My old friends Kathy and Kaila Yu (Hello Drama / Nylon Pink) treated me to Orochon Ramen for lunch. We talked about blogging for the most part, how punk rock is that? What makes a blog successful? The answer is consistency. Sounds simple, but it’s the hardest thing to do for most blog upstarts. The best blogs are reliable, updated regularly, and never skip a beat. The content (unfortunately) comes second. Truth!
The two are discussing concepts on paper..
.. what eventually results in something like this. Here’s a new piece from their jewelry line, it should drop in about a month or so.
Back at the office, I jump right into another meeting, this time with another old friend, only we’ve known each other since we were kids. This is Maria, she’s an established photographer now, there’s a chance you might recognize her for winning VH1′s photography-based reality game show, The Shot. But you most definitely would recognize her work, umm Victoria’s Secret anybody?
We talked about the profession of photography, and what that entails nowadays. What was once such a niche industry has become oversaturated and blown out to an immeasurable degree. Think about it in regards to your own work, your job,… maybe you flip burgers, maybe you’re a bookkeeper. Now imagine if almost everyone around you started doing it also, and could “master” it with a few hundred bucks and a week’s worth of experience, and what that would mean for your prospects of holding onto your clients and customers.
Because of vast digital advances, most notably DSLR’s and Photoshop, everybody’s a photographer these days, many to professional standards. Maria sees the bright side of that, which is really great: she is encouraging of anyone delving into the art. On the negative, I can see how this shift severely damages the careers of professional photographers who are legitimately trained and experienced in the practice. But I also know that just because there are more photographers, doesn’t mean there are more GOOD photographers. In fact, if anything, a surplus of halfway competitors only refines the public’s eye as to what defines good and bad. In essence, the more you see of it, the more your taste is trained to distinguish photography that is genuinely and undeniably skilled. As Maria noted, “the cream rises to the top.” (This is a philosophy that can be applied to any oversaturated market, by the way).
Maria’s the cream, everybody. So that’s why we’ve enlisted her resources for the third issue of The Hundreds Magazine. I love hiring friends, and I love being friends with people who are the best at what they do. Speaking of The Hundreds Magazine, Maria’s hiding behind Issue #2, which is now available at THLA and THSF. Here’s her best Joy Bryant impression:
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