Developing Personal Projects

Creativity, Creativity - Storytelling  Comment
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As a fine artist, I advance my career with personal projects. Personal projects also create a clearer direction for and develop greater meaning in my life. My life would be unfulfilled without them
You don’t need to have a fine art career to benefit from personal projects. Many commercial photographers find personal projects reenergize them, add purpose to their lives and quite often lead to new assignments or whole new streams of income. Many amateurs, making images purely for the love of doing it, find greater satisfaction and personal growth through personal projects.
As an artist who mentors other artists in workshops and seminars, I’ve often been called to speak about the importance of personal projects; how to find them, start them, develop them, complete them, present them, and promote them.
Here’s an overview of what I share.

Personal Projects
Defining a project is one of the single best ways to develop your body of work. When you define a project you focus, set goals, set quotas, set timelines, create a useful structure for your images, collect accompanying materials, and polish the presentation of your efforts so that they will be well received.
Focusing your efforts into a project will help you produce a useful product. A project gives your work a definite, presentable structure. A finished project makes work more useful and accessible. Once your project is done, your work will have a significantly greater likelihood of seeing the light of day. Who knows, public acclaim may follow. Come what may, your satisfaction is guaranteed …
Read the rest on scottkelby.com.
Learn more in these related digital photography ebooks.
Develop your personal project in my digital photography workshops.

Syl Arena – Lessons I Didn't Learn in Photo School

Creativity, Photographers  Comment
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Syl Arena recently wrote a great guest blog entry on Scott Kelby’s PhotoshopInsider.com. The topics list alone is a good touchstone. If you know this stuff, it’s a nice reminder. If you don’t know this stuff, you need to. It’s good food for thought.
1. If you can’t be remarkable, be memorable.
2. You are NOT defined by your photo gear or your computer’s operating system.
3. Powerful photographs touch people at a depth they don’t anticipate.
4. You have to let your images go out into the world without you.
5. Cross-pollinate with photographers and other creatives.
6. Photography slices time. Photography gathers time.
7. Learning to create photographs that “look” like your world should be only a milestone – not the destination.
8. “Coopetition” is a new business model that’s here to stay.
9. Wars have been fought to protect your copyrights.
10. Your photographs have value. Don’t give them away.
11. Your photographs have value. Give them away.
12. Resist the temptation to become a pro photographer.
Read the rest of the post here.
Check out more from Syl at Pixsylated.
And stay tuned for more. Syl actually wrote 48 topics, which he plans to follow up on.

Epson's Dan Steinhardt On Photoshop Insider

Photographers, Printing  Comment
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Dan “Dano” Steinhardt, industry veteran, a driving force behind Epson shares his personal journey in and insights on photography on Scott Kelby’s blog Photoshop Insider.
“I travel a lot in my job. I also have the incredible honor to work with the some of the most well-known photographers on the planet. One of those legends is Jay Maisel who has become my new mentor. With all my business travel I took Jay’s advice, “Carry the camera because without it, it’s really tough to take pictures.” In the process I essentially returned to my roots of street photography versus the comfort and control of the studio”
“In the end it’s really not about exotic travel but about seeing the exotic that is all around us. In the past few years virtually all of my images have been captured, literally, between meetings.”
See the rest here.
Find out about the Epson Print Academy near you here.