird (Psophodes olivaceus) to my collection!
I was internalizing a dialogue I had the other day after seeing a mistake someone made on how they presented their thoughts and the reaction it received, when I realized that what I was actually doing was telling myself what I wish I knew early on in my career. It encompassed some mistakes along the way, and some key points that I feel some people may benefit from reading.
You will not agree with every point, and don’t worry, you shouldn’t. At the very least, you’ll agree with and consider one of them. That is what is what I hope to achieve.
Dear Friend,
Oh how life has changed in such a short number of years. When I started out in photography I was still shooting film and sending ‘trannies’ to magazines on the other side of the world.
Everything, and I mean everything, has changed!
You may have the eye, the talent, and all of the other necessary hard skills to make it in the commercial world. The only thing you lack is a portfolio relevant to the stuff you want to get paid to shoot. It’s a classic chicken and egg problem.
Creating your portfolio is easy. Assuming you have everything else up to par, it’s as simple as three steps: Concept, Connect, Create. This is something I recently did to expand my Asia portfolio while traveling through Hong Kong and Taiwan. I assembled a team like for any other shoot, albeit a limited team because it was a test shoot.
The question, "how can I take better photographs" never goes away for the photographer who is constantly looking to improve and evolve, no matter how many years they've been doing it. But this question is particularly difficult to answer for beginners who don't yet have the foundation that years of looking through a viewfinder offers.
Thankfully for those people, there are professionals like Jim Goldstein who don't mind condensing years worth of experience into useful tips and advice.