Two Shoes is not in right now...: I take my hat off...

Long time no see... What have you been doing? Hopefully lots of good things and making yourselves happy? What have I been doing? Nothing. Thats right. Seems that I have acquired a horrible case of creative block. That coupled with general lack of enthusiasm and laziness has lef me bored as hell and not really motivated to anything new and fresh the last couple of weeks. Am I that worried about this? Is Jacob Zuma worried about the state of affairs in the country he "leads"? For my Norsk followers: Is Anders Breivik seemingly worried about the judgement he faces? Put shortly, No. I could be as phased right now as the ignorant wallowing hippopotamus is about climate change and global warming.

Can I blame others for my lethargy and unwillingness to create? Yes. But I'm not going to. I hate complaining and the miserable part of the unhappy population that sees fit to do so, so I will spare all of us the hypocrisy and self indulgent whining that all of the married men reading this have come to endure. What I can moan about though is the sheer uselessness of some of my intended clients. It seems that Norwegians have to much damn money or time or both. Why does no-one in this ice-blasted hell hole want anything for free? And how under God's scarcely seen sun can they drink so much?

Some of you may recall a post I made a while ago where I was looking for a job as a photo assistant? I offered myself pro bono, with no luck. I still struggle to understand how this didn't work out. At the moment Im trying (admittedly not too hard) to get more into entertainment photography, Bands, Musicians, DJ's and so on. Im also offering myself either free, if the work could potentially benefit my portfolio or lead to other paying work, or at a ridiculously low rate. How many callbacks have I got? mhm..... NONE! I cant really be that gobsmacked, considering the amount of effort that needs to be put in to make this work. Unfortunately the associating factors with musicians is the general lifestyle they lead. I know, I was one too. Thank God I gave up smoking bags upon bags of dope and drinking and railing lines before I was old enough to make the decision to be a muso as a career choice. Communists. Its seems like all the musicians I surround myself with are damned Marxist believers. Oh well.

This is where the actual point of this post comes in. If you are a photographer thats out there shooting all the time and being fresh and doing new things and trying new techniques and cranking out brilliant pictures, I take my hat off to you good sir(s) and madam's. I was under the romantic allure that my last creative nosedive would be abruptly ended when spring came back to the north. Spring has started batting her eyelashes, and Im still stuck. But why? Sun and warmth and all the things that my inspiration needs are coming back into place. And not to mention that you need somewhat decent light to take decent pictures. Some people just have it... The hustle, the gift of the game. Some people are the game, some people make their own game. Look at photographers like Peter Hurley, and his signature headshot business. I can even look 200m down the road at one of my friends, Elisabeth Jakobsen. I can see a picture of hers a mile away and see its here. Another friend of mine Linn Heidi also, she only shoots film, and mostly medium format. But she has this gorgeous look. All of these people are unmistakably talented and unmistakable when you look their work.

I guess the take away here is that the first thing is to be good at what you do, your particular style and your look are important too, but you need to be good at that. Being different helps too. These days with everyone basically remixing everyone else's work, being different definitely helps and will go along way.
The second part is the hustle. Just so you guys know, when I mean hustle, I mean how you sell your service or market yourself/ product. I dont mean shortchanging your client. This will comeback on you quicksticks and will cut out your future work possibilities sevenfold. You have to have hustle... You gotta know what it is you are good at and be able to understand how you can interest people in that. I can hustle. I could sell whale steak to Greenpeace. And Im coming up on the aforementioned side too.

Do I have anything recent to show that will make you eyeballs pop out of your head? No... Apart from an extremely gay sunset and some random snapshits. Which I choose not to show. However I do have a little collection of B+W pictures that have not seen the light of day. Speak soon. N.