Cycle 61 Photography, action step #1

Dropping the bomb...

This afternoon I took what is the first significant action step on my way to building Cycle 61 into a real, live photography business. I’ve needed to make some significant changes to my life for quite a while now, and although I’ve been waffling about doing this for several months, I now find that I have adequate motivation to do so. What I did today should free up many hours of my week, and many brain cycles that are currently absorbed by the stress of my job.

I have previously mentioned my day job, and not in glowing terms. I work for a major Toyota supplier in California, and early last year I accepted a "Promotion" to a supervisory position, overseeing a maintenance group. The net effect on my life was an increase in my workload of 15-20 hours per week, the loss of any predictability in my schedule or shift assignment, and a significantly elevated stress level. Oh, and they paid me about $1.20 an hour more, but I lost my Christmas bonus, or most of it.

The only reason I held on this long was that I have a deep-seated aversion to failure, and to drop the position would have felt like a failure to me. But now, I'm working towards something, not running away from something. So in the interest of my family, and my business, I dropped the above letter on my boss' desk this afternoon.
Wish me luck.

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Photography and Copyright in the internet age

Today I'm going to break from my normal stream of thought and switch channels to somebody else's. Kevin Kelly, author of the Technium blog, has written a very thought-provoking essay "Better Than Free" on what value creative content has in an environment where anything that can be seen or heard can be copied, stored, and redistributed nearly instantaneously. His post, including the image above, is protected under a "Creative Commons" license, which in this case permits free distribution so long as the original creator is credited, and no further restrictions are placed on the work by distributors. He summarizes:

"When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied."

What those things, which he refers to as generatives, might be, after the jump.
Kevin continues his thinking, asking

"We can start with a simple user question: why would we ever pay for anything that we could get for free? When anyone buys a version of something they could get for free, what are they purchasing?

From my study of the network economy I see roughly eight categories of intangible value that we buy when we pay for something that could be free."

Immediacy -- Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is released -- or even better, produced -- by its creators is a generative asset.

Personalization -- As many have noted, personalization requires an ongoing conversation between the creator and consumer, artist and fan, producer and user. It is deeply generative because it is iterative and time consuming. You can't copy the personalization that a relationship represents.

Interpretation -- As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000. But it's no joke. A couple of high profile companies, like Red Hat, Apache, and others make their living doing exactly that.

Authenticity -- You might be able to grab a key software application for free, but even if you don't need a manual, you might like to be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You'll pay for authenticity.

Accessibility -- Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your things tidy, up-to-date, and in the case of digital material, backed up. And in this mobile world, you have to carry it along with you.

Embodiment --Nothing gets embodied as much as music in a live performance, with real bodies. The music is free; the bodily performance expensive. This formula is quickly becoming a common one for not only musicians, but even authors. The book is free; the bodily talk is expensive.

Patronage -- It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect. The elusive, intangible connection that flows between appreciative fans and the artist is worth something.

Findability -- Where as the previous generative qualities reside within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at a higher level in the aggregate of many works. When there are millions of books, millions of songs, millions of films, millions of applications, millions of everything requesting our attention -- and most of it free -- being found is valuable.

These eight qualities require a new skill set...these new eight generatives demand an understanding of how abundance breeds a sharing mindset, how generosity is a business model, how vital it has become to cultivate and nurture qualities that can't be replicated with a click of the mouse.

Please note, this is not anywhere near a transcript of the full essay, I'm merely skipping along the tips of the icebergs here. Please take a few minutes to head over to his site and read the whole thing, if you're in the business you can't afford not to.
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Business building news from PhotoShelter

A huge part of building a photography business is visibility. People have to know about you somehow. Although I've not decided what my specialty will be, I know that one part of my business is going to be stock sales. And along those lines, Photoshelter has just given me a huge boost off my launch pad. The image you see above is the banner ad they launched today on the design site www.behance.net, using one of my images! More details after I catch my breath...

I was contacted earlier this week by Andrew Fingerman, VP of Marketing at PhotoShelter, who wrote:

I came across your Cycle 61 blog a few days ago... love your mission and the story you're sharing. You're exactly the type of new fresh photographer that is helping make our collection diverse and appealing to buyers. Naturally, after I saw the blog I went to check out your images in the collection. One of your images stood out as PERFECT for a new set of banner ads we're doing to raise awareness among buyers....I am working on the next round of ads for a designer site called Behance.net, and I would love the opportunity to feature your image. This is one of the ways we are able to play an advocate role for independent, up and coming photographers. I figured it would be a nice boost as you kickoff your mission. As a best practice, we always ask permission from the photographer to use their image, recognizing that it also helps us raise awareness for the Collection. The credit would obviously be loud and clear "Nick Davis has some of the coolest images you've never seen..."

