wrapped up a week of being inspired last week with students pursuing their passion for photography with a talk i give called my better is better then your better. it’s based on the nike / w+k ads from a few years back. the idea being that we’re all around to (a) be in business + (b) be creative. pursue passion, work hard + take pride in what you do. we should all be able to say “my better is better then your better” in some way, be it simply expressing our personal point of view or dominating what you do best. it’s not a put down towards others as much as it is a statement of belief in your self, your work + perhaps most importantly your efforts.

reading courtesy of ibooks on my flight home i was then caught by this piece off change this titled The Power of Passionate Creatives. the one thing among many that stood out for me was this,

Passion puts you ahead of the competition.

An interesting thing happens when we pursue our passions as our profession: We actually seek out more challenges. Rather than viewing them as sources of stress, we see them as opportunities to get better faster.
We want to push ourselves to the next level, and we get restless if we remain in the same place too long.
No matter what the area of work, some people are quite passionate about what they do. They can’t wait to get to work and test themselves. They love to drive their performance to new levels.
Increasingly, these are the people you will be competing with in the future.
We’ll say this a different way:
If you are not equally passionate about the work you do, you will undoubtedly get marginalized. The pressures will just be too overwhelming.

brilliant. kind of thing you intrinsically develop as a creative business owner but never put into place as an advantage. my better is better… in crazy synchronicity the piece even touches on my current book Matt Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft where he argues that working with one’s hands can have deeply philosophical, even spiritual, meaning. if you haven’t, you should.

so here’s to creativity coming out your ears. this mind blowing trailer from life cycles, might help. it’s the best thing i’ve seen lately. pure inspiration. an ex pro rider friend relayed to me,

Holy ?!@#, I believe the standards for bike movies just went up a notch. Looks like a National Geo documentary merged with The Collective. Super rad.

great assignment in southern, or earlier this week. here’s the view from the iphone. haven’t been that way since i was yosemite big wall bound with little more then a haulbag + 100 lbs of gear so amazing to reconnect.

more assignments lined for the next few weeks so will roll out the work as it’s published. in the meantime, i’m speaking at the art institute of portland tonight. telling the kids everything they need to hear but probably haven’t.

good to be home + out on the streets late.

i’ve never felt that i needed an audience. used to consider myself shy. hated playing little league as it was just you in front of all those people watching. wrestling was even worse. imagine that i’m not anywhere near alone with this either.

why is it then the deeper you delve into creative work that it tends to find a public venue or need to find a way out beyond yourself. i’m not actively putting out stuff 24/7. do a ton of image taking + more just for me. but curiously enough, heading into nyc last week my iphone completely died. a problem on it’s own though not really a big deal as i have it backed up weekly + sync with mobile me.

what did chap me – the pictures. nothing ground breaking but oh the moments, gone for good. such a pisser + there’s no way around it. not even an early am visit to the flagship 5th ave store could salvage a few mbs of imagery. recent hipstamatic advances – done. sfo + lax – toast. fam on the beach – finito.

i knew this going into it + yet i can’t seem to let it go. i want those images back. those pixels are mine. they need to be (1) saved + (2) shared. why such a strong desire to go public? why the need to take these pictures in the first place?

now that we have access to cameras on our person nearly 24/7 it’s altered the landscape of what we can + are willing to do. i can’t believe how wholly i’ve been sucked in…. or conversely found a ripe outlet.

with only one piece of white paper, how do you introduce yourself + abilities to the world?