Vacation is about relaxing and getting away from work.  Photographers get asked if they turn the camera off while on vacation and perhaps many do.  In my experience, a vacation is a perfect time to always reconnect with your love and passion for photography.

Walking around the massive resort of Moon Palace in Cancun Mexico was much like my own playground.  I have a purpose everyday of helping to serve people that need help with photography, to capture and paint ones milestones in life, and ultimately trigger nostalgia to fill a person up with hope and the beauty of this world.  While on vacation though, it’s a time to relax and be selfish for a short time and, in a sense, that’s what passion is about.  You roam your resort as a playground and photograph anything you want without having to please anyone but your muse.

Anything can be your playground and you don’t have to wait until a vacation.  Maybe you should spend some time in the playground, everyday.

P.S. Yesterday I posted part 1 of an engagement session I shot for my local photography business.  Feel free to check it out and spread the word that I’m looking for clients.

Forget about work-life balance. Work-life balance feels like a concept for people that go about the work, and life, doing something they really have no interest in; it’s all about paying the bills. We’ve had to spend so much time commuting to the office or factory, working for 8-10 hours, and then commuting back home. Once home, life could start again for a few hours,but sooner than later it was time to hit the sack to start all over again.

Working a job that you don’t love, one that doesn’t play nice with what you believe in or touch your values, becomes a job that makes you work so that you can live on the weekend. I remember the week long countdown to Friday night. I remember the intense dread and how long that week lasted. Sometimes the weekend started early with binge drinking on a Thursday night and a Friday sick day. I was empty and lifeless during the week due to the dread of my cubicle job. I was empty and brain dead on the weekends because I ended up drinking until I couldn’t speak or remember anything.

My work was actually killing my life

You see, the point of this all is because I wanted to merge my work into life. I wanted to explore the possibility of living a life doing something I actually love, while at the same time being the change that I wanted and inspire other people to explore as well. I had one problem: I had no idea this was what I truly wanted because I was so depressed with my life and work.

With the help of a number of medications, I began to develop interests again. I remembered my love for photography which lead to the purchase of a Nikon D40x and then my iMac computer. Exploring photography again brought renewed passion for life and I could not stay in a job that I hated, a job that made me so upset and depressed.

There were a number of things that finally lead me to the decision to quit my day job, but it was the ease at which I was able to start up a WordPress website and start sharing my photography and renewed interests. I began to find other people online that were living their life doing what they love. They had already escaped from the corporate cubicle farm and living a remarkable life. I envisioned being able to work from anywhere and that work was actually supposed to be what you love.

I got out of bed each morning (early) because I was excited to work on my websites and photography. As each day passed, my love for being able to do photography and explore my ideas with ease grew on me. I started to notice that I could blur the line between photography, blogging, and life. If I was to make blogging and photography my work, I would therefore be blurring the line between work and life.

Photography is Life; There is no Balance…

Eliminate Work-Live Balance from Your Vocabulary

Work-Life balance became an abstract concept to me. Work-Life balance was eliminated from my vocabulary (just like the term retirement). Before long, I decided to explore interests as they surfaced. I take initiative right away and because I need to explore my ideas. I don’t remember the last time I was “bored.” I can turn any experience into something related to my interests.  My interests (life) find ways to integrate with work and making a living.  It’s not easy at all but I’d rather fail than wonder if I could pursue what I love and what makes me feel more alive.  I don’t even think twice about the idea of work-life balance now.

Those that love what they do don’t bother to talk about work-life balance. They just go about their work. They simply sit down and get to work. They start pursuing their ideas because their life isn’t getting any shorter.

Did Picaso ever talk about work-life balance? No; he got up and painted. He was a rich man by the time he was 30, so he had the economic surplus to buy himself a nice villa but that was with economic surplus. That was not a human right.

~ Hugh MacLeod

Hugh MacLeod said this in an interview with Mark Athitakis.  Mark had asked about the term “overextending” that Hugh brings up in his book, Evil Plans.  I take his words as making the effort to unify work and love.  Those that can unify their work with what they love win.  I’ll hold off on the Charlie Sheen reference terms.   Once you blur the line between work and love, you no longer find it necessary to seek out work-life balance.  You live in a work-love state.   Forget work-life balance and find a way to get paid doing what you love; make it work. Even if this means continuing the day job for longer than desired or grabbing a part-time job to bootstrap your own photography business.

