My Paper

Trevor Morrison

ENG201
Z. DePiero

Rough Draft

In life, you have many choices to make throughout your life that accompany several different paths. The beautiful thing about the world we live in is, for the most part, you get to decide which path you would like to travel down. I found my favorite path to be one I am walking down with a camera in my hand. Now to you, when envisioning a day in the life of a photographer it probably seems pretty easy right? Snapping a few pictures, living life simply, and thriving every day? ... Unfortunately it's not just that easy. Us as photographers must have skill sets that range from advertising to business to creativity and everywhere in between. If an artist wants to make it in the world of photography he/she must have the professional capability to appeal to a large audience of people and draw attention to their product. After sitting down and speaking with someone who works in the professional world of business you can learn there is a lot that goes into appealing to your audience and bringing the attention of the largest possible array of customers. A huge part of this involves writing and presenting to various groups of people. Now, in order to make these people inclined to listen to you or what you are trying to pitch to them you must write and present effectively, this is common sense. Furthermore, how you present yourself and your product is really what changes minds and turns heads in your direction.

    Someone who works as a business consultant in the world of marketing is a great example of someone in the mainstream business world who has to maintain certain quality in their writing or presenting. This correlates directly to photography and presenting products or types of images and working with clients to get the image exactly how they want it to look while having the largest impact on the audience trying to be reached. I interviewed Doug, someone who works in the field of consulting and found out a lot about his writing and techniques he has to use on a daily basis in order to satisfy clientele and customers. I asked Doug about how writing correlates with his job as a consultant. Doug explained, “On an everyday basis I need to communicate to a client that he/she understands their problem and has a specific solution or answer to this problem. alot of the time I must communicate my solution and research through the written word. This may include creating powerpoints and word docs to bring in new clients and begin new projects”. A consulting agent must work with a client in order to solve their issue with marketing whether that may be changing the color of their packaging to promoting a special cause for their product, inclining people to buy said product. A huge part of this is communication and successful exchanging of ideas in order to find a solution to their marketing issues. This means the communication between the client and Doug must be effective and professional.

