hi, my name is chad

Here’s the #1 lesson you learn working in advertising (and this has stuck with me, to my advantage, my whole working life):

Nobody wants to read your shit.

Let me repeat that. Nobody–not even your dog or your mother–has the slightest interest in your commercial for Rice Krispies or Delco batteries or Preparation H. Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchopotoulis.

It isn’t that people are mean or cruel. They’re just busy.

Nobody wants to read your shit.

There’s a phenomenon in advertising called Client’s Disease. Every client is in love with his own product. The mistake he makes is believing that, because he loves it, everyone else will too.

They won’t. The market doesn’t know what you’re selling and doesn’t care. Your potential customers are so busy dealing with the rest of their lives, they haven’t got a spare second to give to your product/work of art/business, no matter how worthy or how much you love it.

What’s your answer to that?

1) Reduce your message to its simplest, clearest, easiest-to-understand form.

2) Make it fun. Or sexy or interesting or informative.

3) Apply that to all forms of writing or art or commerce.

When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, your mind becomes powerfully concentrated. You begin to understand that writing/reading is, above all, a transaction. The reader donates his time and attention, which are supremely valuable commodities. In return, you the writer, must give him something worthy of his gift to you.

—Author Steven Pressfield via blog.stevenpressfield.com

so today was quite the adventure. @darciakw found her grandfather’s Canon AE-1 as her and @rickwilson007 went thru the stuff they hadn’t touched in years to sell in a garage sale. pulled this guy out of now where and hesitated to put it out for sale. hella glad she did cause when i wandered into the kitchen, i picked it up and asked her “whats this??” and she told me about it. took it out of its case and its in PRESTEEN condition. i asked her if i could use it and one thing led to another, and i find myself in longs drugs looking to score some film and take this bad boy out for a spin. i even found the owners manual, scanned into a pdf file. the cover says it all about where this cam is from:

so i spend about half an hour reading everything there is to read about how to attach the lense correctly, how to install the film and how to operate a fully manual and analog camera. there is no auto focus, there is no flash, and after each photo you have to crank the arm to manually advance the slides. i had never owned or operated a camera that wasn’t electronic, so just the whole process was so amazing. and the craziest thing, was once i shot a photograph, i couldn’t review it… it was tucked away inside the camera and it wasn’t going anywhere. good or bad.

then came the whole “find a place to develop” and turns out walmart is legit in this area. 24 4x6 prints and all on a cd for like $10. that was a rad experience talking to the lab tech at walmart about the process and how all this stuff works, or at least how it used to work before the big D in front of SLR happened.

so for my first run, not a bad shoot? i just took a walk and this is what i came up with. and im hooked:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56938119@N00/sets/72157622290659699/show/