All We Have is Life

Today, I don’t dread waking up every morning that isn’t Saturday.  I don’t try and escape life through alcohol or drugs because work sucks.  I’ve learned that we need to look at things in a positive light and how you can apply everything to photography lifestyle design.  Work-Life balance is about escapism and I’d rather have the ability be present here and now.  There is no such thing as Work-Life Balance in Photography.  Live it or Leave it.

If you read the About Nuwomb page, perhaps you didn’t see any “evil plan” wording and to tell you the truth, I didn’t even view my desires as evil plans. What I’ve quickly noticed [thanks to Hugh MacLeod] is that I’ve been developing my evil plan, slowly but surely. The text below is pulled from our About page:

If you’re even the slightest bit unhappy with your job, or simply want more out of life than the typical cubical farm you’re used to, I’d love for you to join us here.

We’re embracing the democratized renaissance and want to spread the small business revolution. There has never been a time that the individual could turn their own passion into a business – specifically a photography business. We’ll talk about how to live the life you’ve always imagined NOW. Skip waiting until you’re rich, famous, or retired. Your dreams to do with a remarkable life and photography are possible now.

No mention of an evil plan, right?

Interestingly enough – it definitely is an evil plan!

We believe that when incorporating photography into your daily life, we feel more alive than ever.  We can’t let a moment or day pass that we don’t look at the world with child-like eyes.  There is something about photography that makes you feel amazing, makes you unaware of time, puts you in a state of flow, and taps into your universal creative urge.

I’ve been free-form writing everyday, looking at ways that I can discuss what I’ve termed “Photography Lifestyle Design.”  While I may not specifically say that something I post is trying to teach what I mean by photography lifestyle design, but I’m trying to live by example with posts that talk about Instagram usage, iPhone Photography, social photography, and food teasers.   I believe these are topics that scratch the surface of integrating photography as a lifestyle and the effects will spill over into awesome growth for a photography business too.  It’s all part of a photography business strategy – an evil plan, if you will.  I’m also happy that my business assistant is a cat named Reese because cats always always have evil plans!

Everybody needs that Evil Plan that going to allow them to do something amazing, to be something amazing.

As I was driving downtown today, a part of me asked, “shouldn’t I be at home editing photographs like a factory.” I’m desperately trying to finish off a set and I’ve found that I am terrible at editing a very large number of photos in a short period of time. While there are going to be aspects of every job that can become mundane and repetitive, I needed to remember that I have the ability to get up and get out at any time. I needed to remember that a photographer needs to fill their creative well on a regular basis.

I shut that internal editor off, allowed my creadive and embraced a 2 hour photowalk downtown with Jesse, another ex cubicle employee from my previous employee too. I remembered how I dreamed of being able to get up and go shoot more photography when the sun finally emerged from winter. The energy that’s come since returning from the photowalk has actually upped my overall productivity for the day. This is something that many business owners also experience from daily exercise and stepping away from the desk for a while.

Part of a photographers evil plan needs to incorporate play time or stepping back and allowing time to daydream. A great way to daydream, as a photographer, is to get the camera out and going for a walk. Friends, family, acquaintances, and the status may express negativity but that’s why the plan is devilishly evil! Hugh calls this issue “social resistance” and it is because people don’t want you to be successful in doing what they want to be doing but don’t take the risks. Their Hunger is missing.

Everybody needs an Evil Plan that allows them to become whatever it is they were born to be.

~ Hugh MacLeod

We were born to do amazing things that we love. Somewhere along the line, we start to try and please others or we simply find security within the walls of the cubicle. Stupid decisions as an early credit card holder or a graduate with high levels of debt force you into taking any job that keeps the minimum payments at bay. You’re going to need to institute and evil plan to take back your life.

Part of the symbolism built into the name “nuwomb” is the ability to grow and nurture your ideal plan. Nuwomb is a place that people with a love for photography go and find ways to escape the life they never envisioned. This is definitely where you can become reborn on your own terms, creating your own personal renaissance and experiencing the rebirth of a life you were meant to have, doing what you were meant to do.

