Behind the Scenes © 2011 Hugh Burckhardt

Full of daylight if I want it, or downstairs on the first floor if I don’t, the huge new 10,000 square foot studio has nooks and crannies, floor to ceiling windows, natural wood floors, an additional 5,000 square feet of basement storage, a 1,500 square foot workshop and I could go on. But I won’t. It’s just an out and out terrific working studio. And, I have been working.

Hugh Burckhardt, my assistant, and I set up some fabulous gluten free baked product photos for Karen Freer of Free Bread, Inc. (gluten-free, that is. - that’s the tagline) Karen’s wonderful, warm toned, pine antique ironing board was the key prop for many of the shots. And having skipped lunch, muffins and cream cheese were the placeholders. Who knew gluten free could be so good?

(And, what’s Frosty the Snowman doing in my background? My studiomate, José Pelaez, is shooting stock for next year’s holiday season. So, between the gift boxes, pine trees, ornaments and other holiday paraphernalia out and about, I set up my daylight shoot. While we were at it,  the holiday spirit was infused into the muffins.)

Addendum 12/7/2011: On a final side note, Karen left a box of muffins for the studio staff. That was Sunday. It’s only Wednesday and those three dozen muffins? They’ve all been eaten, nothing left but crumbs! 

Behind the Scenes © 2011 Hugh Burckhardt

Gluten Free Cheese Muffins from Free Bread, Inc. © 2011 D.A.Wagner

Dancing Baby Bok Choy

After 5 years of shooting greenmarket produce in the studio, at Union Square, Italy and other various places, I needed to do something with all those digital images other than use them to grace friend’s and family’s homes and fill numerous hard drives to capacity. So, with a little trepidation I started an Etsy store to sell digital prints, not as expensive art, but as affordable graphics to frame and hang in the kitchen, which is where I think they belong.

And although I’ve been focused on business these past few months, I’m now anxiously waiting for spring to return so I can continue this project.

It’s just way too cold to go out now.

Corporate Meeting (Detail)

This past week, Calumet selected an outtake from my recent New Zealand job, titled “Corporate Meeting.” You can read about the assignment here.

As always, I’m honored and thrilled to have been selected for a fourth time. Thanks, Calumet.

Drug store dolls from Rite Aid. Cheap. Sexy. Coy.

Last month I stopped waiting for phone calls. Instead, I approached a potential client from New Zealand with a concept for their publishing project. I presented images from my personal work (a good reason for throwing toys into water) along with a smartly written creative brief that clearly identified my approach. If I won this job it would be a labor of love: 19 photographs as chapter dividers for a series of 4 creative business books. Not a big fee, but a big return: A complete portfolio of interesting work that would be produced in about a week and paid for by the client.

Negotiation took a few days; there’s a 16-hour time-forward difference between NYC and New Zealand. And like moose and mice, the client responded to my emails while I slept. We negotiated a fee and copyrights and the job was on.

I had initiated an assignment.

This job was no walk in the park. Propping and modelmaking took five days and the two scheduled shoot days ended up being 16 hours long (plus another 26.5 hours of retouching). At 2PM, when we (we = me and my intern, Steve Warren, from the School of Visual Arts) had already been shooting for 5 hours, the client was just waking up, putting on his robe and slippers to view the work we posted for his approval while he ate his morning porridge. It was all done via email, and he was online as promised and giving feedback to move the job along. By the time we wrapped up each shoot day, it was 1AM, 5PM in NZ. Hard work, but a pleasure.

And here’s the best part. The client gave me full creative license, which could have been a disaster, but this client was a prince. He gave clear responses and never waffled. He knew exactly what he wanted and that was for me to do my best work.

Who could ask for anything more?

Did I make a profit? A little.

Did I have fun? Oh, yes.

And that portfolio? Just as soon as the books are printed, it goes up on my dawagner.com web site.

Last Stop Coney Island

I don’t know if there are any formulas, books or websites for quitting, like there are for starting businesses. I didn’t see, “When to Quit Investing in Your Losing Business Venture,” on Amazon.  But I did a search for those words and what did I get? Mostly I found links to information on starting a business, finding or borrowing money, entrepreneur guides, articles on bootstrapping and little about quitting. It appears as if quitting isn’t a really popular topic.

There was one story.  It’s an April, 2009, BusinessWeek.com article called, When It’s Time to Shutter Your Business. In it, Joe Kennedy, author of The Small Business Owner’s Manual, says, “maybe it’s time when you’ve already unleashed your best products and ideas into the market and they did not work out well.” How can that apply to an industry where we essentially make customized solutions and not “products” as defined by a consumer market?

What would be our best products and ideas? Our last job? Our last good job?

It shouldn’t be a job at all. It should be ideas. The images we produce as examples of our skills, the ones that we exhibit on the web or via other promotional vehicles, to introduce potential buyers to our interests should go far beyond looking like a product we sell. They should represent ideas, motivation, our interests –  because what we create is so deeply personal, just showing samples is not enough to create interest in you. Shoot, shoot and shoot more until there’s a body of work that says, “I have ideas, good ideas.” It’s work, planning what you shoot and what you show and what you don’t show, but then a great body of work says volumes about who you are.

We don’t really sell photography, we sell trust, creativity, reliability, insight, and let’s not forget quality. If you’re not selling that, you’re just selling pictures. These days, you can get those anywhere.

“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.”

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

12/14/09, 10:14AM Union Square Market - Where's the Purple Broccoli?

Where’s the purple broccoli?

I make my marketing message as clear as possible because I want the attention of the smart, little shops with brilliant creatives who fly under the radar, as well as the equally brilliant big boys. I’d certainly lose the interest of those I wish to work for if I sent out a constant stream of mixed messages. Not an easy task in a competitive industry as this, but probably one of the most important lessons we can learn and a word we know all to well. Focus.

If you want to find your audience, keep your message consistent, your work focused and your vision clear.

Detail - Slipcase and Top of Book. Click on photo above to see the whole story.

The folks over at Legion Paper, the parent company of Moab, took a liking to my hand-made portfolio and featured it on the Moab Facebook Fan page. Made with Ballistics cloth, Rayon and Japanese hand made fabric, the portfolio pages were printed on Moab Lasal Matte 235.

And, as nice as the detail photos look, the inside of the book is much prettier, it has my photography in it.

Broken Chard, Union Square Market

Broken Chard wrapped with string at Union Square Market, NYC – 11:13AM June 13, 2009

Since the title of the image in the last post had the word “broken” in it…

Broken Column - Goldfish Outtake

JPG Magazine online just voted my Happy-Go-Lucky Goldfish photo of the week. Once again, I didn’t even know it. Someone from the website said, “congratulations.” I love this photo series as evidenced by my jumping goldfish logo. The photo on this blog posting is an outtake from the original shoot.

3:49PM 7/13/09

A pile of yellow, green and red peppers at Union Square Market – 3:49PM July 13, 2009

These peppers had a wonderful inside glow from the reflected summer afternoon sunlight. I didn’t quite know what I had captured until I viewed them on a large monitor, as the three inch screen on my Canon didn’t show what was really there.

Magic…It’s what happens when you take chances. In this case, shoving the camera lens into the pile of peppers.