Do you get it now? Are we all on the same page? The last few months have made it abundantly clear, you're in the Marketing run of your life. And I mean Run. I hate to say it, but this 24/7 frenzy of online media and social medication is going to slow down soon. Once cities are fully open, Summer rampages on and human contact is deemed OK, we're going to bask in life post digital detention.
I caught up with an old friend this week. It's been a year but it feels like yesterday since we last spoke. Midway through the conversation she says... did you know so and so is now a photographer? I chucked but she wasn't laughing. Ah yes, another five minute photographer. Not an uncommon statement in any craft which got me thinking of the millions of people, during this strange days that have now learned a new skill and confused it for knowing the craft...
If you’ve ever downloaded an app, looked at a billboard, clicked on a website banner, or have interacted at all with an
advertisement (chances are you have), then you’ve seen work come out of advertising agencies, digital publishers, publications, tech start-ups, or just about any institution that creates work on
behalf of a brand or product. Behind all of those experiences is a producer who enables teams, manages budgets, and ensuring the pipeline of creativity and delivery isn’t disturbed. Sometimes an underrated, or simply misunderstood role, most creatives team will tell you how invaluable their producers are and what they have helped them be able to do.
Blue skies above, can't keep our hearts in jail... unfortunately. Locked in with loved ones? Perhaps you're going stir crazy in singledom? Hard not to feel the effects of this pandemic. Human family units stuck inside with their other loved ones, their progeny, ready to tear their skin off just to get a few moments alone, outside of washing hands ever 20 minutes.
It's Friday night and the grocery store is abuzz. Couples bickering with each other on what to eat, Grandma looking at the Heinz ketchup label trying to decide what's the best ounce option to price ratio, lonely bachelors wandering the isles wondering why they came down that particular isle in the first place, and me, deciding what cereal to pick up...
About three years ago I’m blasting 70’s classic rock in the studio, Chicago’s classic Saturday in the Park to be exact, and we're styling the last bits before shooting some fashion line, and my 30 some year old stylist says to me snidely, “You play all the music my Dad likes. It’s like I’m in his Volvo. You know, Dad Rock.” Ahem, Yacht Rock.
I'm 15 years old and marveling at the broguing on my new wingtips. As instructed, I went outside to scuff up the leather souls as to add traction and not fall on my face later that evening. As a young doubler in my teens, I was headed off to some sort of jazz gig. As I walked back stage with bass clarinet and bari sax in hand, I couldn't help but love the sound of the click of the wooden heel and the stage floor. Click clack, click clack.
My model gives me a blank stare as if it to say, "Is that it?" Mother gives me a glance, and by Mother and I mean Russ, my right hand man. He gingerly pulls me a side to talk technical, but what he really is saying as he whispers into my ear, "Maybe we take a few more, yeah?"
No this isn't a Cliff Notes version of Dostoyevsky's masterpiece. But the man did get it right. We're all gamblers at the slot machine of life. For some it's a career or business, maybe it's your family and children, personally it maybe that New Year's resolution. The list goes on and on and for us hustlers and artists it out there...
Incongruity is underrated if you ask me. The bizarre, absurd, the playful. I love a photo, or any other art form for that matter, that makes me laugh, gasp, takes my breath away, that makes me weep. Photography is more than something pretty to look at it. It draws you in, gets you thinking, lingers like a lovers perfume on your lapel, hours after an engagement.
