Cheerleaders & Delusions

"Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized."

I lived in Chicago for 12 years and got to know the city and it's history fairly well when I can across this quote by Daniel Burnam. Burnham and some other dude who'll be irrelevant in this post had "accepted responsibility to oversee design and construction of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago’s then-desolate Jackson Park on the south lakefront" - Wikipedia re: Daniel Burnam.

This was a ridiculously huge project that was, at the time, the biggest in the world. You can read about it on Wikipedia on your own time but the point is that our boy Danny was a little crazy in the usual sense. So that means he was perfect guy for the job and got it done. My kinda guy.

If you're starting a business or starting a marriage/family having a little delusion isn't a bad thing. The risks are, sometimes, so large, depressing and daunting that people often don't take chances for fear of failure. Risk is a real thing and it should be approached with caution, mitigation and shrewd thinking (and the odd helmet) but if you're so afraid of failure that you never take chances you'll end up ruing your timidity at the end of your life. A little delusion helps you make something happen that never happened before, helps you ignore the goofballs that don't get you.

We'll talk about risk mitigation another time. You need it to help your marriage or business succeed but it's only one of many tools.

So let's start helping you succeed. It's not all that hard.

Go to a quiet place and dream. Set your dream in front of you and walk through it and fill it with as much detail as you can. Smells, colors, sounds, everything. Be bold. Why not ask for the sky?

J.K. Rowling, at the darkest and poorest time in her life, found herself on a long trip with nothing to do except dream. You know the rest. For hours she dreamed. Nice.

Now backplan. When I rollerbladed across Florida I had the dream, protected it and then planned to succeed by going backwards in time: from how I'd feel when I finished backwards to the middle of the skate and all the way to the beginning. BTW, I did this in July. Loooots of delusion there.

Now carefully, carefully, carefully select your cheerleaders and mentors and share your dream with them.

Here's how to find your cheerleaders and mentors: they have proven that they want the best for you and have consistently filled you with what you need to succeed. They sometimes have a history with you. But each have different rolls. We'll talk about jerks and how to ID them in a moment.

A cheerleader is like the delusional parent who believes in you no matter how many bodies were discovered in your backyard and hidden in your crawlspaces.

You need these people to give you the energizing words to encourage you when you're scared, down and fearful. They fill and heal your empty, perforated Tank of Awesomeness. You need those people when you're low and who'll celebrate with you when you succeed. You don't need go to these people for specific hard-core advice. That's not their role.

So what if your cheerleaders are a little weird. Work with what ya got, dude.

Mentors have a different role. You don't go to them for buckets of thirst slacking warm and fuzzies when your Tank of Awesomeness is perforated or low. That's not what they do. They're busy and can't do that for you. But they do have experience and want you to succeed. They give you the criticism wrapped in respect (or not) that you need to succeed. Sometimes that advice comes unbidden. Keep an eye out for it. That advice tastes better then chocolate covered twinkies when it comes. Savor the flavor. Enjoy the sugary diabetic coma that follows.

Now don't be weird and pretentious by telling these people that you're bestowing the glorious title, beauty and knowledge of Cheerleader or Mentor or Head Schmuck upon them. That freaks people out and never works.

There has to be an unforced rhythm to it. There needs to be a sense of organic naturalness to it. It has to be real and authentic. Timing is a big part of this and is often out of your control.

Don't fret. Just be patient and faithful. Sometimes these things take a while.

Jerks, however well meaning they may be or regardless if they're a relative or not, have no idea how damaging they can be. Be polite with them and give them cursory answers. They can only handle cursory anyway; they're fearful.

But here's the weird thing; they can look successful on the outside but make no mistake; in the places that really matter they are tone deaf and blind and have compromised something precious and have become poisonous. Don't just look at the fleeting accouterments of their lives. Look deeper at their character.

In the ways that matter jerks are easy to spot to those who know how to look: They don't have results that matter in the end. They can only offer murderous words that harm you or, at best, are unhelpful. Those wounds can take years to heal. Deal with them the same way you'd deal with radiological material; wary caution, distance and the appropriate lead-lined equipment and clothing. Robots work, too.

Take your dream, write it out and put it up in the places that you frequent in your home. Take time to savor that dream daily. Let it fire your heart. Don't think too hard. Just be methodical and patient. A little Delusion Sauce isn't a bad thing at this time.

Now hold on to your dream with an open hand. Be flexible and ready. Sometimes dreams fail for reasons outside of your control.