    One of the most important aspects of writing or speaking to an audience or customers is how you speak to them. It is human nature to try and read someone through how they speak and how they select their words. There are proper speaking conventions for different groups of people and different occasions. For example, if you are hanging out with your friends, just talking loosely and “shootin’ the shit” if you will, you know you can speak in an unorganized and sporadic like fashion because your friends have an expectation of how you speak; however, that expectation is not one which they expect to hear old english come out of your mouth or even the type of speech you would use in a professional business situation. That’s just not what you and your friends are used to (hopefully...otherwise I’d be considering pursuit of a new friend group) On the other hand, if you are presenting your work or trying to pitch your idea to a group of people in a business-like situation, you are going to to select your words in a meticulous and professional manner. This can otherwise be referred to as rhetoric. The idea of rhetoric is that there is a different strategy to speech depending on the audience. In a text Spaces for Writing, “Understanding Rhetoric” we can learn, “Each writing situation has its own demands, its own expectations, and its own sense of how writing is to be presented” (page 9). If you imagine the places where you see writing, you will see that the way it is written is decided specifically for that occasion. Writing is everywhere if you think about it. There is writing on warning labels, written in a very strict transparent way so that the reader understands the danger efficiently and quickly. There is writing in store windows to potentially attract customers. This is a perfect example of writing being implemented in a business environment to enhance the company appeal to clients or customers. If you see a store that has a sign reading “SALE 20% OFF” in the window that is written and placed strategically so you as the buyer will first of all see the sign (written in all caps) as well as feel like you are getting a better deal by buying their product opposed to other stores products. This can be considered the company using rhetoric as a marketing technique to its customers. While rhetoric is being used between the sellers and the buyers, rhetoric can also be seen behind the scenes of the exchanging of ideas in order to create a marketing tactic for this specific product. An experienced marketing consultant knows in most cases, this will be made up of an organized plan of attack, respectful gestures, and an interesting presentation that will hold their attention. When interviewing someone in the professional world who deals with this type of interaction on a daily basis you get to understand what goes into a business meeting such as this. Doug goes into detail regarding various situations in his field, “If presenting to large group of a 500+ audience I’ll include less slides, make the message simple, and try to apply to a broader general audience. when speaking to 1 or 2 people I will try and be very specific and drive into their specific issue in order to give good solutions and recommendations because when speaking to 1 or 2 people individually, they have a specific need and a specific want and anything less would make them frustrated and unsatisfied.” He showed me two different contrasting artifacts that show this. One was a powerpoint directed to a large group of people, specifically IFMA and IFDA who are huge international food distributors. This powerpoint was much more broad while maintaining focus on what TPG can do for them. The document included various strategies for attacking problems and TPG’s plan of attack. It touched on the mapping out of the problems the 6 different issues in themselves, and the way they can be corrected with an easy to follow plan. In contrast I also got to go over a Powerpoint regarding a smaller audience, Lamb Weston a potato distributor. As you could assume the Lamb Weston document was much more detailed and driven to solve extremely specific issues and targeting those from a certain angle. This presentation included the specific problem and how to fix it through various phases. Then, through these phases there are detailed explanations of what each step brings to the table and how to execute that plan. As you can see these are two very different ways of presenting and writing depending completely on the audience being reached. The way you speak to people and write to people will be completely different depending on the audience. This being said, you must prepare accordingly. Preparedness shows that you are serious about what you are doing. It will show your client that they can depend on you in future products. Everything that goes into the meeting with your clients must be thoroughly thought through and planned. You should have everything planned from the preparation before the meeting to the interaction during the meeting to the follow up after the meeting. The same follows for the world of photography. As photographers it is our job to create and present a product or image in this case that appeals to our clients in an organized and professional fashion. My interviewee Doug went on to talk about his techniques for organizing a presentation for people, “I make sure that I clearly understand their wants and needs. To align with them on the phone or via email prior to meeting to make sure I have captured their issues or problems properly. As well as, always building a general outline before any final presentation or proposal. I finally show that I understand by asking good questions and communicating alignment points to them such as “Am i understanding you correctly that you need to develop a customer strategy in this space.” How a person communicates means a lot about how they hold themselves, how passionate they are, and what kind of person they are. If you can holster these qualities in the best and most appealing fashion to your clients then you will have yourself set up for success.

