Review: Instant The Story of Polaroid
Ever since Polaroid announced that it was done with instant photography and the Impossible Project started up, I’ve been obsessed with instant photography. I had some of the last packs of Polaroid film and still have one pack in the fridge that, most likely, I should use pretty soon. Anyhow, when I heard about Instant: [...]
Review: Life is a Gift: The Zen of Bennett
Most people know of Tony Bennett as the amazing musician, but he’s also a painter and does watercolors. I had just come from checking out a watercolor show of a high school friend, Iain Stewart, when I decided to crack open this book and start on it while visiting my family in Alabama. Right off the [...]
Book Review: Garbology
Being a Green business, we are always looking at ways we can keep a minimal footprint while still providing excellent service and photography to our clients. Recently on NPR, I heard Pulitzer Prize winning writer Edward Humes being interviewed about his latest book, Garbology, and finally got to read it. It’s a fascinating piece of [...]
Review: The Art of Being Unreasonable
The title of this business book by Eli Broad appeals to my creative side. As a small business owner and a creative, we know that being unreasonable can result in breakthroughs or at least original thinking. Broad is probably most known for his business and philanthropic success including KB Home, but in this book [...]
Leadership and ISES Eventworld
Coming off attending ISES Eventworld, it was fortuitous that the book I brought to read on my flight was Leadership Gold by John Maxwell. As a board member of the ISES-NCC chapter, we attended the conference early for some of the leadership training and I found that to be very useful. The best thing about [...]
Book Review: What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There
Successful people have little reason to change… makes sense doesn’t it? That’s sort of the gist behind Marshall Goldsmith’s book “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There”. It’s a great read for anyone who works with others and/or is a leader so it really hit home for me. As a small business, one of [...]
Book Review: Zilch
Zilch is a book about doing more with less, something we hold as a value at Orange. Since our inception, we’ve always valued that, not just because we bootstrapped our company but also from a social responsibility angle. Waste is something we don’t like, especially when reducing it can both save the environment and save [...]
Book Review: Tell to Win
As a small business we’re always striving to improve and this occurs on several fronts. We are always looking at what trends are going on in the photography world (and hopefully helping set some) as well as looking inward at how we can better improve our business . The book I read during my most [...]
Book Review: Onward by Howard Schultz
Chances are you’ve been into a Starbucks at some point and if not, that you know the brand. People have all sorts of feelings about Starbucks but one thing is for sure – they’ve had a very interesting ride as a company. This book tells of the experience of Howard Schultz, the two-time CEO and [...]
Book Review: Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Seth Godin should be a familiar name if you are a photographer and/or marketer. He has been writing books and speaking for some time now and I finally got around to reading one of his earlier texts: Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. The book was published in 2003 and it discusses a pretty [...]
The difference between control and spontaneity
So I couldn’t really decide on a single image so I thought that using two worked because it reflects a lot of the type of work I do as well as my approach. Just recently I had this exact situation of control vs. spontaneity face me. A commercial shoot for a new startup hired me [...]
Book cover photography – Dangerous Curves
We’ve photographed a number of authors for their book cover photos and public relations use, as well as another book cover for Cheesemonger, that Myleen shot at our old studio space. Our next book cover is for Dangerous Curves, a collaboration with a long time friend, book designer and artist Pete Halverson whom I went [...]
Wander the Rainbow author portrait photography
We recently made a new friend of David Jedeikin when his P.R. Maven sent him to us to get portraits for his self-published travel book Wander the Rainbow. We took some time to chat prior to the shoot and were intrigued by his story. It looks like Amazon may be the best place to get [...]
Best Business Practices for Photographers book review
Recently during a flight to and from a shoot in NYC I read John Harrington’s book: Best Business Practices for Photographers, Second Edition and it’s got a wealth of great information for all photographers and small business owners. He also had covered some of the info in his presentations at ASMP’s Strictly Business 2 – [...]
Cheesemonger: A Life On The Wedge
Meet Gordon Edgar – author, blogger and cheesemonger at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative here in sweet ‘ol San Francisco. I had the opportunity to photograph Gordon for this image featured on the cover of his memoir Cheesemonger: A Life On The Wedge published and distributed by Chelsea Green. Chelsea Green is a unique publishing company that specializes in books on [...]
Business Practices for Photographers (required reading!)
Since we work with quite a number of freelance photographers and have been in business for a bit, we get a lot of requests for information on how best to run a photography business. Since our profile has been growing through articles about Orange Photography and speaking at various seminars, etc., I thought it would [...]
More good reads for small businesses
So we like to keep up with what other small businesses are doing and thought we’d share some of the better business books we’ve read that are helping our studio do well during this tough time with the economy. Two that stand out are Small Giants by Bo Burlingham and Raising the Bar: Integrity and [...]
Annie Leibovitz “At Work” review
I received At Work from my family as a holiday gift and read it in one day so you know it’s a quick read. The book clocks in at 237 pages and has a nice mix of images and the back stories to them. I really enjoyed the book to get her perspective on how [...]