Tim Gruber and Jenn Ackerman use both photography and video to tell stories for editorial and commercial clients. 
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Coming Soon! Every year we'll be publishing at least two magazines of our work. Look for our first issue soon.
If you haven’t noticed my blog has taken a backseat to living life.
I hate resolutions. I’d rather just act and do what needs to be done. So with that in mind I’ve made a point of making this a year of tangibles.
Savoring human interaction, basking in afternoon light, watching the dolphins swim, walking til my calves ache, collapsing to the seductive smell of a new book, saying hello to strangers, a messy and well used kitchen and so much more.
Basically a life with less noise. I’ve become a slave to technology and while I enjoy all the benefits it brings me the pitfalls have had me longing for a disconnect.
Seth made a great point that’s worth reinforcing for photographers and all creatives alike and that’s just to do it. Make it happen. By now you’ve probably had enough time to break your resolutions for the new year so disregard that and just get out there and act on an impulse. Try it just once. Don’t over think it. Just get out and see what happens.
I gave it a try all last week and today again. I went out to explore with my Hasselblad. What I found was a landscape of possibilities and if I’m lucky(we’ll see when I get the film back) a few images I can add to a project I’m working on.
The hardest part is starting something.
One key element of a successful artist: ship. Get it out the door. Make things happen.
The other: fail. Fail often. Dream big and don’t make it. Not every time, anyway.
Tim got his ideas out the door, to the people who decided what to do with them. And more often than not, they shot down his ideas. That’s okay. He shipped.
These principles might help in guiding your work. I know they gave me something to think about especially the few below. Read the rest of the principles here at 10 Principles That Might Make Your Work Better or May Make It Worse
A few of the principles to get you thinking:
2. Consistent voice is more important than consistent style.
Voice is about what you say. It’s content. Style is about what you’re wearing. It’s aesthetics. The prior informs the latter, not the other way around. Clothes don’t make the man. They don’t make your work either.
3. Does it have heart?
If it does, make it. If it doesn’t, why spend the time on something that doesn’t have spirit?
8. Being too comfortable is dangerous.
Most creatures die in their sleep. Keep moving, or get eaten. The only things you should be absolutely comfortable with in your creative process are your tools.
9. There is nothing keeping you from doing the sort of work that you wish.
What do you want? It’s a hard, yet crucial question. We all do creative work to get happy. It’s why we let it beat us up, and it’s why we keep crawling back to it. Figure out precisely what you want, and realize that if no one will pay you to make it, you can still make it for yourself. And you still win, because you’re happy.
I’ve been a huge fan of Twyla Tharp and her use of project boxes for things she’s working on. Here’s a brief primer on the idea from Twyla if you’re not familiar with it:
The Project Box. Everyone has his or her own organizational system. I start every dance with a box, the kind you can buy at Office Depot for transferring files. I write the project name on the box, and as the piece progresses I fill it up with every item that went into the making of the dance. This means notebooks, news clippings, CDs, videotapes of me working alone in my studio, videos of the dancers rehearsing, books and photographs and pieces of art that may have inspired me.
The box documents the active research on every project. For a Maurice Sendak project, the box is filled with notes from Sendak, snippets of William Blake poetry, toys that talk back to you. There are separate boxes for everything I’ve ever done. This archive provides material to call on, to use as a spark for invention.
The box makes me feel that I have my act together even when I don’t know where I’m going yet. It represents a commitment. The simple act of writing a project name on the box means I’ve started work. The box also connects me to a project. It is my soil. I feel this even when I’ve back-burnered a project: My box may be away on a shelf, but I know it’s there.
Most important, the box means I never have to worry about forgetting. One of the biggest fears for a creative person is that some brilliant idea will get lost because you didn’t write it down and put it somewhere safe.
The purpose of the project box also has to do with efficiency and ease of work. A writer with a good storage and retrieval system can write faster. She isn’t spending a lot of time looking things up, scouring her papers, and patrolling other rooms at home wondering where she left that perfect quote. It’s in the box.