I wanted to be a scientist. However, I had one F for every quarter for every year from 1st grade to 8th grade. High School was marginally better. College was a disaster. So much for the Scientist Dream. And the computer programmer dream. And the professional writer dream. And the photojournalist dream. And the sports photographer dream. And the commercial photographer dream. And I was a very, very bad pizza delivery person and an awful truck driver. So much for the fall back plans I heard about.

Turns out I have ADD. I was diagnosed at 30. So a lot of my early dreams were not appropriate for me and the way my mind was shaped. The upshot was that I became inoculated against failure. Hurray.

But through all these failures I learned that I was extremely intelligent (people with ADD generally are), had no insignificant amount of energy, healthy ambition and that success had to occur on my terms. It wasn't hubris. It was just necessary and the only practical way to do it.

It took a long time but I gained a significant knowledge base of the terms that needed to be met for me to succeed.

Which, of course, lead me to be a wedding photographer.

Now back to that How to Make a Dream happen step by step thing I mentioned at the top. Did I do these steps? Yup. But I failed a lot, right? Yup. That too.

So?

If one dream pukes then you start again. What are you going to do? Curl up and rock back and forth in a corner hugging you knees?

It took decades for technology to catch up to my dream of wedding photography. I hated the post production of a wedding when it was film. It would be impossible to do the post production if I shot with digital. Digital can produce thousands and thousands of images. No way I could do that.

I had to wait until computers, the internet and labor specialization to mature and fall in price to the point where I could shoot a wedding and ship it to an editor to process for me.

Now I have a viable business model that allowed me the radioactive joy of prancing into the emotional crucible of a wedding day with great gear, 20 years of photographic skilz, Ninja-Level people skilz and a post production solution that wouldn't lead me to a psychotic episode. That's pretty electrifying for me.

So be bold with your dreams. Share them with your spouse or future spouse. Write them out. Protect them. Try to make it something that fills you with excitement and puts vigor in your limbs.

Ok the vigor thing was weird but you know what I mean.

Drunk Monet

The longer I specialize in professional visual art the more trouble I have talking like the average person around me. I think it's because of what I think about most of the time. Or, more to the point, how I look at the world.

You see, I can't look at the world like the rest of the world. It doesn't do me any good and, if I'm going to do this professionally, it doesn't do my clients any good either.

So it's both in my interest and it's interesting for me to think in a primarily visual fashion. Which means I don't spend as much time thinking about how to talk to people. I kinda stutter in a funky way.

I have to laugh at myself often. My clients are cool with it because they're not hiring a speech pathologist. They're hiring an artist and the more authentic and specialized quirks I have the more people feel better about hiring me.

Well, anyway...

So how does it happen? How does one look at the world differently? Well you do it in a rather literal sense.

Here's how I do it: like a drunk, one-eyed Claude Monet with a cardboard toilet paper tube glued to my face. Disruptively; by purposely screwing things up. And with a little bit of discomfort.

1. Go Sideways. I cock my head to the side so I, well, look at the world sideways.

2. Go monoscopic. I close one eye.

3. Go Tunnel vision. I curl my hand up to my eye so I'm looking down a rudimentary tube.

4. Go Blind, Go Monet. I defocus my remaining eye.

We'll take this one step at a time and unpack each one slowly so hopefully you can understand why I look like a crazy person when I'm out shooting.

Going Sideways.

If you look around you you'll see that the world is made in vertical and horizontal lines.  You even look at the world with your eyes level with the horizon. When your brain processes information it does so within a vertical and horizontal context. While it's great if you're in IT that you can look at information in the usual context doing that doesn't do a pro artist any good because that's how everyone else sees the world. You're an artist. You must see the world differently.

So when you cock your head to look at the world sideways you're disrupting the normal way of looking at things. It confuses the normal part of your brain that's used to looking at the world normally. When that happens something in the back of your head perks up and takes interest.  I call it The Monkey. You'll start to feel nudges and subtle hints. But if you get the feeling you need to get a rifle and go to high place then please know that's not a healthy thing.

Just sayin'.

Going monoscopic.

You see the world with both eyes. You even think you see in 3 dimensions. But the truth is you don't look at the world in 3 dimensions. You look at the world stereoscopically with a pair of 2 dimensional sensors.

Further, a picture isn't a 3 dimensional image. It's just 2 dimensions. By closing one eye you begin to think about how a picture is going to look before you bring the camera to your face. Ultimately you want to be able to see a picture before you take it.