    Another major part of establishing a successful business practice is presenting your work in a way that well represents you yourself, your motives, and your passion. This is very important in establishing a self image for yourself. Around the world there are many different people for many different things. Have you ever found yourself watching an old-time movie or even a TV-show where the character turns to the other character and says, “I got a guy”. Now, there are many different “guys” throughout the world we live in for many different things. Someone may have a book guy, or a fruit guy, or a construction guy, and so on. As a photographer you want to become one of those “guys”. A person who has a signature for themselves, a reason people will hire you opposed to the next guy This comes down to a matter of organizing your work and establishing a signature for yourself. Something that makes you stand out for what you do. This can be achieved in one way, by going above and beyond the expectations of your client. If you blow them away with your organization and professionality as well as the final product you will have extremely reliable customers and plenty of them. My interviewee Doug tells me about his strategy for making himself stand out opposed to competitors, “In my job it is important to represent myself as a practitioner-someone who has done marketing and strategy work and therefore can teach it- in order to show I have experience in this field. Through the written word I need to represent myself as someone who has done the work, is self motivated, and helps the client fix problems and represent himself as better than his competition.” When pitching through presentations he has a section of the presentation on why TPG and why Doug meant to highlight his points of difference vs. the others. Doug showed me one of his presentations and I got to see the different components of this section. He first explains a history of where they started and how they’ve grown. Then shows simple diagrams of how TPG can help the client market their product through different strategies. Finally, there are a few slides literally explaining the positive attributes of TPG and what they have in comparison to the competitors such as “20 best practice publications, 225+ Registered intellectual properties, retail and industry leaders, etc”. Also, sealing the deal with all the big name clients and even more local ones that TPG has collaborated with. This is exactly how you set yourself apart from the competition. Another example of this can be seen in my rhelm of photography. I have a photography teacher, Greg Voight, who once told us a story about his beginning years as a photographer. He was trying to get a job shooting for a golf event coverage between him and several other photographers. When Greg showed up to deliver his images they were all organized neatly in a binder labeled and all. The director was astonished. He had never seen something so professionally done. He was used to receiving a bag full of negatives and to have them all organized and layed out nicely… who do you think was the first person he called the following year? To this same point you want to create an image for yourself that stands for your business. When you are trying to run a business you want continuing and reliable customers. Customers become reliable when they become comfortable. Creating this signature for yourself allows people to feel comfortable with what they are buying because every time they pick up their phone to call you for a job they will know what they will get as a final product. It’s like a sandwich shop, sure there’s plenty of sandwich shops around town but you just love that one sandwich place because you know you’re going to get a fantastic sandwich. Now, you like that sandwich so much that you want to go tell your friends about this great sandwich you just had. It is the same when you are trying to sell a product and this is exactly how good business works. Supporting a strong and positive representation of your business is key in drawing people in and maintaining relationships with clients.

    As a photographer it is our job to grab your attention and make you feel through the imagery that we capture. This is the same for business practices you want to grab the attention of the client and customer. My interviewee, Doug is a marketing consultant in a group of about 50 people that all work together to pitch ideas to different companies ranging anywhere from hallmark to sara lee to petco. These ideas consist of ways that the company can make their product better and more appealing to their customers. If you think about it this is a huge part of the company selling their product. So in a way Doug has to figure out what will make people more inclined to buy this product. Part of that process will be finding out how to make people feel like they have to buy this product. This might be putting rough looking shelter pups on the packages of the dog food for Petco to appeal to people’s emotions. They see the dogs on the bag and maybe it says 5% of profit will go to shelter organizations. These are all business practices to get someone to feel more inclined to buy that product opposed to the others. The same follows for photography. Our job is to produce an image that you see and you feel happy, sad, angry, confused, it doesn’t matter what you feel as long as we can make you feel something. Because, that feeling alone draws you into the image. In a photography business example, imagine you are a wedding photographer. A couple walks into your studio looking for a potential photographer. If they look at the walls and see all the beautiful married couples so happy and wonderful and nothing in the world could ever be wrong with them. They both go “Awww, look at them we want that, we want to be like them. We’ll hire you.” And that’s how business works. Make them feel like they will be happy in the end of things just like the couples on your wall. This my friends can be referred to as using ethos, pathos, and logos in your business practices, an extremely valuable tool. In one of my classes, my brilliant teacher Zack Depiero asks us, “who has seen a movie recently that made you cry?” People went on to answer, and Zack then asks, why? Why did this movie make you feel like that. To his point, this movie was completely fiction. All the characters are made up and so is the story. So why does entertainment basically lying to you make you feel so strongly for the characters? It’s because the person selling to you is establishing a relationship between their piece, product, or characters and making you feel connected to them and emotional for them. You would be surprised how much emotions really affect people’s choices every single day. If you can appeal to people’s emotions through your work, I guarantee you will be able to reel ‘em in. It is simply how us amazing human beings work, true human nature.

    It truly is crazy how related photography is with the business world and how many people would never know how connected the two are. If you can communicate effectively to an audience they will take you seriously and be more likely to be a client to you if you treat them like their interest is your priority. Creating an image for yourself and relationships with clients is key in maintaining continued business. Finally people love feelings, our society is becoming more and more dramatic as the days pass, so recognize that and feed the drama! Make people see what is before them with their feelings and encourage them that your product is worthy of their emotions. Being a successful businessman is achievable by harnessing all these techniques and using them to attract an audience to your work.