The Problem:
For years I’ve been struggling with keeping my own idea boxes, quotes I like, photos I’ve torn out of magazines and other misc creative snippets organized. My ideas and things are scattered across moleskins, random notebooks, multiple text documents, emails to myself, moving boxes, rubbermaid totes, a del.i.cious account, bookmarks in books and on and on. Being a nomad for the last few years of my life having physical boxes just isn’t practical for me. For the most part I didn’t have a system when it came to organizing my things; it was and still is a creative disaster.
Solution:
Evernote.
Slowly thanks to Evernote I’ve been working to change that. I signed up for the free(there’s also a premium version) service of Evernote and downloaded the app for my Mac and iPhone. I’ve had the app on my iPhone for months but never really used it. The other day out of necessity I finally gave it a shot. Jenn and I have been holding little mini workshops and the last one was a marketing workshop with a focus on defining our list of ideal clients. I was paging through past Communication Arts Photography and Advertising Annuals looking for ad agencies working on projects I like and projects that might be a good fit for my way of shooting. My problem was that I wanted to have a visual documentation of the ad agencies and the work they commissioned. If I didn’t care about preserving my annuals I could just rip out the photos, but seeing as I enjoying flipping through ‘em and at 24 bux it’s not exactly like ripping a photo out of a free weekly. I needed to a find a solution that visually allowed me to document the work and the ad agencies that did the campaign.
I was able to quickly flip through my annuals and with my iPhone take photos of the work I liked. From the iPhone app I was able to sync my snapshots to my Evernote account and within seconds I had a visual archive of potential clients tagged, cataloged and all indexed in an easy place to find them. The killer part is that Evernote has ability to search beyond just simple text in a document. It can search for text in images. I’m not sure how it does it, but it’s really helpful. So not only do I have a visual archive of creative inspiration it’s an image archive that’s searchable beyond simple text.
There are a million other uses for Evernote, but others have covered that a lot better than I could. See these few posts for more uses: How to Use Evernote to Create the Ultimate Post Conference Reference Guide and 14 Practical Ways to Use Evernote
Either way give it a look if you’re looking for a way to visually organize your ideas and inspirations. As a photographer I couldn’t think of a more useful productivity/organizational app.
Here’s an ad campaign I cataloged in Evernote that I liked and it shows an example of Evernote’s ability to search an image for text.
A screenshot of my photo inspiration notebook in Evernote. Any images I come across that I like I throw in this inspiration notebook.
Read more from Twyla in her article titled Why Creativity’s a Habit and Everyone Can Learn It.
If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you know that fear and failure are topics I blog about often.
fear.less is an online magazine that will be launching soon that has notable people address the issue of overcoming fear. I signed up for their magazine awhile back and today I received a PDF about Platon facing and overcoming his fears.
I’d post the PDF, but it seems like something they are using as incentive to get people to sign up so I’m not sure they’d be happy with me posting it so instead I’ll share a few highlights with you.
It’s a great article with a lot of it resonating with me as I work to get established.
A few quotes and some of my random thoughts thrown in:
In the beginning, everything is hard, no matter what profession you choose. I was always obsessed with the idea when I was younger of “How did other people make it?” When you’re a student, you feel you’re on the other side of things, that there’s this beautiful, imaginary castle where everybody goes when they’ve “made it.” I finally learned “made it” doesn’t actually exist; it’s just an idea you look up to when you’re beginning. When you’re on the tracks, it’s the continuous journey that makes a difference, not the end result. The end result is when you kick the bucket.
I’m guilty of doing this all the time. I’ll hear someone speak and one of the first questions that will pop into my little head is; How’d you make it and what advice would you give to someone starting out? Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your outlook there isn’t a formula and everyone’s journey is unique. Although when you’re on the beginning of that journey it often becomes easy to lose sight of the road and you start to feel like you’re playing the lottery rather than building a career.
I came to realize that it’s actually irrelevant how anybody else does it if you’re looking for a formula to apply to yourself. The truth is, everyone’s journey is different, everyone’s personality is different, and everyone’s talent or weaknesses are different. It’s more important to really get to know yourself and understand who you are, understand your Achilles’ heel and your strengths, which can often be completely unrecognized in the beginning.
Your instincts are your true guide, and a lot of young people are bullied into not listening to their instincts because they don’t fit into the protocol of the establishment. It’s your instincts and emotions backed with resilience, drive and confidence that make you empowered. If you keep pushing through, eventually you break the ice.