Of course I wrote back as quickly as I could that I would love to have my image be part of their campaign, and now it's live on behance.net, hardly 48 hours after our initial contact.

Thanks Andrew, for picking this up and helping support the little guys like me. I think the real story here is far larger than any one image or ad on a website. This kind of action shows me that you guys are building something that has the power to really turn the industry around. Should be an interesting ride. I'm all in. Let's help bring some self-respect back to the artists, stop selling ourselves out, and see what we can do.

When you see somebody going places, grab hold and hang on tight. I'm white-knuckle here, and I love every second of it.
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Alamy update: 90% Success = 100% Failure

Quick update here. I got an email from Alamy this morning regarding my images I submitted for QC. They completed their review much more quickly than I had expected, only taking a week instead of the stated 25 days. Of the ten images I submitted (I was only supposed to submit four)nine passed QC. Unfortunately, 90% isn't good enough for them. The one that failed was the shot of the kid's sandals on a ramp down into the water with a pair of feet wading in the background. Their stated reasons for failing the image were "Interpolation artifacts" and "Soft or lacking definition" Pictures and thoughts after the jump.

Although I knew their policies going in, this seems a bit silly to me. I'm undecided as to whether I want to re-upload four of the images, leaving out the failed one, or just take a pass on the whole thing and stick to one agency for now. PhotoShelter has been very good for me so far, I'm thinking that using them exclusively for a while might be a good plan.

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More business building steps

Today we continue with some more action steps, some building blocks to get my business out of the ethereal realm of "I wish" and into the concrete reality of "I am." The things I'm writing today are things that I am doing. I haven't done them all, or even started them all, but they are all tasks I must accomplish, processes to be completed. Many are simple daily things like keeping up with my contacts, as outlined yesterday, and many are far more involved and complex. I'll try to keep the descriptions brief, because I'm developing this on the fly and I tend to get wordy when I do that. Let's see how many things I can think of, right off the top of my head. Start counting, after the jump.

1. I need to talk to a tax person, regarding my 2007 expenditures, and whether my hobby already may count as a Sole proprietorship in California. From an article on www.bplans.com "Sole proprietorships are so easy to set up and maintain that you may already own one without knowing it."
2. Write an actual business plan. This one will spawn about a hundred more of it's own little action steps, so it will definitely warrant a post or two by itself. I am again using www.bplans.com as one of my resources, thanks StanfordPhoto for the link.
   
3. Obtain the necessary paperwork from the City of Dublin (in California, where I live) to officialize my business. (My word processor doesn't think officialize is a word, but I say it is.) I remember looking into this before for a different business idea, and the process was going to total about three months and around $800. Time to get going on this.
4. Thoroughly investigate the commercial viability of several different genres of photography, and cross-check this to what I enjoy doing, and what I am capable of doing at a professional level. If these lists don't line up, I need to either focus on my skills in a viable area of photography, or find a way to make a niche all my own. I personally prefer a combination of both.
   
5. Develop some type of physical marketing media that I can carry with me and hand out to people as I have the opportunity. (Like, maybe a business card?) Yes, but I'm thinking something a bit more eye-catching. Photography is all visual, after all, and a 3"x5" promo card with some contact info on the back would catch my eye much more than another business card. Something like what Paul Treacy has here. I may need a few different versions, depending on who's getting them.
   
6. Tie my online presence together much more cohesively. Right now I have this blog, my gallery site at Zenfolio, and a bunch of pictures on Flickr. I'm looking into moving to Photoshelter for my gallery hosting, they're much more customizable as far as integration, but I don't really have a website to integrate into. Maybe I'm putting the cart before the horse here, but I'm expecting a LOT of traffic in a couple of days. More on that in a day or so.
7. Canvas the people and organizations I'm in contact with every day for possible leads or assignments. I can sell myself to a stranger, but it's more difficult when talking to family or friends. The kids' school may want staff pictures. My cousin is in a semi-professional theater group, I shot for them last year and may get to again next month. The wife of one of my co-workers' shoots weddings professionally. I need to pursue these.
   