WHAT’S YOUR PLAN?

If you’re already a photographer, are you 100% happy with how everything is going?  Are you chasing jobs or spending more time chasing celebrity photographers or spending more time avoiding work at photography workshops?

Does your plan involve sharing your photography?

Are you blogging about your photography?  Or blogging more than once every 3 months?

What’s your story beyond the fact that you love photography? We need to know!

If you’re trying to start a photography business or bust into the world as a photographer, what is your cause? What are you giving people so that they can join your cause (or army).

Need Help with developing an Evil Plan as a Photographer?

Two days ago Hugh MacLeod’s book Evil Plans was released.  I picked up the Kindle version and I’ve read the first few chapters.  I’ve been blown away with the book because of the message that I’m trying to get across with Nuwomb and photography.   While I don’t have any kind of success comparable to Hugh MacLeod, I am looking at the book as a sign that I am on the right track with my plan.

You won’t find this book on the “books for photographers” link bait posts on every other photographers blog.  Only a small percentage of you will go on to read Evil Plans – Having Fun on the Road to World Domination and you are the ones that will do amazing things.

If I did any kind of consulting, I would start a photographer off with reading Evil Plans and a few other books I’ll talk about in the future.  This won’t be the last time you hear about this book on Nuwomb, though.  We’ll be talking about books much more often either here or on a special project I’m working on for launch in March or April.

I hope you’re one of the few photographers that read this book with me. Every photographer needs an evil plan to rise above the status quo.   Starting a photography business has a way of sucking the creativity and fun out of a photographer. Remember that we photographers can achieve amazing success while having fun doing it.

Reading the book or not, start with sharing more of your photography everyday!

Photographers, Artists, Designers, and Creatives in general can get into a funk that leaves one feeling alone, insecure, and stuck. Starting your own photography business is an intense, yet highly worth while pursuit. What makes starting a photography business or a photography project so difficult? Lack of ideas? Not Enough Time? Lack of confidence in ideas? Lack of confidence in skill or talent? Too many ideas? Too many great ideas you keep starting? These issues can leave one a number of problems that never actually make any ideas happen and leave photographers handcuffed to the cubicle.

This passage does not talk about photography, entrepreneurship, business, or ideas directly. The writing of Sir Laurens van der Post is a bit more spiritual. When you link the writing of Sir Laurens to your photography, ideas, business developments, or entrepreneurial ventures you can see that going about your work with the Great Hunger is essential.

When you apply great meaning to your work, you can easily check every idea or venture against it. Does your work match up with your cause, purpose or reason for doing photography? If you’re not getting a bit spiritual about your photography, how will other people begin to connect with your cause?

After all, isn’t everyone becoming more spiritually demanding? I mean that in a really good way. Nothing is more important than having a reason for getting out of bed everyday to change the world. People want to connect with your cause and world changing vision. As I’ve said before:

Passion isn’t much without purpose…

We’re so happy to see a t-shirt, created by photographer Jorge Quinteros, that connects with our vision for photography! Photography is definitely a lifestyle and much more than simply caring around a camera.

For us, it’s truly a lifestyle and what better way to display your deep interest for then craft by sporting one of these.

We recommend going over to Jorge’s shop and putting through an order before Feb 25th.

You know that feeling when you really want to get out on a nice day and take pictures? It’s awesome! And then nothing happens.  Your super rad DSLR, that you’re so proud to own, becomes a bit more obsolete and dusty. What happened? You’re a photographer; you love photography! So why is it so hard to get out and take the pictures?

Don’t worry.  You’re not alone.  We are all wondering why this happens so much.

And let me tell you: I fucking hate it.

We need you to take your pictures. We need you to fill up that memory card as often as you can.  Remember the feeling you get when you go out and press the shutter? *click click click* Remember the feeling of getting those street photography shots that made you go outside your comfort zone? Do it.