Like a wolf lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on the weak and injured self-doubt lingers waiting to paralyze you into fear. Trust your heart and gut to pull you through.
I went in 36 times in three years with my portfolio before they finally gave me a job. I think I showed every single person my work, even the receptionist. I was just so committed to getting in there that, I think eventually, they just felt sorry for me and wanted to shut me up. You have to have the mentality that you won’t take “no” for an answer and look at what you’re aiming for at that moment in time and see how to make it happen.
I’m experiencing this first hand trying to get meetings with editors. It’s a process that could easily have you waving the white flag after the first day of not hearing back from any of the editors you contacted. You continue to push on to the second day of contacting editors, which blurs into day three and still nothing. Finally by day four an editor sends you a note and says they’d love to see your work and your hope is renewed. You must stay the course.
There’s no “arrival,” because you’ve always got the next step on the journey. Young people need to understand that, they need to feel that. When you’re intimidated by the establishment or successful people, or you feel like you’re not worthy in some ridiculous way, then you’ve got to remind yourself that they’re on the same journey that you are, and believe me, they’re just as frightened of you as you are of them. You’re young, you’re talented, you have a burning energy they don’t have, you have no history, no skeletons in the closet, you’re just liberated.
You can’t hide what you’re really feeling, especially from me, because I’m good at catching it. In fact, I’m looking for it.
It’s not about achieving or winning or acquiring something. It’s more visceral than that. It goes back to “Who am I? Am I happy? Am I really living?
What happens as a photographer when you find yourself facing a creative block?
We all face them at some point in our careers. What’s most interesting perhaps is how we as creatives choose to individually fight our way through. One of my professors would stress the importance of shooting your way out of it. Others would stress just putting the camera down for awhile until the passion resurfaces.
Below are a few choice quotes from a writer’s perspective on dealing with ideas and blocks:
the hard fact is that words are emotional things, and emotions shift. They grow. They grow impossible. They move away. There is a tide in creativity, and until you are familiar with its ebb and flow, it is hard to look at that distant sea and believe that it will ever come close again.
So I don’t do “inspiration” or “blocks”. I just do “work” and hope for the best. Some days the geese stay geese, but often enough I get a bit of swan action; a still reflection, a glimpse of white. The trick is to keep yourself open to the moment. The trick is to keep yourself vulnerable and true, and this can be tiring, after a while. It can hurt – quite literally. So there will be times when you have to retire a little, and shut down.
But there is no need to panic. It does come back. One day it comes back. The tide turns. The words mean something again, and they manage to stick to the page. The right shell is on the beach, the light is beautiful and just for you. As you turn into the wind and head for home, the swan itself shits on your coat. And there, standing by the car, is another human being.
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. -Michelangelo
As Jenn and I were making the move to NYC last week I spent most of the ride here questioning if I’m cut out for this. After all the education, time, and money invested in becoming a photographer would I have been better off becoming a 9-5 cubicle monkey? We all know the answer to that. Yet I still have those days where I question if I have what it takes and if my pictures are any good?
We all know we don’t do this for money, fame or our sanity.
So why do I do this? The consistent is that I love to create. That has never changed. Every so often this desire to create leads to an image I like enough to call a keeper. Often it leads to mounds of trash but as we all know it takes only one great image to make up for the thousand miscues before it. Or as Tom reminded me of this Cartier-Bresson quote:
“It’s seldom you make a great picture. You have to milk the cow quite a lot and get plenty of milk to make a little cheese.”
Other than that my reasons for doing this seem to change as I evolve as a person and photographer. I have my moments where I enjoy the steep, winding and blizzard like conditions that being a freelance photographer bring. Other times it’s the tranquility and calm I feel when I bring the camera to my eye. It drowns out all and any noise allowing me for a few brief seconds to live in the moment.
I’ve also been enjoying the process of refining and finding my voice or vision if you will. What am finding though is it’s something that can’t be forced. It comes only naturally and without thought or pressure. It comes when you forget everything and let your instincts take the wheel. Your vision isn’t something that you find. It finds you in time. I just need to keep feeding it more pictures.
Why are you a photographer?