8. Tell the people who are close to me what I'm doing. This sounds silly, but as of right now, I'm only really accountable to you, mostly a bunch of strangers. I could give up, walk away, and pretty much never hear about it again. But I won't. Very few of my co-workers know about this whole thing yet. Most of my family doesn't know either. My wife, whose life may be profoundly affected by this, is only vaguely aware. My boss probably won't know until I tell him that I'm stepping down from the supervisor position he got me into last year, because it takes too many hours out of my week.
9. Keep getting my name out there. I need your support to make this happen. In just the last week, traffic here has taken off, and I've gotten messages from several people I never would have expected to hear from. This is part of grassroots marketing, viral marketing, word of mouth, whatever. If we launch this blog onto Google's first search page for "Photography business" because a ton of you think this is inspiring, and link to my site, that's going to be awesome.
   
10. Craigslist. I'm going to start advertising on Craigslist regularly. It's free, it's incredibly well-trafficked, and people use it for everything. I wrecked a car and then blew up the motor as well. Sold it to a buddy, he's rebuilding it with about 90% CL parts, and will probably turn a decent profit when he sells. High end businesses use CL because they know that's where people look. My brother in law has a moving company up in Seattle that's grown into a $500k per year operation on 2 factors: Consistent CL advertising, and excellent customer service.

Okay, my mind's spinning free now, and I'm about out of coherent ideas that relate to business building for now. More stuff tomorrow, topic to be determined by the events of the next 23 hours...
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Cycle 61 Photography: Baby steps

After outlining my goals over the last two days, today I'm going to lay down a couple of action steps that need to happen in order to get the ball rolling towards reaching those goals. These are my baby steps. No point trying to leap tall buildings right out of the gate (I'll get to that soon enough), let's try walking a bit first. A few of the little things I'm going to be working on, after the jump. And apologies to my son for the picture above, he's four now and I don't have a good recent picture that could illustrate "Baby steps"
The first step, and one that will be a continual challenge for me, is keeping up with the volume of correspondence and communication that any business generates. Already, a number of people have spoken up in the comments, and I intend to keep in touch with you guys. StockPhoto, I will definitely be in touch about the tax guy. I think I'm too late for 2007, but if so, I'm going to find out why and what I could have done differently. Paul Treacy, yes, let's keep tabs. I'd be interested in hearing more about your experiences over the last 15 years, and I'll be digging into your website more soon. Sean, thanks again for the post, sometimes I'm more about passion than brains, but I usually figure it out in the end. I read your business plan post from last year, and there's a lot of things in there that I need to explore. Aczyzyk, thanks for the support. I'm following a dream here, maybe I can inspire a few others to do the same.
And Mom, I know you left a comment but I can't seem to find it anywhere. I love you!
Baby step #2 is that I need to get a lot of my good material onto Photoshelter, and very quickly. Something big is about to happen. I'm so excited about it I'm bubbling, but I'll have to keep the cat in the bag for another few days. Stay tuned...
And speaking of baby steps, today the Strobist goes way back to basics, with a cool reader-submitted video that's Pre-Lighting 101 for those who aren't yet comfortable with the basics. It's a very good place to begin if you're just starting to explore off-camera lighting. I hope David keeps it in a prominent spot in his site.

Today is Super Tuesday. Get out and vote! That's where I'm headed to right now.

Tomorrow: More action steps, and maybe some big news!
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Goals and Objectives, Part II

So yesterday, I laid out a few of my big picture goals. Noting too crazy, just replacing my overtime income, quitting my job, and total world domination. Wait, scratch that last part. I'll settle for North America. But the reality is that while these are great points on the horizon, I'm going to need a few intermediate steps, some things I can work on directly. They will build towards my long term plans, of course, but they're concrete, achievable things that I can plan for. No world domination today, instead, some nuts and bolts after the jump.
Okay, here comes some real-world, more meaningful, short term targets. The goals from here on out are also nowhere near sequential. Remember, stream of consciousness.

Goal #3 is to decide on a genre of photography in which I will focus my efforts. Yep, that's right, I don't even have a specialty yet. But I will. I have to. Being a "landscape and kids" guy isn't going to cut it. I'll recap a conversation I had with David Hobby, of Strobist. I had mentioned stock photography, asked about his thoughts on the future of stock as a business model, and mentioned that I had a hard drive full of images that look "just like the ones I see on all the stock websites" He answered simply "Then you're in trouble" I rant in detail about the subject in my earlier post here.

Goal #4 is to make Cycle 61 Photography a legal and legitimate entity, without breaking the bank. My taxes this year are agonizingly simple. One income, standard deductions, three kids an a wife. Bam. Done in about 15 minutes, literally. A quick look at what I've spent on and about my hobby in 2007 reveals that had I been able to deduct these expenses, I would have saved in taxes far more than the few hundred bucks it would have cost to go through the paperwork to launch a sole proprietorship here in California. Any significant financial outlay in pursuit of my business goals needs to be deductible, and soon. I've already spent several hundred $ this year that could all have been tax deductible. Also, I'm working on a business card, and I would feel really fake printing a business card when technically I don't have a business.