Rough Draft, a little less shitty

In life, you have many choices to make throughout your life that accompany several different paths. The beautiful thing about the world we live in is, for the most part, you get to decide which path you would like to travel down. I found my favorite path to be one I am walking down with a camera in my hand. Now to you, when envisioning a day in the life of a photographer it probably seems pretty easy right? Snapping a few pictures, living life simply, and thriving every day? ... Unfortunately it's not just that easy. Us as photographers must have skill sets that range from advertising to business to creativity and everywhere in between. If an artist wants to make it in the world of photography he/she must have the professional capability to appeal to a large audience of people and draw attention to their product. After sitting down and speaking with someone who works in the professional world of business you can learn there is a lot that goes into appealing to your audience and bringing the attention of the largest possible array of customers.

    One of the most important aspects of speaking to an audience or customers is how you address them as well as how you present yourself. It is human nature to try and read someone through how they speak and how they select their words. There are proper speaking conventions for different groups of people and different occasions. For example, if you are hanging out with your friends, just talking loosely and “shootin’ the shit” if you will, you know you can speak in an unorganized and sporadic like fashion because your friends have an expectation of how you speak; however, that expectation is not one which they expect to hear old english come out of your mouth or even the type of speech you would use in a professional business situation. That’s just not what you and your friends are used to (hopefully...otherwise I’d be considering pursuit of a new friend group) On the other hand, if you are presenting your work or trying to pitch your idea to a group of people in a business-like situation, you are going to to select your words in a meticulous and professional manner. This can otherwise be referred to as rhetoric. The idea of rhetoric is that there is a different strategy to speech depending on the audience. If you imagine the places where you see writing, you will see that the way it is written is decided specifically for that occasion. Writing is everywhere if you think about it. There is writing on warning labels, written in a very strict transparent way so that the reader understands the danger efficiently and quickly. There is writing in store windows to potentially attract customers. This is a perfect example of writing being implemented in a business environment to help the company appeal to clients or customers. If you see a store that has a sign reading “SALE 20% OFF” in the window that is written and placed strategically so you as the buyer will first of all see the sign (written in all caps) as well as feel like you are getting a better deal by buying their product opposed to other stores products. So to reiterate the connection of rhetoric to business practices_____ In most cases, this will be made up of an organized plan of attack, respectful gestures, and an interesting presentation that will hold their attention. When interviewing someone in the professional world who deals with this type of interaction on a daily basis you get to understand what goes into the behind the scenes of holding a business meeting. When holding a meeting with a group of people that are possibly interested in what you are selling you must be prepared. Preparedness shows that you are serious about what you are doing. It will show your client that they can depend on you in future products. Everything that goes into the meeting with your clients must be thoroughly thought through and planned. You should have everything planned from the preparation before the meeting to the interaction during the meeting to the follow up after the meeting. The same follows for the world of photography. As photographers it is our job to create and present a product or image in this case that appeals to our clients in an organized and professional fashion. My interviewee went on to talk about how you want to present your idea, make your pitch organized and easy to follow, keep in mind what the client wants because that is always first, and make a good impression by being respectful and friendly. How a person speaks means a lot about how they hold themselves, how passionate they are, and what kind of person they are. If you can holster these qualities in the best and most appealing fashion to your clients then you will have yourself set up for success.

