Before you read this you should read the question I posted on December 12 titled ? An Unusual question for you?.

The reason why I love this website is because of the experiences, commentary, and knowledge that people bring to these pages. It is rich and invaluable. Thank you.

However I think some of you may be off topic. My questions are not why I carry 160 lbs of gear or why it is so heavy, but rather how can I be more productive and creative in the field. There are very few, if any books that speak to this topic, yet this is really what photography is all about. The equipment is secondary for once you have it then you must do something with it and that is very hard.

I believe that imposing a goal of 1-6 exhibition quality images per day is absolutely essential for you to grow as a photographer. It forces you to start to think about how can I obtain such a goal. All of a sudden one image per week is no longer acceptable and now you are forced to move outside of your comfort zone. Your mind becomes filled with frustration and self drought. After many failures you will start to ask the question am I really an artist or just a fool running around with expensive gear. You are now in a crisis. Only then do you really start to innovate and truly create, if you survive.

Let me drive this point home by introducing you to another side of myself. I am also a wedding photographer. Four years ago I changed my whole approach and offered four packages starting at 300, 500, 700, and 900 excellent photographs. Excellence here means not only excellent images, but also excellence in coverage. The next thing I did was to tell my clients that they could keep half the fee until after inspecting the final product. If they did like it then they do not have to pay. This kind of sounds like 1-6 exhibition images per day, but it is even worse because brides have unrealistic expectations. When I first instituted this changes I can assure you my income went into a noses dive. This year I have exceed all my expectations and booked 62 weddings and will shoot over 24,000 frames of film. So far I have had no unhappy brides and I have received over $1600 in tips. Four years ago I was an introvert. Today I have become a extravert and I love pouring film over humanity. Yet, each time I shoot a wedding I still sweat bullets which forces me to learn and grow as a wedding photographer. If I fail to grow then I can assure you I will not get paid.

So let me repeat my question. What methods and techniques do you employ to insure success? To increase your productivity? Do you have any untested ideas that you would like to share with us. Here are just a few of the many things I have done to move closer to my goal of 1-6 exhibition images per day.

1. I now use a llama. A llama lets me get lots of gear into wild-prestine remote areas. Hershey allows me to set up a comfortable camp, carry 10 lens, a polaroid system, a big tripod, and many other things. All of this adds up to a very versatile system. Once we start to shoot film, Hershey carries everything (about 50 lbs) and I stay fresh, energized, and very productive.

2. I use color neg film. I then print it on Fuji super gloss crystal archive papers to get cibrachrome colors. Most people think I use chromes because of my colors. The reason I use negs is because I can record up to 11 stops of total light and 8-9 stops of dynamic light. This allows me to shoot later in the morning and earlier in the evening. I can shoot rings around people who use chromes, 4 stops does not cut it. I can also do contracted development with my negs: n-1, n-2, n-3, and n-4 just like you do with b&w film. In fact, I contend that I can take on higher contrast scenes then those who use b&w film with my color negs. This has made me extremely productive.