Goal #5 is simple. Draw clients by being very, very good at what I do, and relying on word of mouth and low level marketing. There won't be any billboards in my near future, but a window sign on the back of the van is a distinct possibility. Maybe one on the Jag, too. I drive that heap slowly enough that everybody could read it. A friend who does weddings and events gets almost all her customers through word of mouth, and maybe one or two a year through her ridiculously expensive 1/4 page ad in the Yellow Pages.

Goal #6 Build my photographic knowledge by taking a class, seminar, lesson, shooting with a pro, or just reading a good book or two every month. I've currently got on order from Amazon a copy of Joe McNally's "The moment it clicks" and Scott Kelby's "The Digital Photography Book, Volume II" I've been meaning to check out Joe's book, but the review tonight on Strobist put me over the edge.

Goal #7 Network, network, network. This one is natural, but also very difficult, because it always looks to an outsider like "talking on the phone" or "checking my email" or worst of all "screwing around on the internet" I've been working on this diligently, building contacts with the photography groups in the area, helping to arrange and set up meetups, and taking any chance I can to rub shoulders with photographers in the area. There's a local Strobist group meeting in Santa Clara next weekend, details are here if you're interested.

Goal #8 Always have a job scheduled. This may be anything, from an upcoming shoot, to a day as an assistant, to a personal project that could yield paying stock images, anything. This is key for me, as it will force me to keep actively building my contacts, clients, and opportunities. Talk about stream of consciousness, that first line was on screen before I knew how it was going to end. Goal #8 is officially my favorite. My next job: Before the strobist meetup on 2/9, I will do some early morning street photography in San Jose with the purpose of developing a dozen or so "Urban" images for my stock portfolio.

Tomorrow: Baby steps
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Cycle 61 Photography: Goals and Objectives

Welcome back to the very first steps of building a photography business from nothing into a viable, enjoyable, and sustainable entity. (Accidental alliteration) (Twice) Yesterday I outlined where I am in the process, and in what form the business currently exists. Today I'm going to hammer out some goals, and see where I want to direct my efforts over the next several months. This may come out rather "stream of consciousness" as I'm basically developing these ideas a few moments before they hit the keyboard. I'm naked here. Mentally. Read on, if you dare, after the jump.

I realize already I'm going to have to start at the top and work down. So for today, here's the big ones:

My first, and most over-arching goal, is simply to have Cycle 61 Photography replace my current job. This is a huge, and daunting vision unto itself. My job, although it sucks the very life out of my soul, offers a steady and decent paycheck, enough to cover the cost of a family of five living a modest lifestyle in the San Francisco bay area, one of the country's most expensive regions. To do this will mean playing in the big leagues of the photographic industry. This goal may be a few years off, but it's the pinnacle towards which all other efforts shall point. Chase Jarvis is my inspiration here. When he was done being a ski bum with a camera, he took all his shots, assembled a portfolio, and said to himself "How can I make the most possible money off of my images." So he sold them (and himself) to REI. From nothing to big-league commercial/advertising in about a month. Chase, you rock!

The second, and slightly more attainable goal, it to replace the overtime income I currently earn. My employer frequently permits us to work, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, and most of us jump at the chance. I simply can't cover my bills on 40 hours pay (see, I told you there would be ugly, raw spots here) and I want to not be at work any more than I have to. This is not so lofty as goal #1, but will still be a major accomplishment. Over 40% of my 2007 income was overtime. I've got three kids that are growing up right under my nose, and I'm missing it, because I'm always at work.

This is the long range stuff. --RANT ON-- I've said this already, but I don't want to be just another landscape photographer, another wedding or headshot or whatever guy. I'm willing to work through that, but I'm going to find a niche, dig it out with an axe, make it viable, and absolutely own it. I want everybody who shoots in my field to have the thought, nagging in the back of their mind, that if they do a kick-ass job then everybody will think they're copying Nick Davis. Why? Because I'm Nick Davis. And although I'm a really nice guy, I'm arrogant, tenacious, and crazy enough to launch a photography business and know that I can make it fly. --RANT OFF-- Whew. That feels good to get those words out. Okay, let's make that rant be goal #0. Even more fundamental that replacing my income, is building something amazing, and powerful, and truly, uniquely mine. Today was big picture. More nuts and bolts tomorrow. See ya!
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Welcome to Cycle 61 Photography

Good morning, and welcome to Cycle 61 Photography (It's morning somewhere, so no nitpicking yet.)