    Another major part of establishing a successful business practice is presenting your work in a way that well represents you yourself, your motives, and your passion. This is very important in establishing a self image for yourself. Around the world there are many different people for many different things. Have you ever found yourself watching an old-time movie or even a TV-show where the character turns to the other character and says, “I got a guy”. Now, there are many different “guys” throughout the world we live in for many different things. Someone may have a book guy, or a fruit guy, or a construction guy, and so on. As a photographer you want to become one of those “guys”. A person who has a signature for themselves, a reason people will hire you opposed to the next guy This comes down to a matter of organizing your work and establishing a signature for yourself. Something that makes you stand out for what you do. This can be achieved in one way by going above and beyond the expectations of your client. If you blow them away with your organization and professionality as well as the final product you will have extremely reliable customers and plenty of them. I have a photography teacher, Greg Voight, who once told us a story about his beginning years as a photographer. He was trying to get a job shooting for a golf event coverage between him and several other photographers. When Greg showed up to deliver his images they were all organized neatly in a binder labeled and all. The director was astonished. He had never seen something so professionally done. He was used to receiving a bag full of negatives and to have them all organized and layed out nicely… who do you think was the first person he called the following year? To this same point you want to create an image for yourself that stands for your business. When you are trying to run a business you want continuing and reliable customers. Customers become reliable when they become comfortable. Creating this signature for yourself allows people to feel comfortable with what they are buying because every time they pick up their phone to call you for a job they will know what they will get as a final product. It’s like a sandwich shop, sure there’s plenty of sandwich shops around town but you just love that one sandwich place because you know you’re going to get a fantastic sandwich. Now, you like that sandwich so much that you want to go tell your friends about this great sandwich you just had. It is the same when you are trying to sell a product and this is exactly how good business works. Supporting a strong and positive representation of your business is key in drawing people in and maintaining relationships with clients.

    As a photographer it is our job to grab your attention and make you feel through the imagery that we capture. This is the same for business practices you want to grab the attention of the client and customer. My interviewee, Doug is a marketing consultant in a group of about 50 people that all work together to pitch ideas to different companies ranging anywhere from hallmark to sara lee to petco. These ideas consist of ways that the company can make their product better and more appealing to their customers. If you think about it this is a huge part of the company selling their product. So in a way Doug has to figure out what will make people more inclined to buy this product. Part of that process will be finding out how to make people feel like they have to buy this product. This might be putting rough looking shelter pups on the packages of the dog food for Petco to appeal to people’s emotions. They see the dogs on the bag and maybe it says 5% of profit will go to shelter organizations. These are all business practices to get someone to feel more inclined to buy that product opposed to the others. The same follows for photography. Our job is to produce an image that you see and you feel happy, sad, angry, confused, it doesn’t matter what you feel as long as we can make you feel something. Because, that feeling alone draws you into the image. In a photography business example, imagine you are a wedding photographer. A couple walks into your studio looking for a potential photographer. If they look at the walls and see all the beautiful married couples so happy and wonderful and nothing in the world could ever be wrong with them. They both go “Awww, look at them we want that, we want to be like them. We’ll hire you.” And that’s how business works. Make them feel like they will be happy in the end of things just like the couples on your wall. This my friends can be referred to as using ethos, pathos, and logos in your business practices, an extremely valuable tool. In one of my classes, my brilliant teacher Zack Depiero asks us, “who has seen a movie recently that made you cry?” People went on to answer, and Zack then asks, “why? Why did this movie make you feel like that.” To his point, this movie was completely fiction. All the characters are made up and so is the story. So why does entertainment basically lying to you make you feel so strongly for the characters? It’s because the person selling to you is establishing a relationship between their piece, product, or characters and making you feel connected to them and emotional for them. You would be surprised how much emotions really affect people’s choices every single day. If you can appeal to people’s emotions through your work, I guarantee you will be able to reel ‘em in. It is simply how us amazing human beings work, true human nature.

    It truly is crazy how related photography is with the business world and how many people would never know how connected the two are. If you can communicate effectively to an audience they will take you seriously and be more likely to be a client to you if you treat them like their interest is your priority. Creating an image for yourself and relationships with clients is key in maintaining continued business. Finally people love feelings, our society is becoming more and more dramatic as the days pass, so recognize that and feed the drama! Make people see what is before them with their feelings and encourage them that your product is worthy of their emotions. Being a successful businessman is achievable by harnessing all these techniques and using them to attract an audience to your work.

