01/09/2010 - Akamaru Modern Ramen at Ippudo, NYC

I put an ad up on Craigslist in February for a food stylist and much to my surprise, there were responses from 2 chefs: Corey Earling, the third place runner up from Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen (season four) and Rob Endelman, a wonderful natural food chef and educator.

These responses plus responses from 5 other established food stylists and one dessert chef left me stunned. I never expected such great talent to respond to my posting.

This winter I started making my own udon and ramen at home. I’d been eating out regularly at Setagaya Ramen, Rai Rai Ken and Ippudo, each within a few blocks of each other, and each bowl of ramen is so very different in taste and appearance, it intrigued me. So it was bound to happen; this all started to migrate to my home cooking and somewhere along the way, I got the notion to shoot food and thus, the posting on Craigslist.

Everyone is so thrilled to be collaborating toward a vision and style that expands each of our individual books. I’m really looking forward to this new endeavor.

And I love the fact that digital food photography isn’t something that can be done with 3-D.

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

Inside spread of D.A.Wagner's work from Freelance Portfolio Magazine

Yesterday afternoon, Greg Welch called me regarding a submission I made to his, about-to-be-launched, Freelance Portfolio Magazine, scheduled for December. He’d taken a look at the blog and felt there was something compelling about my comparisons of Mandelbrot’s fractals, NASA satellite imagery and my photographs of food. It struck a chord and we chatted a while about my past history with computers and special effects and, instead of my original submission, he asked to publish the images from the post. He mentioned that the launch was pushed up and he expected to put it up by today.

And he did. With my images included. I love the way it looks and Greg got me to thinking again about those visual relationships that somehow connect the very small to the very large. I spent most of my morning cruising through CERN, Fermilab and NASA, looking for more ways that that happens. Look for them in upcoming posts.

Thanks, Greg.

Shopping with the Kids

About a year ago I was searching for an identity, a vision that would make me, me, at least in the eyes of others in terms of my work. Along the way, I found something more profound than a voice or an identity.

I found shopping.

I found the cheesy children’s toy department in Rite Aid Stores (Search for “toys” at the Rite Aid website and you get comprehensive listing of sex toys – search “children’s toys”  and you get, of all things, vitamins first, then toys. I recommend that you just go there in person).

I found the mask store in Antigua, Guatemala on one of my bike tours.

I found the housewares and glassware departments in Macy’s with a 6-month return policy.

I discovered Sephora (just for props, honest).

Then there’s Petco and CB2 and Pearl River (which I thought had closed) and the fish-mongers in Chinatown and the rubber store on Canal Street and Muji and Pylones and Lush (love the soaps, hate the fragrance) and Bed Bath and Beyond and the Lighting and Beyond store on 14th Street and, and, and…

I think only my daughter understands this.

Happy Go Lucky Goldfish

When I was a kid, my dad had a workshop, his sanctuary really. There were countless days spent at his side, building or fixing something, always setting up some kind of power tool or hand tool, depending upon the project of the moment. Much of that time I would have preferred playing outside with my friends, but it was demanded of me to be my father’s assistant, like it or not. But, like it or not, I learned. I learned to wood carve, make moulding and furniture from scratch, frame out and build structures, weld pipes, repair radios, TVs, and clocks, wire electrical outlets, and on and on.

No matter the project, he would read up, dive in, then bitch and moan about something gone wrong – frequently crying out loud, “goddammit!” – but in the end the project got completed flawlessly, as if he were a master craftsman, when in real life he was simply a repo man for a truck company. His quest for excellence was overwhelming at times, as nothing short of perfect was ever acceptable.

What about all these bits and pieces I weathered in his shadow? I grew up having a real comfort level around power and hand tools and that now translates into improvising sets and finding solutions to the day-to-day challenges of photography. These days I don’t build so much; it’s more like I modify props and rig sets to suit my needs. Although I’m not adverse installing an outlet or replacing an old faucet, it’s a lot more fun drilling out the bottom of a fish tank to see if water spins in a vortex.

Broken Eggs

I was tooling around the NAPP – National Association of Photoshop Professionals – web site (I’m a member) and discovered my Broken Eggs photograph is an Editor’s Choice for this this week. Who knew? It’s a nice way to end the week.

http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/portfolios

7/02/09 addendum – The week is over and you can’t find my Editor’s Choice photo any longer. But you can check out my Photoshop User Portfolio.

And, on another note, the final portfolio pages are being printed. This means Monday, the portfolios are ready to go out.

Ladybug dripping from espresso machine

So, here I am, launching a new portfolio of work feeling as excited and motivated as one can be, even in the midst of all this economic disaster. Photography consultant, Selina Maitreya, has guided and groomed me over the past year for this event. We’ve looked at the vision, voice, and process of my work and clearly identified them, and then I set about the journey of reinventing myself one step at a time. At times I felt a bit disoriented and wanted to take the easy path, returning to old habits. Gradually I got my orientation and the vision emerged from some undefined region of my brain. As it turns out, contrary to popular belief, John Medina’s research shows that some parts of our adult brains stay as malleable as a baby’s. Lucky me.

Selina and John have both proven that, if we choose, we can create new visions and new ideas if we put our minds to it.

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