Again, I'm disrupting how I view the world.

Going Tunnel.

A picture doesn't show the world in it's context. By it's nature it only shows you what it's able: not much. So it's in my interest to, again, look at the world the way a picture would see and how it would show you. Your eyes have a super wide vision. A picture doesn't. So I can't distract myself with anything that doesn't have purpose to what I'm seeing. Too much information is distracting and, for The Monkey, boring. Boring is bad.

Going Blind, Going Monet

Claude Monet had an ocular degenerative disease that altered the way he saw the world. If you saw the paintings over the course of his life and career you'd discern a softening of lines and colors in his paintings. He was slowly going blind and was painting the world as he saw it.

When I look at the world around me I defocus my eye. Everything goes soft and feathery. It doesn't do me any good to see everything with focus and clarity. I need to see their basic shapes. Besides, why did I pay all this  money to focus my camera myself? I delegate the focusing to the camera and even defocus my eye even when my camera is up to my eye.

I need to see the world in it's basic, fundamental geometric patterns. Circles. Lines. Squares. Shapes and colors. But not tacos. That's delusional. And silly.

You see, a person will only give about 500 milliseconds of their attention to a picture. Not a lot of time. I learned this when I was a commercial photographer and had to sell a product or service with a picture. Yeah. No pressure.

So the challenge is not how to take a good picture or even a great picture. That kind of photography celebrates itself. That's awesome for those shooters. But I have to do something to serve my client.

The challenge, then, is to take an *interesting* picture. Something that draws the eye and keeps giving it something for many long seconds or minutes. Something that get's a visceral and emotional reaction in the service of my client's long term needs. This isn't about the picture and it isn't about me.

It all starts even before you put a camera to your face. It's all in seeing things differently. Like a crazy person.

Want a tip? Take off your glasses or leave out your contact lenses and take pictures with your camera. You'll learn to see things disruptively and you'll learn to accept that people think you're crazy.

That's ok. Crazy people tend to be happier anyway.

Have fun. Muah.

The encouraging response

I've been swimming in doubt about the choice to be myself on my blog. So I sent out an email to my friends and clients to ask them their feedback.


I asked, "Is this blog post me? Does it resonate with the crazy person who shot your wedding?"


And Valerie Bowers (formerly Cushman) got back to me with her thoughts:


"I think what you are doing is risky.


"You are putting your spin on someone else's day.  Some people are going to be far toooooo immature to understand the kind of wonderful godsend that could be to their lives.  They are worried about me, me, me that day, which is a shame because they are missing out.


"And you are right that those people aren't the people you should focus your time and "unicorn" energy on.  You should focus it on the type of brides and grooms who will put every last fiber of their being into something bigger than themselves-- their marriage.

"However, I also think that all the really GREAT things in life...all the things that are worth the fight and the tears (like marriage) are in fact  very risky.


"I think people who are young and get married these days, need everyone and everything that they can get on their side.  I have learned in only a few short weeks that marriage is in fact tough.  It is a commitment for life and it is something I am going to need help with on many occasions.  Your pictures, and more importantly, your outlook will have a lasting impression.  Not only on that day but also on what my marital future holds and should look like.


"You taught me about respect and communication and gritting it out and how you should appreciate the amazing blessing that has come your way to even be getting married in the first place.

"You aren't just a photographer or a guy who shows up on wedding days and makes people look great (though you do that very well).  You show up and make people FEEL great.  And more importantly you don't just show up on  that day.  I could call you in 14 years when I am super angry about something and vent and I believe that you would listen to my every word and help me through it.


"We weren't really "friends" before this.  You were a nice guy I knew who took great pictures.  You were a smile that could light up a room and someone I wanted there to help on our wedding day.  Now you are a friend who has changed my life and will guard my marriage with all of your strength and "awesome sauce."

"LOL how many friggin' vendors can say that?

"I don't know how to post this or I would so umm yeah can you do that for me.

"I hope this is what you needed to hear because your goal is amazing and you can def achieve it!  I hope you know how much you mean to Lance and I both.  I think you are one of those people who can do anything!"




Val, thank you so very much. I needed to read this to let me know I'm taking the right risk.

What I am here to do

I am here to help marriages survive, thrive and come alive. I will do this using my art and people skills. This is my mission.

This is awfully risky. But I'm a professional photographer that happens to be annoyingly unmotivated by money. So how do I find motivation outside of the discrete joy of creating art for it's own sake?