Back in March 2010, I went out because the sky and weather finally seemed to cooperate. I believe there were a few days of blue sky before I finally got out. I should have been out there on the first day. But no, I was held back by the thing Steven Pressfield calls RESISTANCE.  My head started to tell me all kinds of reasons not to bother:

• Your camera battery is probably low on energy
• You have other stuff you should be doing
• You’re tired, go have a nap and then go out
• Wait til the trees get some leaves
• You should get a better lens first

Seriously, the stupid shit that keeps us from doing what we love! But on this day, I challenged the resistance and it hated me for it.  I grabbed my dusty Nikon D300 and saw the battery had lots of juice.  I hopped in the Cube towards London’s fabulous downtown.  I planned to walk around just taking photographs of whatever I wanted and show the resistance that I am in charge.

I was going to sit down and do my work!

I needed to just start breaking through that ego driven part of my head.  Since that day, a number of events have occurred for myself that were probably stuck and not going to happen until I took action.

Remember when you were a kid and you would play in the sand or mud.  You would create a dam with the sand and then if you took your finger to break the dam, the water would start to flow out? It’s something like that.

We need you to take your pictures.

Challenge Resistance.

Break the Dam.

Have an awesome weekend.

December 5 – Let Go.

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Author: Alice Bradley)

I took a look back to the article written on January 18th, 2010, the one that talks about quitting my job to blog with only 60 RSS subscribers.  Who knows if 60 subscribers was even an accurate number.  I didn’t check but the next day, but with Feedburner that number could have been 22 subscribers.  Anyway, I found this paragraph from the article:

I  had to put an end to soul crushing work. In all my heart, I believe with absolute certainty that I will succeed. I am beyond excited to have the ability to focus 100% of my energy on blogging, design, photography and life. Everyday that I spent at my day J.O.B. felt like my creative soul was being power washed away.

Putting an end to soul crushing work isn’t easy. Letting go of your false-self is terribly difficult because even the things we hate the most are continually reinforced.  Instead of defining myself based on the opinions of others, I’ve embraced my authentic self. I’ve moved from soul crushing work to a meaningful and value-base lifestyle.

I can easily say that I ended a love affair with alcohol – a slow transition but fully realized in 2010.  I would rather be up in the morning and working on photography, websites, and building momentum.

I made a decision to let go of the things that don’t fill me up – the things that I don’t deplete energy.  Making such a decision can be so tough because it may mean that some people ultimately fall out of your life.  Before trusting myself and my decisions,  I felt the need to try and impress others because I viewed myself based on their opinions of me.

Even when pursuing your passion, you can be influenced by the opinion of others though.  I’ve gone through so many changes as I tried to impress other photographers, trying to get their attention.  Once I let go of the pursuit of a false-self, even within the photography realm, I have been able to feel more confident in my own ideas and photography work.

Another Reverb10 You Must Keep an Eye On

If you’re not already, I recommend reading what Kelly aka Blushink is writing for Reverb10.  Kelly is an inspiration to me because she’s a mother, a blogger, a designer and probably more.  I know people that have new babies and can’t get to any of the other awesome stuff Kelly does.

For the Let Go prompt, Kelly mentioned that she let go of Doubt.  Her reflection is different from mine, but it’s also along the same lines. In order to pursue a meaningful life you have to cast aside doubt.  In order to build momentum, you have to stop doubting yourself.  Once you do, there is no going back.

Read Blush!nk

We’ve all heard, time and time again, to be optimistic. How far can blind optimism get you? As a photographer that deals with bipolar depression, I am always on the lookout for ways to improve my mood – Be it positive affirmations, visualization, or optimism. Rethinking optimism in relation to your photography could change they way we operate as photographers. It could take your photography business to a whole new level.

“If you start every day saying, ‘I’m going to lose,’ what kind of a day is that?” he asked, living this own words as an “optimal behavioralist.”

“I don’t believe in optimism,” he explained. “I believe in optimal behavior. That’s a different thing. If you behave every day of your life to the top of your genetics, what can you do? Test it. Find out. You don’t know what you can do. You haven’t done it yet. So that’s optimal behavior. And when you behave that way you have a feeling of optimism. You see, there’s a difference. not to be optimistic, but to behave optimally. At the top of your lungs shout and listen to the echoes.”

