Inspiration

I've been working pretty hard on my portfolio -- expanding my range and trying new things. And from time to time I submit my work to an online community for comment and critique. The comments, almost without exception are brutal. BRUTAL.

At first the comments were crushing. I worked so hard and saw so much progress in the work that I submitted. I would have to walk away from my computer, watch a movie, clean the bathroom, and make a stab at curing cancer before I could go back and review the comments. Things like, "you have no business behind the camera" and "did you use a cell phone?" would seep through my eyeballs and ricochet around in my brain for hours. Then I would try to break the comments down into usable bites. I'd literally copy and paste the comments and go sentence by sentence, deleting everything that seemed to be written out some sort of deep personal trauma and keeping that which actually was a valid technical critique.

Then I would look at the commenter's work and compare it to mine; not in a qualitative way necessarily, but in more in an attempt to understand they're perspective. Once I did that, sometimes I agreed with their assessment and sometimes I did not. But I always felt like I learned something.

Then I would pick up a Vanity Fair, or a Vogue and apply the same critiques to those shots. It was horrifying and disappointing. Many, many of the photos in those publications and almost all others would not meet the specifications laid out in that online community. Not to put too fine a point on it, but some of the work of some of the world's top fashion photographers, in some of the world's top fashion magazines, is crap!

And at the end of my analytic cycle, what I would come away with was deep depression and disappointment. There would be variations on a theme, but I would be trapped in a recurring loop of a "You suck!"

Until I remembered my career as an actor...

Without naming names, I have seen many actors who were weak on stage, who were personally difficult, who were sloppy and lazy at their craft, go on to very distinguished careers. I mean, award-winning careers. I mean multi-million dollar pay days. And I personally know actors who are brilliant, who can be depended upon to give gut-wrenching, nuanced performances that make the audience weep, laugh, and reflect upon the meaning of life -- and all while trying to drown out the rattle of the Red Line. Some of these actors' annual salaries don't even reach the minimum poverty line. If you're in the theatre, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I have spent years trying to figure out why that is. Dismissing it simply as luck is too easy. After a decade of analysis, I'm convinced there is no such thing as luck. What the people who are achieving notoriety and riches have that my less financially secure artist friends do not is tenacity, confidence, and stamina. They're still crappy actors -- and one or two of them actually know it -- but they didn't let lack of quality stand in their way. They took every opportunity and turned it to their advantage. Some of them took criticism and grew from it. Some of them -- and I'm sorry to say, the most successful of them -- didn't give a rat's ass about what most of the world thought of them or their work.

From this realization I draw an immense amount of comfort and inspiration. Now I can look at my own work with a critical eye and appreciate what's good in it. Is my work flawless? Absolutely not. But those flaws are not going to stop me. And they won't always be there. The real work is to learn from those flaws.

It's all about stamina and staying the course. The destination is an afterthought.

Resurrection Blues -- Eclipse Theatre

Directed by Artistic Director Nathaniel Swift

March 25 - May 9, 2010

The Greenhouse Theatre

2257 N. Lincoln Ave. -- Chicago

Goals

I believe that goals are essential to a happy life. The problem with goals, however, is that while focused on the end result you can oftentimes miss the journey.

And what's doubly difficult for me is impatience. For me, almost all progress is too little progress. I know where I'm going, and I get frustrated with the fact that I'm not there yet. This was a terminal flaw in my acting career. I would set a goal on Monday, and by Wednesday begin to get frustrated because I wasn't making "significant" progress toward that goal. By that I mean that on Monday, I would decide that I would win an Oscar and by Wednesday wonder why Stephen Spielberg hadn't called. By Friday, I wouldn't be fit to live with.

What I didn't realize is that progress doesn't come in a smooth consistent stream. Progress comes in fits and starts. It can move at a glacial pace, and then jump ahead at lightning speed. The trick, of course, is to be ready for that lightning jump. Having the skills in place to support that rapid growth is essential. And sometimes it's necessary to slow progress so that your personal infrastructure can catch up.

This week I made two major leaps in progress. By the smiling fates of the gods, I lucked into a brand new camera! It's dazzling in it's wonder. I could not wait to do my first session with my new Olympus E3. I did, and the photos are beyond my expectations in quality. Then I sat down to edit samples for the client, only to discover that my new camera requires a major upgrade in my computer software. A huge investment that I was/am not prepared to make at this time. So it's back to my old, trusty camera for the time being.

However, the above photo was taken with the old camera and edited with the old software. And here's where the lightning jump is the most gratifying. This is the type of work I've been shooting for for the past three years. I could not have done this shot a year ago. Not even six months ago. I'm thrilled.

Six months ago I set a goal of shooting the Vanity Fair cover within the next five years. Maybe I'll get the call on Wednesday!

Working

With the new year, and avalanche of projects has come crashing down around me. In a good way! Right now, it's all about the mailing.

I've set some pretty lofty goals for the next four years and five months. (The goals were set with a five-year term a couple months ago.) I'm not necessarily comfortable publishing them at this point because they're very ambitious and they take a lot of leg work to get off the ground. But a key component to these goals is to send out mailings. There is the agonizing over which samples to print into postcards, the endless mailing list maintenance, the creation of the pithy little notes...daunting.

And fun. When I was an actor, I realized that I enjoyed the audition more than the rehearsal and the rehearsal more than performance. And a root canal more than tech. Of course I want international acclaim, wealth beyond my wildest dreams, and a front-row seat at the Academy Awards. Who doesn't? But it's not the result that is the real goal. It's finding the journey that you want to take that is the real goal.

As 2010 really gets underway, I'm finding that I only have time for one serious artistic shoot a month. Headshot work, my writing, and the routine of day-to-day living are taking up the rest of my time. But the January project has already been shot, and progress on the editing is coming along very nicely. I'm on schedule.

The other thing that I like about photography is that I'm able to call up the first frame I ever shot and compare it to the latest frame I've edited. One of my many flaws is that I tend to be hypercritical of myself and my work (sometimes almost paralyzingly so), but I know I've made progress when I look at my latest job and say, "Damn. That's good."

No matter what your journey, I hope your year is starting off as well as mine. Drop me a line! Share your success!

Andi Earles -- Winner

For the third year in a row, an Archetype Images session was the grand prize for the Saint Sebastian Monologue Match Up. This time around, the winner was Andi Earles, breaking the cardinal rule of auditioning -- she won with a piece that she wrote. This is a young woman that is about to break. Keep your eyes open for her!

A Whole New Year!

And here is my beach on Christmas Day.

There has been so much going on, and virtually no time to sit down and write about it all. Up this week: my first nude shoot!

Oy!

Merry Christmas, bitches.