My Photography Workflow

I had 21,118 shutter iterations through September last year and by the time October rolled around I was in need of a serious photographic break. After lying low for a couple months ago, the itch is back and my passion is stronger than ever. I’ve spent countless evening and weekend hours sorting, organizing, and post processing many of last year’s photos over the last couple months. I’ve really been having a blast reminiscing on all the great moments that I captured and opportunities I was blessed with last year and I can’t wait for 2011 to get into full swing!

This has had me thinking a lot about how important it is to have a well-planned photography workflow through every stage of the process. I’m pretty happy with where mine is at today so I thought I would take a few moments to share it with you.

Pre-shoot: The night before an assignment I begin planning which specific equipment I’ll need and start prepping it. Some important things to keep in mind when you do this are the conditions of the shoot itself (duration, available light, whether or not a monopod/tripod is needed, etc.) and the options I’ll have to store my gear (i.e. whether I’ll able be ti store anything not currently in use in a safe place vs. having to carry everything on my person at all times).

Once I have a good idea of the gear I’ll need I begin organizing it and getting ready. This involves formatting my storage cards, charging my camera batteries, recharging AA’s for flashes (and packing some old-fashioned alkalines for good measure), and finding the right bag to start packing camera bodies and lenses into. Call me paranoid but I also make sure that I pack all my chargers just-in-case I need a bit more juice after sine time in the field. 

The shoot: The only special consideration that I make during the shoot is to setup my D300S to store a copy of each image to both the Compact Flash card and the SD card. When it comes to time to switch cards, the Compact Flash card goes in the camera bag and the SD card goes in my pocket.

Post-shoot: Later that night or during the next day, I download all of my pictures to Aperture using the naming convention that I picked up from Chase Jarvis’ excellent workflow video: DATE_PROJECT_CAMERA_SHOT so it might be something like 20100916_FASHIONWEEK_D300S_DSC7988 as an example. When the import completes I hook up an external FireWire HD and back up my Aperture Vault to it. I'm currently looking into off-site backup solutions like Carbonite or Mozy but haven't pulled the trigger on one just yet (I know, very scary stuff!).

Next, I’ll go through all of my shots and start rating any images that I plan to consider with 1 star. My rating system is as follows:

1. Keep: This photo is my base for later ratings. I keep these even if they don’t make the cut later as they are generally decent photos that document the event well.
2. Show: I use photos with at least this rating as the minimum of what I’d show anyone else. These might not be perfect but it wouldn’t embarrass me to share them with good critics and people I trust.
3. Publish: I’m pretty proud of these and I’d showcase them publicly on a site like Flickr as representative of my work. This is the earliest point that I’d start post processing an image.
4. Excellent: I think this photo is one of my best. To make it this far I really start drinking my own Kool-Aid and thinking that the photo is a textbook example and as close to perfect as it gets.
5. Portfolio: Some of my greatest work ever.

After rating and post processing I get the files ready for sharing. For professional assignments this means I start prepping the files for whatever the final distribution format is (raw files, book, video montage, etc.). With personal work I’ll upload the photos to photo sharing sites such as Flickr or Facebook, order prints, and/or import them into their next medium.

I hope that this has been helpful to you and if you have any questions or suggestions I'd love to hear them so please leave a comment below and let me know. In the meantime, I'm going to to get back to post processing the last 4 months of 2010 before 2011 sneaks up on me and gets too busy!

Project 365: An Absolute Blast

Ten days in and I'm extremely pleased to report that I am still committed to my 2010 Project 365. I've really had a blast being involved in this project so far and I'm looking forward to it each and every everyday!

The benefits and advantages of this project have been unbelievable! It's introduced me to some really great people, helped me appreciate the world around me more, and provided me the opportunity to get the daily practice I need to become a much better photographer.

The only challenge that I have so far is sometimes feeling that the project is limiting the amount of pictures that I might take on a given day. After I have my shot, I sometimes see other photo-ops that I pass up in the interest of saving them for another day. The solution that I've come to is to start using these times as opportunities to take some test shots and get more practice. This will help me find the ideal composition for each shot and I'm positive that by doing this my end results over the course of the year will be much stronger.