It's Saturday, February 2, 2008 as I write this.

My name is Nick Davis, I'm an amateur photographer with professional aspirations, and I have committed to building the entity known to me as Cycle 61 Photography into a real, legitimate, licensed, legal, profitable, and above all, sustainable business. In keeping with the wonderful open-source, open book, free sharing mindset that has developed in the photographic community in the internet age, this process is going to be open for all to follow along the way.
Over the next year or so, you will watch a photography business grow from the ground up. There will be pitfalls, setbacks and triumph, challenges and conquests, anguish, stress, beauty, and light. Always light. Photography is about light, after all.
The next few days will be about where I'm at, where I want to go with this thing, and how I'm going to get there. Read on after the jump.

My current position, just to establish a solid baseline, is as follows.

• I have a website, with my own domain name. The website is www.cycle61.com, it's galleries are hosted via a Premium account on www.zenfolio.com ($120 per year) which allows me unlimited storage and the ability to sell prints of my images directly from the website. The domain name itself was purchased from www.godaddy.com for about $45 for two years. If you're reading this in November 2009, please send me an email and remind me to renew!
• Cycle 61 is a nerdy joke from my electrician days. Normal US electricity being 60hz, or cycles per second, "Cycle 61" would be something extra, something more than what was expected. Yes, I'm a dork. Somewhere in Europe, there's got to be somebody running "Cycle 51" for the same reason.
• I have been accepted at Photoshelter, a newly launched stock agency, and a very progressive, non-predatory one in terms of how they treat their creative contributors. Check them out, and if you're a microstock photographer, please reconsider how you're valuing your work. I have, at this moment, around 50 images fully processed and live on their system, with about that many in the approval pipeline as well. My total sales so far are $0.00, but I've only been live with them about a week, and my keywording needs refinement.
  
• I have photographed precisely one event under the guise of a semi-professional, that event being the talent show at my kids' elementary school. I was running a Nikon D200, a rented 70-200/2.8 lens, a set of Pocket Wizards and two flashes set off-camera. After the third or fourth person who asked if I was shooting for the school, I started answering yes. Pictures were downloaded, processed, sorted, and uploaded to a dedicated gallery on my Zenfolio site by 8am the next day. The school secretary sent out an email with the relevant info to all the parents later that afternoon. In the first 24 hours I've had about 60 hits on the site, but no sales as yet.
• I have a passionate, burning desire to be a photographer. I know and understand that the realities of any job are different than the outsider perceives them to be. I do not expect this to be easy. I can, and will, bust my butt to make this thing real.
• I have been establishing a network of contacts in the photography business over the last several months. I am continuing to build and develop this network daily, and Ive begun to see an exponential growth in the number of people I find myself in contact with. I'm also starting to run into the same people through different paths, which tells me I'm doing something right. I have been active in a couple of photography group arranged over various internet forums, notably DPReview and Strobist. I've met some full-time professionals, and a lot of people like myself, who would like to be pro and probably have the photographic talent to pull it off. The differences between these groups, between those who do and those who could but don't, are fascinating to me.

Quick recap. I will build my avocation into a legitimate photography business. I've got nothing to hide, and everything to gain, by being open an accountable to all. This may not always be pretty, but I guarantee it will never be boring. If you are a pro, follow along and drop me a line if you see something I need to fix. If you're not, but you ever wanted to do what's about to happen on this site, keep reading and maybe I can save you a pitfall or two.

Control is an illusion, but you can always enjoy the ride.

Next: My photographic and business goals.
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Some flashy stuff

Kid with guitar, originally uploaded by cycle61.

One of my personal favorite images from this evening's talent show at the kids' elementary school. The gym is far too dark for ambient action shooting without a D3, so some creative Strobist work is a necessity. More after the jump.
I set up two SB's, one on either side of the room, pointing towards the stage, both set at maximum zoom, 1/4 power, and triggered by my Pocket Wizards. This served me well for most of the acts, but towards the end, I knew I had enough good shots in the can to keep the school happy, so I started playing around. Several times, I walked up the right side of the room, shutting off my flash on the way by, and shooting across the stage at the now backlit performers. I will definitely be doing this more in the future.

Oh, and I'm shooting with a rented Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR lens. It's mine for two weeks. Unless I decide to flee to Canada or something. It's that good.

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