-Ray Bradbury, The Bradbury Chronicles

Being optimistic is like sitting back and believing your favorite football team will win each Sunday. Optimism is layered in the idea that you desire great things to happen but the outcome is not dependent on anything to do with you.

Optimal behavior is about taking action and striving to do something challenging every single day.   For a photographer this means finding ways to challenge yourself everyday.  I find this is massively aligned with the idea of Photography Lifestyle Design and making photography and integral part of your life everyday.  Take another quote from Ray Bradbury and exchange “write” for “photograph”:

“Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.”

- Ray Bradbury

There is more to just being in love with photography and pushing forward everyday.  You must find out why you’re so in love with the idea of photography and being a photographer.  By doing this you can find ways for optimal behavior. You’ll have reasons for your cause, you’ll never give up, and you’ll keep pushing new boundaries to try new things and attempt things no one else has ever done.

By challenging myself to embrace iPhoneography, I have been experimenting with shooting images I normally would never attempt. Many times I find myself shooting right into the sun and the experimentation has carried over into my portrait photography as I’ve gained comfortability.

“I’m an optimal behaviorist, which means behaving to the top of my genetics every day. After a few hundred days of optimal behavior, optimal striving at the top of my genes and chromosomes, you can’t help but FEEL optimistic!”

- Ray Bradbury, in a letter to Jim Reed

What Does All This Mean for Photographers?

Photography doesn’t get easier just because the barrier to entry is lowered.  To set yourself apart, within a democratized renaissance, you’re going to need to make for optimal behavior.  Adopt a grandiose sense of excitement, fun, and passion for photography! Remember the reasons why your passion is so strong. With optimal behavior, you’re not always going to create work that is great, but eventually you’re going to create a lasting effect on the world.  It’s about pushing your art to heights you were never sure you could reach unless you try.  Instead of simply being optimistic, apply yourself into behaving at the peak of your own genetic madness: Become Optimism.

Does your work as a photographer have the opportunity to leave this world a thousand times better than you arrived?

]]> http://www.nuwomb.com/become-optimism-optimal-behavior-for-photographers/feed/ 3 http://www.nuwomb.com/ignite-london-2-photography-1/ http://www.nuwomb.com/ignite-london-2-photography-1/#comments Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:23:31 +0000 Scott Webb http://www.nuwomb.com/?p=7056

For Ignite London 2, I made sure I was not going to miss the talks.  The only problem was that I missed the very beginning of the challenge to kick off the event.  HUH? At each Ignite London there is a group challenge to ignite your mind into a new realm of thinking.  We arrived with 13 minutes left in the challenge – Wellington Road traffic has confirmed that we need to make the move into our city core.

Anways, I learned that people were engineering a marshmallow catapult system and the best launch would win.  This activity is perfect for the event because it opens up the mind to the upcoming insightful talks.

Inspire Us, But Make it Quick

While I wasn’t in the best spot for shooting these images, I made the most of it.  I wanted to help get some images that Ignite London could use if they desire, but I also wanted to get images for the speakers incase they wanted them for their own purposes, ie more speaking gigs.  These photographs are social proof!

I’ve opted to create a few parts to the Ignite London photography I shot – I don’t want to load the post with all the images at once an create an even more annoying load time.   Eventually all the images will be up within my Flickr photostream.

The talks ranged from the importance of Canadian film, to fab cakes, to sustainable living, and staying sane while unemployed.  Writing that sentence was seriously hard because I wanted to list every subject. There was someone filming and I highly encourage everyone to watch the talks once they are converted to a digital format to view online.

Marika’s favorite talk was by Grace Kelly – From Slab to Fab:  How to make cakes that are awesome! It was her favorite because she didn’t expect to come and hear a talk like that.  She expected the talks to be technical or something that she would just put up with for me.  The range of topics kept her interested in them all and I would say the same thing.

Ignite London didn’t disappoint and I came home wanting to take my work to a new level too.  Who knows when or if I’ll ever speak at an Ignite event, but there is a spark of interest at this point.  I’m waiting for when it feels right for me.

With that, I’ll share the first part of photographs from Ignite London 2 – These are the people that had the courage to share their expertise, story, and insight:

Grace Kelly
From Slab to Fab – How to make cakes that are awesome!