I see other photographers out there who are making a fabulous living and it drives me crazy because I can't bring myself to push products and services upon people that I'm not inspired by. It feels weird and I don't what to do about that. Those people are to be admired and respected. I'm jealous of them in a way because I've tried to do it their way and I just can't do it. Maybe it's my ADD. Maybe not.

By the time I sit down with clients who've vetted me we've established a meaningful relationship and these people have or are fast becoming my friends. I care about them. I really do and I want the best for them. So I can't just push a book or product on them that doesn't have some kind of visceral marriage-assistive meaning for them.

It's a requirement of living that you need money. I need money to raise a family, to send my kids to school, pay for clothes, a home, blah, blah blah. But because of how I was raised dangling a check in my face really doesn't get me going.

So I need another, more fulfilling reason to be an artist and earn income because my Photosynthetic superpower never worked and Gamp's 3rd Law of Elemental Transfiguration prevents me for materializing pizza out of thin air. Stupid law.

Here's my motivation: I've been through a divorce and I have a deep, tacit, visceral, heart-rending understanding of the extraordinary and indescribable pain that it caused me.

It was a touchstone in my life that was more life-changing then joining the military, the day my mother died, growing up in a dysfunctional home and the day my son and daughter were born.

I don't want to wish divorce on anybody and I guess it affects the way I approach wedding photography. Every image, every joke, every lens and all my significant energy is bent towards this over-riding mission.

I can't say that my images are so abjectly awesome that they will ascend to heaven upon a glorious rose-scented cloud exhaled by ninjas or they are on par with rainbows, unicorns and the Second Coming. But I can say that my art stirs people in a way that is as real as it is difficult to describe or contain. I don't understand it but it's real.

My hope is that when my friends/clients reach their 7 or 16 year mark (or whatever) in their marriage and face their very first Leadership Challenge that maybe, just maybe they'll stumble across an image I took of them on that wedding day that happened so long ago and maybe that image will inspire that individual to hang in there just one more day.

Maybe they'll remember how they felt on that day and the'll pick up the phone to book a therapist. Or maybe they'll take that huge, terrifying risk to sit down and open their heart to their spouse. Maybe they'll be inspired to be brave, selfless and courageous just one more day.

Maybe.

I am a business. That much is true. A business exists to create income through the quid-pro-quo of services and/or products for an agreed value: money. This money pays for camera gear, learning, food, etc.

But the business part exists because it's necessary for me to be an artist. I can't clothe my little boy and girl in warm feelings. But I need a reason to excel that is epic and bigger then me or the venal efforts of a simplistic artist/businessman.

So you now know that I want to help marriages win. But it'll require finding the couples who want to do something different. Who are brave, experienced tough times and are willing to take risks. Those couples are out there, somewhere in the world and I want to find them. It'll be kinda risky and uncomfortable for these couples because I'll be asking questions to help prepare them not just for their wedding day but for their marriage.

I want to be an ally on a team of allies to help their marriage win. There's no insignificant risk in this. I'm probably driving away couples right now with my vision.

But I so want to give them the little details I've learned over the years that bring more value to a couple's monetary investment. I want to help them not just to have a world-class wedding day experience and photography with me (They will. Oh yeah.) but I want to have a meaningful positive long term affect.

I can say these 2 things with a bitterly earned sense of joy and confidence born of pain, sacrifice and tragedy:

1. I know how to make a camera stand up and sing...
2. I know how to walk into the emotional crucible of a wedding day and play it like an symphony.

And I want to put these, my most hard-fought precious skills, at the feet of my future friends/clients to help the miracle of their wedding day and marriage last a lifetime. If this motivates you then we need to talk. But if I'm a checkmark on your task list then please move onto some other venal and banal photography business. You're not ready.

I am going to try to do something new and different: I'm looking to build an army of screaming crazy, rabid, loyal friend/fans/clients who so badly want their marriage to win that it'll drive them to pay any price, thwart any foe and go any distance for their marriage.

So where are you, my future friends? Be assured that as hard as you're looking for me I'm looking for you, too. I want to come alongside you and help you. You'll know me when you find me: something in your heart'll stir. You'll find yourself coming back to my site several times over no matter how many other sites you find.

I am 41. Half my life is gone. A great deadline looms on the horizon of my life and now I find I am slowly, steadily running out of time to make a difference. I'm in a hurry now and I want to find my brave couples.

I'll probably fail and humiliate myself one more time. But I want to try anyway. Oh, God this is risky.

God, I'm scared.