Zave Smith Photography

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Today I finished printing a new portfolio.  Looking over this new body of work a smile came over my face and for just a moment, I thought to myself, “I just got good”. 

I feel this way a couple of days each year.  Until the plight of dissatisfaction returns forcing me to create new images with the false prayer that my next picture will lead me to visual nirvana.

My best works are pictures that teach me.  This learning does not happen when the shutter is clicked.  It happens later, after living with the image awhile, after letting the print take on its own life outside of my experience of creating it.   When I am allowed the pleasure and pain of looking at the new work with a fresh eye and an honest heart.

I update my book around three times a year.  I start by compiling a folder called, “possibilities”.  I then ask myself some very hard questions.  Which of my older children to I still love?   Which of my babies are “book-worthy”?  How do all these images relate to each other?   And the hardest question of all, what do I stand for as a photographer?

I lay all the possible images on large tables and then I start to play. Every re-edit is gut retching.  Each time when I start compiling recent work to be considered for the new edit I wonder where the good pictures went. It can take me up to three weeks of re-editing and re-arranging until I start to feel that this body of work is coming together.  Once the edit pleases me, I have to ask, what will others see and understand from this new story?  

After playing with the work prints, it is time to start the real job of printing.  I find printing to be boring and exhilarating at the same time.  Boring because each print takes five minutes, five minutes times 140 printings is a lot of waiting. Exhilarating because when I get it right, the prints can be breathtaking.

After the printing, the trimming and the binding I get to sit back, go through this new assemblage and hopeful at the end of the process I will say, “I just got good”

Sincerely,

Zave Smith

Lifestyle Photography for Advertising

http://www.zavesmith.com

215-236-8998

This mornings NY Times had an article concerning Skype.  EBay bought Skype around 2 years ago for 2 plus billion bucks.  It currently has 220 million users and it brings in 90 million in gross revenue.  EBay is now taking a huge write off and admits that it way overpaid for Skype.

Over the years my accountant has often asked me, “Why don’t you just lower your pricing, and go for the volume”?  I always answered that lowering of prices is a game that nobody can win for there is always somebody who will do it cheaper”.  Instead the game that I play is quality.  Try to do it better and more uniquely than my competition.  This allows me to charge a premium and maybe stay in business.

Companies love to play the volume game.  Having one million customers is more addictive that having 100,000 clients.  Salespeople love being able to offer discounts but what are the costs?  The landscape of commerce is filled with the corpses of companies that got hooked on the volume game. 

Getty Images is the latest volume addict.  It somehow believes that selling 10 images for $49.00 is going to make them more money than selling 2 images for $600.00.  Oh, they believe that they are going to sell a lot more than 10 but to make their numbers work the increase in volume that they would need is a number that exist only in dreamland.

Luckily for Getty, its suppliers and its investors yelled stop before they drank to much volume flavored cool-aid.   Can the same be said for the rest of us?

Sincerely,

Zave Smith

www.zavesmith.com 

Once in a while a project becomes much larger, much more interesting and more difficult than you imagined when the layouts first come across your desk.  Recently we had such a project for a chemical company.  The creative brief sounded simple.  Three pictures.  The first one would be of two kids sitting in front of a pool putting sunscreen on each other.  The second image was a picture of a father and son playing with a toy car.  The third photograph would be of a family of four watching a home movie in their backyard.  There was nothing here that we had not done many times before.

Once again the devil was in the details.  The pool house had to be a very upscale home, architecturally interesting, with a pool, a privacy fence, nice landscaping and non-while vinyl siding.  The father and son and the family watching the movie turned out to be both period pieces, the first one had to look like it was shot in the 1960s’ and the second one like it came out of the 1950s’.

Once in a while a project becomes much larger, much more interesting and more difficult than you imagined when the layouts first come across your desk.  Recently we had such a project.  The creative brief sounded simple.  Three pictures.  The first one would be of two kids sitting in front of a pool putting sunscreen on each other.  The second image was a picture of a father and son playing with a toy car.  The third photograph would be of a family of four watching a home movie in their backyard.  There was nothing here that we had not done many times before.

Once again the devil was in the details.  The pool house had to be a very upscale home, architecturally interesting, with a pool, a privacy fence, nice landscaping and non-while vinyl siding.  The father and son and the family watching the movie turned out to be both period pieces, the first one had to look like it was shot in the 1960s’ and the second one like it came out of the 1950s’.

Once again changes that the client made after production began added some more challenges.  For example, after the three shots were cast, the demographics of the models changed and the whole project had to be re-cast.  Many questions arose like do we style the father and son has if it was the early or late 1960s’?  How upscale were these families?

With styling issues, the details matter.  I believe that even when an object is out of focus and in the background it has to be authentic or the shot looses something.  My producer stylist, Deborah Holljes, had to scour the whole country in order to fine the clothing that we need.

Luckily I work with an amazing crew and in spite of all these issues plus that added pleasure of working with little kids on shots that need very specific angles and gestures that shoot came off very smoothly.

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

Zave Smith