Who are your influences?
Thats a question a friend asked me a few weeks ago. I thought about it and gave the standard answers, a photography teacher
I had, a few well known photographers and a book. Its true all these things have influenced my photography but so has a lot
more. I was reminded of this by watching an old movie the other night. Its a movie that came out in the early 80s about the
same time I was getting serious about photography. I’ve always liked the movie, quoted lines from the movie, but I never
sited it as an influence. My wife had never seen it and it was on one of the many movie channels so we decided to sit down
and watch it. I probably hadn’t seen in in 20 years and I was shocked. From the opening sequence I could see a
reflection of my work. My wife looked at me with that knowing look saying now I know why you like this movie.
Who are your influences? If someone asks me that question again I think my answer is: Everyone and everything
I have ever seen. I’m a photographer, I look at the world a little differently, and apparently I retain a lot more than
I thought I did. Every scene and photograph I have ever experienced is an influence on the work I currently do.
I know its been a while since my last blog post, it seems life has a habit of getting in the way. The good news is, I have
several new posts lined up, so there shouldn’t be a big gap again.
I know you are looking at the
title and wondering what the heck I am going to talk about, this has nothing to do with my other posts. Well it doesn’t
and it does. If there is one thing I love as much as photography its Formula One racing. Truth be told my ultimate dream job
would be photographing F1. Its not easy being an F1 fan in the United States, it a primarily European series, almost
unheard of here. Up until this year the only F1 race in North America was in Montreal Canada. I attend this race regularly,
but this year due to various circumstances was unable to attend. In a weird twist of fate the Formula One Teams
Association (FOTA) (@ollyfota) had an event in NYC that I was able to attend. Several of the teams and their drivers
were featured in this question and answer session. A side note, in F1 there are top teams that are expected to win races,
mid field teams that score points and the “new” teams that aren’t really in contention for anything but
bragging rights amongst themselves. One of these “other” teams that participated was the Marussia F1 team, To
me they were the most impressive of the teams there. They may be small, they may have no chance at a victory at the moment,
but they work just as hard as the other teams, and, most importantly understand the need for fan (customer) interaction.
They have a very active twitter feed (@Marussia_F1Team) and post a lot of info and photos on their facebook page. I
have been a F1 fan for over 25 years and attended dozens of races, but never had the chance to interact with a team in that
way before. I admit I was initially skeptical and maybe looked down on the smaller teams, but after this event I came away
impressed with their entire organization and huge fan. They are currently running a contest to allow one of their fans to
join the team at an upcoming race to be their twitter corespondent for the weekend.
Their efforts
go to show just how much customer service and social media can enhance a brand or business. It doesn’t matter how small
your business is, in todays world social media is here to stay. Customer service is always important and going that extra
mile can really go a long way in gaining fans (clients)
Just one last note, during the event I was fortunate
enough to meet their test driver Maria de Villota. She later suffered a horrible accident in testing and I want to wish her
all the bestl. Here is a link to a photo of Maria signing an autograph for me.
https://twitter.com/#!/stageleftphoto/media/slideshow?url=http%3A%2F%2Fyfrog.com%2Fj2k31jvj