I encourage anyone reading this or following my project on flickr, twitter, or facebook to say hello and feel free to give me any feedback, advice, or critiques (positive or negative) that you might have. I hope that you have as much fun viewing my pictures as I have taking them. After all, the true beauty of this project is to share our lives with each other and appreciate the spectacular world that we live in.

* Make sure to click on any photo in the slide show below that you'd like to learn more about as I do provide background on each shot daily.

Finally, a Way to Track and Accomplish Goals that Works for Me

Setting goals is important and we’ve all heard that this is the reason why 3% of Harvard MBAs make ten times as much as the other 97% combined. Goals-wise, 2009 was a huge success for me. I developed a simple way to record and track my goals and stuck with it for an entire year to see fantastic results.

I had thirteen major goals in 2009 and I completed nine, took three of them to 75%+ completion, and abandoned one.

Here are some highlights of my 2009:

• Earned a Professional Certificate in Digital & Graphic Design from NYU and worked hard on my own to become a much stronger designer


• Achieved the best physical shape of my life, quit smoking, and realized myoptimal BMI


• Developed a strong financial position, creating and sticking to a realistic budget and aggressive savings goals


• Became much more involved in “the community” both online and offline


• Bought some bling and got engaged to the love of my life ;-)

Want to know how I did it?

My success was a result of the simplicity of my system. I created a Google docsfile and started a bullet list for each goal. Each goal has 3-10 sub-bullets depending on its complexity. When I completed a goal I added a big red X next to it. It looked like this:



Here’s why it worked:

1. Subtasks break huge goals up into manageable chunks. Knowing your next step is critical to making progress and achieving a goal. Seeing 3 of your 5 subtasks completed makes you feel good about your progress and keeps you motivated even if the entire goal isn’t complete just yet.


2. The ubiquity of the system enabled me to record progress and review next steps often. Through Google docs, I was able to access my file at any time and from any computer. I was able to check up on myself whether I was on any one of my computers, at a friend’s house, on my lunch break at work, or in class. This helped remind me of what was important so I could stay focused and remain on task.


3. Those little red X’s are addicting. Like a rat with a cocaine pellet dispenser, the desire to get more red X’s and make more progress provided me with that little extra burst of motivation I needed at times where I might have otherwise been complacent.

2010: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

2009 was an overwhelming success even though I didn’t complete each and every one of the goals that I set out to accomplish. I knew from the beginning that chasing 13 goals was probably spreading myself too thin but I enjoyed the variety and challenge that it brought.

I’m happy that I finally found a system that works for me because I’ve been through a lot of them: from a Charles Givens Super Self blueprint/life plan that I once kept in a 3 ring binder by my desk, to low-tech index card and high-tech OmniFocus forms of GTD, and to the most ridiculously complex and intricate Excel spreadsheets you’ve ever laid eyes on.

My system works because it’s simple, flexible, and addicting. I can access it at any time and from any place and it doesn’t take hours to maintain so it frees up my time so that I can actually accomplish things.

I’m looking forward to cleaning the slate and starting fresh with a new batch of challenges for 2010! Stay tuned for the full details and feel free to contact me if you’d like to learn more about any of this.

I'm in: Project 365

I’m in. Let 01/01/10 be my first entry into Project 365. I’m taking a photo a day, everyday, for an entire year. I’ll post my results here and also to my Project 365 Flickr set.

As the Photojojo link indicates, and Lifehacker also summarizes, this “year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.”

Ironically, my first shot will probably be my lowest res shot:



I will be using these cameras to complete this project: Nikon D3000 (my latest and greatest Christmas gift), Canon TX-1, Canon HG10 camcorder, and of course the Apple iPhone.

I’m really looking forward to this challenge. I’m assuming that it will be really difficult to get into the habit of taking a picture everyday and never missing a single day. I’m really looking forward to coming up with something uber interesting to share with the world and break up the monotony of my day to day.

I’m sure that this experience is going to be really fun, sentimentally meaningful to me down the road, and going to make me a better photographer.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, “2010, you are a total n00b and I am going to pwn you… BRING IT ON!”