Editors also are tasked with coming up with new revenue ideas, in another culture shift for Condé Nast, said another source, adding, “At this company, editors spend money.”
via MediaWeek.
why it’s so important to get it right when you can
“This is also why poor photography, published poorly is so damaging. People are only going to look so many times. Once their quota on the subject is filled, they’ll stop looking. This past week has shown me very few memorable images. I’m afraid as photographers we’ve missed our window to make a lasting impact on our viewers with Haiti.”
via Mostly True.
‘Mad Men’ Haven’t Changed Much Since The 1960s
“…if an anthropologist wanted to come back and see what discrimination [was] like in 1970, you’ve got it right here in the ad industry.”
via NPR.
Failing Like a Buggy Whip Maker? Better Check Your Simile
There were 13,000 businesses in the wagon and carriage industry in 1890, Mr. Kinney said. A company survived not by conceiving of itself as being in the “personal transportation” business, but by commanding technological expertise relevant to the automobile, he said. “The people who made the most successful transition were not the carriage makers, but the carriage parts makers,” he said, some of whom are still in business.
Inside the Minds of Bill Stockland and Maureen Martel
“…we are very clear: We’re not the muse. We don’t want to be. They have to come with a muse or their own inspiration. They have to do personal work. Personal projects, editorial outside of the advertising arena so that we can take that work and package it and bring it to our communities.”
via Resolve
sexy women, sexy vampires and sexy lighting
…it’s crucial that young talents understand that photography is about more than sexy women, sexy vampires and sexy lighting. A photographer needs time to develop their voice and vision- listening, learning and shooting is the best way to get there.
Abort Now – Become A Truck Driver!
My primary objectives right now are to breath and survive. I’m at that point, 3 years in, when most sane people get out. It’s the true test, are you crazy enough to go forward when a brontosaurus-sized neon sign is flashing “ABORT NOW – BECOME A TRUCK DRIVER!” As photographer, Keith Carter, says, “You have to learn to embrace a life of uncertainty.”So I gotta breathe in. Stay the course. Surviving the photo industry is one part vision, one part business and all heart.
via Photo Coleslaw.
Google is “F-ing with the magic”
Mel went on to explain that back when he was the CEO of CBS, advertising had no accountability – no return on investment.
“You buy a commercial in the Super Bowl… and you had no idea if it worked! You had no idea if you sold product… if it did any good,” Karmazin said. “I loved that model.”
“And then here comes Google. They screwed it up!” added Karmazin, semi-jokingly.
A Gift Waiting at Every Corner: Notes from a Life in Photography
I am both humbled and hopeful when I think of the number of times all over the world that I have seen people define themselves not by their possessions or wealth, but by the grace, courage, and profound decency in their gestures and behavior.
— Peter Turnley via The Online Photographer
how to make a living playing music
“determine if you are actually called to be a musician. if you aren’t called, all the gyrations in the world, won’t make it work. if you are called, no matter what you do, it’s going to work. this determination will solve most of the problems you are going to encounter.”
via Ol’ Danny Barnes.
Irving Penn – He Got Beneath the Surface of People — and Things
Brodovitch, impressed with Penn’s eye for graphics, hired Penn as an unpaid assistant.
via NYTimes.com.
Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk – WSJ.com
“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys,”
Sir William Preece, chief engineer at the British Post Office, 1878.
“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
H.M. Warner, Warner Bros., 1927.
2010 Is All About Getting Personal
I’m actually phasing [E-blasts] out of my marketing plans for the coming year. The open rates and click through rates are down considerably…click through used to be almost 20%, now I’m lucky to get 2 or 3%. And all the art buyers I talk to are actively opting out and/or deleting without viewing.
2010 is all about getting personal with our marketing. E-blasts don’t fit into that.
From an email discussion with a studio producer. Used with permission.
Always At Your Best
“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
–Jean giraudoux
Ernest Hemingway’s Tips For Writing Well
“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”
via Copyblogger.
The Future of Photography (Popular Photography 1944)
I FEEL THAT the camera finds its main importance as a recording and communicating mechanism, and I should like to see it develop until it takes its place with the pencil and the typewriter as an instrument of our everyday language. Photography should be taught in the schools along with penmanship as part of postwar education’s expansion.
It is possible to perfect the camera to the point where it will become an automatic instrument which will focus, expose and process the film by the mere push of a button. In this way we will be able to realize a medium possessing an immediacy between seeing and recording unachieved by any other art.
via A Photo Student
Is Content Still King?
“some problems don’t have answers. That is the flaw in the ‘they will find a business model’ logic. As if business models grow on trees. Don’t assume there is always an answer.”
via Daily Intel.
They’re always better or worse
“The thing that’s important to know is that you never know. You’re always sort of feeling your way.”
“I never have taken a picture I’ve intended. They’re always better or worse.”
“It’s important to take bad pictures. It’s the bad ones that have to do with what you’ve never done before. They can make you recognize something you hadn’t seen in a way that will make you recognize it when you see it again.”
— Diane Arbus