Calvin is one of the many amazing Tuskegee Airmen I photographed and told me his greatest asset was his smile. I agreed.
Much like An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth which I’ve blogged about numerous times already. The Ten Things I Have Learned by Milton Glaser is another read that will make a healthy addition to your creative life.
Glaser’s item number six really hit home with me as it talks about style something I’ve been dealing with a lot recently in putting my print portfolio together.
6 – STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
It’s absurd to be loyal to a style. It does not deserve your loyalty. I must say that for old design professionals it is a problem because the field is driven by economic consideration more than anything else. Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different. Typefaces go in and out of style and the visual system shifts a little bit. If you are around for a long time as a designer, you have an essential problem of what to do. I mean, after all, you have developed a vocabulary, a form that is your own. It is one of the ways that you distinguish yourself from your peers, and establish your identity in the field. How you maintain your own belief system and preferences becomes a real balancing act. The question of whether you pursue change or whether you maintain your own distinct form becomes difficult. We have all seen the work of illustrious practitioners that suddenly look old-fashioned or, more precisely, belonging to another moment in time. And there are sad stories such as the one about Cassandre, arguably the greatest graphic designer of the twentieth century, who couldn’t make a living at the end of his life and committed suicide.But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist. What is it that people now expect that they formerly didn’t want? And how to respond to that desire in a way that doesn’t change your sense of integrity and purpose.
A few more from the list:
8 – DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between scepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is.One of the signs of a damaged ego is absolute certainty. Schools encourage the idea of not compromising and defending your work at all costs. Well, the issue at work is usually all about the nature of compromise. You just have to know what to compromise. Blind pursuit of your own ends which excludes the possibility that others may be right does not allow for the fact that in design we are always dealing with a triad – the client, the audience and you.
9 – ON AGING.
The first rule is the best. Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late or early, if you are here or there, if you said it or didn’t say it, if you are clever or if you were stupid. If you were having a bad hair day or a no hair day or if your boss looks at you cockeyed or your boyfriend or girlfriend looks at you cockeyed, if you are cockeyed. If you don’t get that promotion or prize or house or if you do – it doesn’t matter.’ Wisdom at last.
Note: I write a lot of blog posts that go unpublished. Mainly they act as a journal for my thoughts. This blog post is more self-therapy for myself, but maybe it’ll help you a bit.
This industry can do crazy things to one’s self-esteem. Where else do you hear of people paying 500 dollars for a portfolio review to get their work ripped apart? Or throwing down 30 bucks an image with the hopes of being included in one of the twenty contests PDN puts on?
Whether it’s through contests or browsing the web we’re constantly comparing ourselves and our accomplishments to others.
But what does comparing yourself to others do? Very little. If you’re like me you could benefit from spending less time worrying about what everyone else is doing and just do your thing. There are many ways to grow as a photographer, but I can promise you one of the fastest ways to keep growing is to keep creating.
Focus on what you can control. Channel your energy towards doing what you love and the way you love to do it and forget the rest.
Conan on comparing yourself to others:
Maybe I’m a bumbling, Gomer Pyle fool who should be more concerned about this stuff, but I can’t control what’s going on around me,” Mr. O’Brien said. “And TV is changing so much, I don’t think anybody in television knows how it’s going to play out.
A lot of that is up to me. If I do a good, funny, and fresh ‘Tonight Show’ every night at 11:35, it’s going to be successful, and it’s going to be irrelevant what everybody else is doing.
This essay/speech is by Karl Paulnack and was given to incoming freshman music majors at the Boston Conservatory. While the focus of the speech is geared to aspiring musicians it has universal creative appeal. It’s a gem so be sure to read it.
A few quotes:
Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.
Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.
If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.
Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.
Merlin Mann has a nice post today on The Problem with “Feeling Creative”
Creative work only seems like a magic trick to people who don’t understand that it’s ultimately still work.
This is a tough idea to sell to folks with “real jobs” who are just looking for a diverting bit of creative tourism or who find themselves yearning for a nostalgic amble past a mostly-abandoned adolescent arts hobby. People who want to learn how to feel creative. To feel successful. To feel like an artist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The athlete got good not by reading reviews of headbands, but by waking up early, lacing shoes in the dark, and hitting the track to train hard.