Do you recall the story about my troubles in advanced high school math? I stunk at math and then went on to university where I continued to stink at even more difficult math. Calculus, statistics, biostats…you name it, it failed em all. A derivative? What does that actually mean?
These days, thanks to many years in pharma sales, I love me some spreadsheets and graphs. These are the numbers I can relate to. They have nothing to do with art and yet they have everything to do with art.
I’m used to seeing an average of about 35, 000 image views in any given clients private wedding gallery. I don’t pay much more attention to it than that. But when an unusual number like 519 352 pops up on a graph along with a big spike on a line graph…I immediately wonder, ‘what does that actually mean?’
Last week I publicly posted Shannon + Matt’s full wedding gallery, all 1042 of them. (480 were from my camera, 562 were from Steph’s camera) and in just over 48 hours, there was over a half a million views. So, what does that number actually mean?
Well, Jason Groupp didn’t call and ask me to headline the WPPI in Las Vegas. Huy Nguyen didn’t email and ask me to headline a Fearless conference and Nikon didn’t tweet a single thing about it.
I also didn’t go out of business. I didn’t get laughed at (at least not to my face) and I didn’t lose followers or clients.
Nothing happened.
Nothing at all.
It’s Monday morning and I’m back in the studio just like any other Monday.
So what does it mean?
I feel stupid for missing it really. It’s right there on photo facebook pages everywhere…”I can’t wait to see the rest!” Here’s the photo math:
(Asking to see the rest) + (showing everything) = 519 352. This confirms that you actually DO want to see the rest. Why have we not been listening to you until now? I guess that’s what we get for following the crowd.
I recently ordered lunch from a local restaurant/catering company. It was some kind of masterpiece macaroni + cheese and meat sandwich. It was right there in the counter display case, perfectly perched and begging to be consumed. It was overflowing w ingredients over and under the most golden fresh piece of baguette I’ve ever seen. My mouth was watering as I handed over my $20 for this masterpiece and its sidekick cookie.
It took 30 minutes to get this thing that was now wrapped in a warm brown bag. We sprinted to the studio, tore open the bag, wiped away the drool…and I fucking lost it.
Have your kids ever sat on a loaf of Ben’s bread and smooshed it all down, then you put it in the freezer and it freezes that way? You take it out of the bag to toast it and you get this tiny ass little piece of bread? Well that was the home to a wretched clump of macaroni and a few sprigs of green something or other I was duped into buying. I’ve seen my kids make a peanut butter sandwich with more skill. So maybe this sounds a little over the top for a sandwich but it was more the fact that I got bamboozled by a sandwich man. I paid 20 bucks for a clump of kraft dinner and a kicker of Ben’s bread. I thought I was getting the Royale w Cheese.
See where I’m heading here?
We make photo sandwiches and it’s important to me that you know what your sandwich is going to look like when you pull it out of the bag after waiting so long for it.
Are we going to open up all the galleries for everything we’ve shot? Hell, no. I’m not a lunatic. We’re just going to show full weddings more and more. Winter weddings, hot sunny weddings, dark, rainy weddings, little weddings, big weddings…as much as we can. All of it.
So, here is one of my favorite destination weddings, Mike + Erica in Huatulco, Mexico. I love this city and the people in it and I would love to get back there soon. I’ve got 9 more fingers I need tattooed.
We spent 6 days shooting + delivered 1700-ish images. This collection starts with volleyball, about 10 minutes after we arrived on location and it ends at about 4am and a just a few hours before everyone flew home. If you’re going to haul a photographer across the country to shoot your wedding, you should see what it all looks like.
Erica + Mike, Huatulco, Mexico Wedding
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a great read, and i don’t think you give your girls enough credit for sandwich making abilities! 🙂