Thomas Cermak
Network Theory and Urban Planning

Matthew Hoy
Gaming For Good

Cindy G
The Indian Residential School System & Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

Darryl Andrews
Fantasy Sports

These photos are licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 - Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.  I always say that attribution isn’t necessary but it’s good karma – this means linking back here is highly appreciated.

I’ll share part 2 very soon and keep an eye out on Flickr. Subscribe to RSS and the Newsletter for updates!

Getting locked into a call center job, I become a sleepwalker.  For almost 8 years, I was walking through life asleep and oblivious to my own creativity.  Lost within a world of biweekly pay periods and weekends of binge drinking to the point of blacking out, I gave up permission to dream and act upon those dreams.   Does this sound familiar?

It’s not easy to wake up from a dreamless sleep, but if you’ve got the slightest hint of dissatisfaction with your life you might want to look into the lifestyle design movement.  Now let me try and explain what I mean by the lifestyle design movement.

By typing out the term “lifestyle design,” I don’t mean to hire virtual assistants and live a 4 hour work week.  When I think of lifestyle design, I envision the deliberate creation of ones own life or lifestyle.  Deliberate creation is something that becomes lost as we gain all of the responsibilities of life.  Thank goodness for people out there that spend their time trying to wake up the sleepwalkers.

For a long time, I felt as if I was designing my own lifestyle via the numerous websites and ideas I started.  Where I sit today, I actually feel like I was unable to actually start the real design.  The suppressed creative urges were given permission to surface and I couldn’t help but pursue them all.   Think about the brainstorming exercise known as the “third third.”  It’ basically says that you need to get through the first 2 thirds of ideas to get to the ‘third third’ – exciting, innovative, and a possible great idea. I discarded many started ideas that were unrelated to photography.  In 9 months, I’ve exhausted many creative urges and the ones that stick have to do with photography.  Recent internal reflection and meditation have lead to a desire to make photography a massive part of my life.

The photo above illustrates my reaction to the opening the curtains in our Toronto hotel room a month ago.

Making Photography a Massive Part of Life

Making photography a massive part of my life has lead to the idea of Photography Lifestyle Design.  If you’ve got a massive passion for photography, you may be interested in such a term.  Before feeling like you might be interested in photography lifestyle design, I want to let you know that passion isn’t enough.   In my eyes passion is easy! Passion is not deliberate.

I want to define photography lifestyle design as the deliberate creation of a life or lifestyle that involves photography.  I could shoot photography all day long because I’m passionate about it, but I am not getting anywhere in creating a life or lifestyle for myself and people around me.   One must be deliberate about how they are going to involve photography in their life to make an impact.  That impact is on their own life and something much larger than themselves.

Photography lifestyle design involves creating goals related to photography and not dying with your music vision still in you.  Embracing photography into almost every aspect of your life probably comes natural to many of you.  Make the deliberate decision of how you’re going to go about photography in the next 105 days, 1 year, 5 years, 20 years, and before you die.  Thomas Hawk has inspired this type of message with his goal to shoot 1 million photographs.  A goal like that can not happen unless you design your own lifestyle around photography.  That’s the kind of creation I am talking about here.   I want friends and family to always wonder what I’m photographing.  I want them to wonder if I’m going to make a random request to photograph them or something they own.  They will pretend like it bothers them but secretly become very curious.

The desire to finally write this article for you came from walking around my city the other day.  I was walking and admiring the sights around me.  These sights demanded me to take my iPhone out of my pocket and start taking photographs. I had to tell Marika that I was going to be a second taking a photograph of a building. And then it happened again and again.  The way our mind works, thoughts started to spark and I realized that I’m never going to stop snapping photographs. More ideas followed the experience but they all centered around designing a life that constantly involves photography.    As other ideas surface, we can immediately check it against aspects of how we perceive photography lifestyle design.  Does the idea meet your own definition? If not, perhaps it’s a great idea but not one you should devote much time on as it’s not related to photography in the way you’ve deliberately decided to make photography apart of your life.  We gain the ability to quickly check these ideas against our goals and only pursue the ones that will help achieve photographic goals.

How do you perceive a term like “photography lifestyle design?”