As I am writing this I am listening to The Who’s “Quadrophenia” start to finish. A few tracks in I realized there there will never be an album like this made again. No Wall, Tommy, or 2112 either. There is a certain beauty in listening to an entire album with a musical theme, something comforting. In these days of iTunes and American Idol, if someone did make a great album who would buy it? There is an entire generation that has no idea that music exists outside a playlist and that is very sad. I can’t tell you how many people I see on the subway sharing headphones and listening to only one channel of a stereo mix. I don’t know if they are so clueless that they don’t know what they are missing, or the music is that bad and they aren’t really missing anything. 

     I’ve been in the industry a long time now, I’ve seen a lot of changes, I’ve always tried to be optimistic about the future of music. The realization that the album is dead may be more that I can take. There are still great musicians out there, I work with a lot of them, there is still great music being made, its just getting harder and harder to find it.

 

    Today marks the first Formula One race in the US in several years, wait you didn’t know that? Its no surprise as F1 is virtually unknown and unpublicized in the states. Even a casual race fan frequently confuses Indy Car and F1 here. I’m not going to go into a point by point comparison to explain the differences, but I will just touch on the highlights and point out the single biggest difference.

       F1  is a truly global sport with drivers and teams from all over the map. Indy is a uniquely American product, there are plenty of foreign drivers (many formerly in F1) but the teams and sponsors are american. Indy runs a mix of ovals and street courses where F1 runs exclusively road courses. The cars and engines are quite different as well. Indy everything is spec and all teams run virtually the same thing, in F1 each team designs their own car.

       Thats it for the basics, there are a lot more subtle differences but in a nutshell that touches on the main points. The best way for americans to think of it is like football (soccer here) its a sport the world watches and americans just don’t understand.

       The biggest difference is something most people don’t even think about when comparing the two. The biggest difference between Indy and F1 is one man. Yup, one person Bernie Ecclestone. Love him or hate him (and I lean toward the latter) he is the man responsible for F1’s popularity on the world stage. Where Indy has a board of directors with political infighting, a revolving door of CEOs and the constant battle for control between team owners and the board, F1 has Bernie. Indy uses so much energy to fight amongst themselves its hard to see them ever retaining their former glory, F1 has Bernie. Many people disagree with his decisions and opinions, but he rules with an iron fist and in the end, that is actually a good thing.

        Will Bernie be able to crack the elusive US market? Will F1 gain in popularity here? Only time will tell, but as much as I don’t like him, I’m not betting agains him. 

 

As you may or may not know, we had a little storm here in New Jersey a few weeks ago. It was apparently the second most powerful storm to make landfall in the US. Needless to say there was massive amounts of damage done, much more than you probably saw on the news. Understandably this caused wide spread power outages. In the face of these outages the power company’s efforts to restore power were admirable . Its after they restored power that this blog will address. I’ve been on my local fire department for 25 years, I’ve handled my share of emergencies and worked closely with the power company in the past, so I have a little insight into how they operate. If you call during what they deem an “emergency” or storm the first question they will ask is “Is it on fire” that gets a response, the second question is “do you have power” Its the answer to that question that causes the problems and exposes the power company’s true priorities. The only number ever published in the press, the only number the politicians look at, it the number of people without power. 

       I am not going into how long I didn’t have power, that is not an issue, I will start with the day power was restored. Understandably @JCP_L employed local contractors to assist in restoring power to peoples homes. In my case it was Allan Briteway Electrical Contractors, Inc. from Whippany.In talking to them, they are pressured by @JCP_L to complete the hookups as quickly as possible, corner cutting is encouraged. Remember the only thing that counts to them is “do you have power‘   

       Well it turns out that the crew that hooked up my house and my neighbors did a sloppy job and caused further issues. How did I find out about this you may ask? Four days AFTER my power was “restored” I hear two guys shouting and arguing on my front lawn. Guess who they were? A  @JCP_L crew my neighbor had called to correct a problem they discovered. To say the crew was unprofessional was an understatement to say they were violent and abusive would be more accurate. At no time did they address me or contact me that the lights would be going out again. They were to busy screaming at each other. What was the problem? Was it addressed? I have no idea at all, again all the @JCP_L line crew was interested in was arguing getting the power back on. Not if it was safe or correct, just on.

       This is where the fun starts. My wife called @JCP&L to find out what was wrong, if it was fixed and to report the abusive crew. Thats when nothing happened. Again remember, as long as your lights are on, they do not care what other issues you may have. I spoke to Darlene and Walt in their West Virginia call center and.......nothing.  I finally got the idea to try twitter. It took me a while to think of it, but eventually I remembered Kevin Smith. A few nasty tweets and I have an almost instant response from LOCAL employees not the useless West Virginia call center. The potentially dangerous situation on my house was finally rectified, a week AFTER it was created  but I am still waiting on a resolution to the reason why the case didn’t make it past Darlene and Walt and what is going to happen to the abusive, violent crew. 

        On a side note when I contacted Allan Briteway Electrical Contractors, Inc., a local company I had a response in 4 minutes (not 4 days) and a representative at my house in under an hour. His excuse, as mentioned previously is @JCP_L pressures them to work fast and that they usually come out to “clean things up” 

     So just remember, if you have power don’t hold your breath for @JCP_L to get back to you, and their West Virginia call center is a complete waste of time and breath. Twitter to the rescue!!!

 

       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.

 

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