Week 4 Blogpost - Everything's an argument

This weeks reading was definitely intriguing to say the least. I almost found myself contemplating the entire duration of my life with this one. Everything that goes on in our daily lives consists of an argument. Now let's take a step back and really think about this one. As I'm walking to my refrigerator I am in no way, shape, or form yelling at myself in an argument with solely myself on the other end of the conversation like a schizophrenic. However, everything we do on a daily basis we are technically debating with ourselves whether to do one thing or another thing. Here's a good example I know everyone can relate to. When we wake up in the morning and just have no desire whatsoever to get out of that comfy, warm, tender bed of ours that will always be the single most greatest thing in the world at that point in time. We are in a debate with ourselves to get out of bed and hop in the shower to get the day rolling. This is an interesting way of looking at things to say the least, because it is true! Now, if you keep this in mind while writing you can share the arguments with your audience by making them question things within the text, not enough to be confused but enough to be intrigued. QUESTION EVERYTHING! ...what the hell am I going to eat for lunch....

Week 7 Blog - Reading like a writer

This reading was interesting in the fact that it looks at reading from a different perspective. I personally have never been a good reader. This kind of made me rethink my reading to help my writing, pretty weird stuff. Essentially, the idea is that if you read in a manner of questioning everything (as you should in the other aspects of your life as well) you will realize that writers have certain techniques and strategies to hold your attention and make you feel certain ways after reading that page or chapter. If you can re-track your steps and find out how you got to the point of crying into a soggy pile of pages, you will see that the writer wrote in a way to attach you, the reader, to the material in the book by using certain writing conventions and strategies. If you as a writer can identify these strategies while reading you can implement them into your own writing. Reading like a writer makes you a better writer. Keeping this in mind we can look into every choice a writer made on their piece of writing. Whether that be from writing according to a certain genre or audience they are trying to reach, to what size of words they are using. It's pretty sweet how much you can learn by reading other people's work if you think about it. Overall, I thought the reading was decently cool. It was easy to understand what point they were trying to get across. I think their take on analyzing other writer's pieces in a way to improve and benefit your own writing is a peculiar stance to take on reading but a very valuable one at the same time.

Blog post Week 1 - Navigating Genres

I thought the reading was interesting especially in the form that the writer wrote in. He started out explaining how we recognize different characteristics that make up a group or genre in this case. Those characteristics will allow us to separate these genres and better understand what kind of things would fall into that category. He then gets off the subject of genres and explains how he came to write the essay the way he did, which I think is interesting but somewhat appropriate. He lets us know what he will be talking about and gets the reader to kind of see what he's explaining and then tries to ease up on the "teaching" approach by relating to us. Going on about how he had to research other essays of teachers directing their message to students. Allowing him to set the stage that he will be talking to us in a relatable and relaxed manner.  I thought it was unnecessary to explain how genres became and what they used to be defined as. In this day and age we have become very good puzzle solvers. The fact that the word genre has been implemented into every single ipod ever created suggests that one would be able to connect the two, genres of different styles/types of music and genres of different styles/types of writing.  We are pretty aware of the current meaning of genre. Genres can be summed up as the various situations of writing calling for a different style of writing. It's as if you have this big cake to bake and you have to choose the right recipe for the cake. Now I know people are out there making some pretty weird and crazy cakes but I for one would not take a can of sloppy joe sauce and mix it into the batter. To this same point you wouldn't go off using offensive language in a 4th grade paper. The two just do not mix. Pick a style of writing that fits your situation and run with it!

My shitty rough draft

In life, you have many choices to make throughout your life that accompany several different paths. The beautiful thing about the world we live in is, for the most part, you get to decide which path you would like to travel down! I found my favorite path to be one I am walking down with a camera in my hand. When envisioning a day in the life of a photographer it seems pretty easy right? Snapping a few pictures, living life simply, and thriving every day? ... Unfortunately it's not just that easy. Us as photographers must have skill sets that range from advertising to business to creativity and everywhere in between. If an artist wants to make it in the world of photography he/she must have the professional capability to appeal to a large audience of people and draw attention to their product. After sitting down and speaking with someone who works in the professional world of business you can learn there is a lot that goes into appealing to your audience and bringing the attention of the largest possible array of customers.

    One of the most important aspects of speaking to an audience or customers is how you address them. It is human nature to try and read someone through how they speak and how they select their words. There are proper speaking conventions for different groups of people. For example, if you are hanging out with your friends, just talking loosely and “shootin’ the shit” if you will you know you can speak in an unorganized and sporadic like fashion because your friends have an expectation of how you speak; however, that expectation is not one which they expect to hear old english come out of your mouth or even the type of speech you would use in a professional business situation. That’s just not what you and your friends are used to (hopefully...otherwise I’d be considering pursuit of a new friend group) On the other hand, if you are presenting your work or trying to pitch your idea to a group of people in a business-like situation, you are going to to use a certain way of speech. In most cases, this will be made up of an organized plan of attack, respectful gestures, and an interesting presentation that will hold their attention. When interviewing someone in the professional world who deals with this type of interaction on a daily basis you get to understand what goes into the behind the scenes of holding a business meeting. Everything that goes into the preparation before the meeting to the interaction during the meeting to the follow up after the meeting. The same follows for the world of photography. As photographers it is our job to create and present a product or image in this case that appeals to our clients in an organized and professional fashion. My interviewee went on to talk about how you want to present your idea, make your pitch organized and easy to follow, keep in mind what the client wants because that is always first, and make a good impression by being respectful and friendly. How a person speaks means a lot about how they hold themselves, how passionate they are, and what kind of person they are. If you can holster these qualities in the best and most appealing fashion to your clients then you will have yourself set up for success.

    Another major part of establishing a successful business practice is presenting your work in a way that well represents you yourself, your motives, and your passion. This is very important in establishing a self image for yourself. Around the world there are many different people for many different things. Have you ever found yourself watching an old-time movie or even a TV-show where the character turns to the other character and says, “I got a guy”. Now, there are many different “guys” throughout the world we live in for many different things. Someone may have a book guy, or a fruit guy, or a construction guy, and so on. As a photographer you want to become one of those “guys”. A person who has a signature for themselves, a reason people will hire you opposed to the next guy. This comes down to a matter of organizing your work and establishing a signature for yourself. Something that makes you stand out for what you do.

Week 8 Reading

I thought the readings this week were pretty average. The message of the first one (Everything is an Argument) was pretty straight forward; however, in my opinion it was just a long winded way of explaining the conventions of good writing. It discussed the entire process of writing essentially from conjuring up an idea to how to professionally present yourself through language. It is the fundamentals of writing that we have learned throughout the years, how to organize your thoughts, what the best structure of pieces of writing is, how to choose your words according to your audience, etc. I thought it was more of a review than anything, but hey thats cool too; never hurts to polish up the 'ol writing skills. A lot of what was discussed based on how to choose your words to best get your message across in the easiest, understandable, and memorable way. Appeal to your audience by keeping their attention. No one wants to sit there and hear another person go on with another dull speech with no voice, no attitude, no creativity. Make your audience interested in what you have to say. I thought the importance of rough draft that was stressed was a pretty crucial point in creating a piece of writing all ideas have to get out some how. Just throw a bunch of slop on the paper as long as you're thinking and getting your ideas out on paper. After you have your shit-show of a first draft you can rest on it, its like getting into an anger driven situation, if you sleep on it that gives your thoughts time to settle and be revised with a fresh mind. Another major factor into the planning of a piece of writing should be completely answering for your audience the "who cares?" question. As I discussed earlier make your audience feel inclined to listen to you, convince them that your message has substance that could be of interest to them. If you can achieve that, well then you've got 'em hooked. Now reel 'em in and finish them off with a kick ass conclusion that will leave them wondering how someone's words could be so magnificently bonkers. Fireworks...everywhere.

Thesis Statement

When envisioning a day in the life of a photographer it seems pretty easy right? Snapping a few pictures, living life simply, and thriving every day? ... Unfortunately it's not just that easy. Us as photographers must have skill sets that range from advertising to business to creativity and everywhere in between. If an artist wants to make it in the world of photography he/she must have the professional capability to appeal to a large audience of people and draw attention to their product. After sitting down and speaking with someone who works in the professional world of business you can learn there is a lot that goes into appealing to your audience and bringing the attention of the largest possible array of customers.

Questions for intervewee

• What are your best writing strategies?
• How did you become such a good presenter/writer?
• What is most important when writing or presenting an argument to an audience?
• How do you present yourself depending on the audience?
• What is the best way to draw your audience in?
• How can you use word choice to better state your argument?
• In what ways can you implement Pathos, Ethos, and Logos into your writing?
• What pieces of writing are your favorite?
• Which pieces are the hardest for you?
• What audiences are hardest for you?
• What strategies do you use to research a new idea or new material?

Week 6 blogpost

I found the reading this week to be relatively easy to read. The first reading and second reading were both formatted in a conversation like style which was pretty cool. The writer also gave lots of examples to help you understand exactly what he was talking about which was helpful. The main idea of the first reading was regarding how you present your words in an argument will change the viewers perception of the message you are trying to get across. One of the ways he was talking about expressing this would be through ethos, pathos, and logos. Every audience you are trying to reach will have a different message, for the most part. If you are trying to guilt people or touch people right in the feels then pathos would be your greek/latin expression to go with (I have narry a clue if pathos is even greek or latin). Incorporating ethos into an argument would entail you to choose your words suitably for the audience or topic you are trying to express, whether that be your grammar, formality, etc. Then logos would be very factual based statements. Logos is best used for the hard headed businessman who are all FACTS FACTS FACTS. I personally think that in order to make a really strong argument ALL THREE of these strategies have to be applied to your message. With all three of these your audience has no choice but to side with you. Think about it here, throw out some pathos to draw the audience in make them feel interested in what you're saying emotionally because that is when people really listen. After you have their attention is some ethos to help yourself sound more credible and relatable to the audience. Then finally seal the deal with some logos to make the audience certain that what you are saying is factual and true. What more do you need to win an argument than that! These strategies can be applied in everyday life or the business world. Try it out and see for yourself!

E-mail (Draft)

<<Interview for English Class at Brooks>>

Hey Doug,

hope all is going well with the family and it's starting to warm up over there in Chicago. I am writing to you regarding an assignment in my English class at Brooks. I know that you have led several meetings to huge groups of people and write all of your own material. Conducting yourself strongly to an audience of people in a business manner is a huge part of the photography world as well. I was hoping at some point this week we could have a chat about the writing aspect of your career and how you present your ideas to an audience. I'd love to have the pleasure of interviewing you and hope to hear from you soon!

Best Regards

--

Trevor Morrison

Week 5 - Excellence in Communication

In all honesty, the reading this week was unnecessary in my opinion. I started reading the chapter thinking, "okay, yeah this makes sense, I understand why you would do that." Then it just got simply repetitive and way too extensive. The message that was being expressed was very simple and could have been presented in a much simpler manner. The major thing to take away is that you have to choose your forms of communication depending on your audience and also choose the message you're sending depending on the audience. I thought the fact that they discussed instant messaging through an entire section of the chapter was a bit ridiculous. The difference between instant messaging, emails, and letters are very apparent. