I am the featured photographer this month for Canon’s Lens of the Month Series. I was interviewed about one of my favorite lenses the 24-105mm zoom lens. Check out the interview and the five images Canon selected for the story.

Love to hear your comments. All Good Wishes

Ric

http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=3090

[by Judy Herrmann]

At the SB2 conferences a couple of years ago, I noticed that many photographers were exhibiting the classic signs of mourning.  Back then, most were still in denial but many were grappling with a sense of helplessness, paralysis and loss as they faced what they perceived as the death of a profession they loved.

Today, it’s clear that far too many of my colleagues have graduated to the anger phase and that anger is doing as much damage to our profession as the recession, changing technologies and changing markets combined.
In Vein of Gold, her 1996 sequel to The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron wrote: “When we are angry or depressed in our creativity, we have misplaced our power. We have allowed someone else to determine our worth, and then we are angry at being undervalued.” I’m willing to bet that every single one of us either is that person or knows that person.

Looking for a silver bullet?  The magic answer?  Here it is:  the one thing that’s going to help you survive as a professional visual communicator is your creativity.  I can’t tell you what your career is going to look like – that’s up to you – but I can tell you that without creative vision, creative thinking, creative problem solving, creative strategies and creative approaches to building your business in the “new economy” you’re not going to make it in this field.

If you’re one of the angry ones, all I can say is Get Over It.  Find help, find hope, find whatever shot in the arm you need because if you allow your anger at these irrevocable changes to get in the way of your creativity, you are walking roadkill. If you’re not one of the angry ones, if you’re still hopeful, still open, still looking for what’s possible, I congratulate you.  Foster your creativity – nourish it, protect it and don’t let the kill-joys near it – for it is the key to your future.

Please joing me at the Artists Reception January 7th

5 – 30 January, 2010
wall space
at The Angle Gallery
Tashiro Kaplan Building | 312 S. Washington
Seattle.

join us for our Artist Reception during First Thursday ArtWalk
7 January, 2010
6 to 8pm

Our 4th annual New Directions exhibition,
Down+Out
juried by Carol McCusker, curator of the Museum of Photographic Arts
is pleased to present 42 artists challenging the ideas of distance and scale.

Participating artists -

Robbie Acklen  |  John Aldredge  |  Jeff Antebi
Cordelia Bailey  |  Chris Bennett  |  Heidi Bertman
Andrew Binkley  | Charles Blackburn | J. Wesley Brown
Alejandro Cartagena | Pete Cosenza | Matthew Derezinski
Kristen Fecker Peroni   |  David George | Colin Graham
Steve Guttenberg |  Ray Hau  | Nicole Jean Hill
 Joshua Hobson  | Adam Jaocno  |  Kirby Johnson
Jeffrey Krolick |  Sarah Marie Land   |  Larry Larsen
Nathan Lunstrum |  Duc Ly  | Kora Manheimer
Patricia McInroy  | Daniel Melo |  Charles Mintz
Emily Nathan |  David Jaewon Oh  |  Wayne Palmer  |  Ric Peterson
Dawn Roe  |  Wendy Ross  |  Michael Seif
Sarah Sharp | Peter Tilgner  |  Ronit Toledano
Anna Maria Vag  |  Jacqueline Walters

New e book from Seth Godin. A collaboration of thoughts

What Matters Now: get the free ebook

Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up.

Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I’ve organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you’ll find it worth the effort. (Download here).

Perfect!

Posted by Seth Godin on September 15, 2009 | Permalink | TrackBack (4)
The hierarchy of success
I think it looks like this:

Attitude
Approach
Goals
Strategy
Tactics
Execution
We spend all our time on execution. Use this word instead of that one. This web host. That color. This material or that frequency of mailing.

Big news: No one ever succeeded because of execution tactics learned from a Dummies book.

Tactics tell you what to execute. They’re important, but dwarfed by strategy. Strategy determines which tactics might work.

But what’s the point of a strategy if your goals aren’t clear, or contradict?

Which leads the first two, the two we almost never hear about.

Approach determines how you look at the project (or your career). Do you read a lot of books? Ask a lot of questions? Use science and testing or go with your hunches? Are you imperious? A lifehacker? When was the last time you admitted an error and made a dramatic course correction? Most everyone has a style, and if you pick the wrong one, then all the strategy, tactics and execution in the world won’t work nearly as well.

As far as I’m concerned, the most important of all, the top of the hierarchy is attitude. Why are you doing this at all? What’s your bias in dealing with people and problems?

Some more questions:

How do you deal with failure?
When will you quit?
How do you treat competitors?
What personality are you looking for in the people you hire?
What’s it like to work for you? Why? Is that a deliberate choice?
What sort of decisions do you make when no one is looking?
Sure, you can start at the bottom by focusing on execution and credentials. Reading a typical blog (or going to a typical school for 16 years), it seems like that’s what you’re supposed to do. What a waste.

Isn’t it odd that these six questions are so important and yet we almost never talk or write about them?

If the top of the hierarchy is messed up, no amount of brilliant tactics or execution is going to help you at all.

This came to me from Mark Ippolito, via Facebook actually, lol. Great information about the changing landscape of communication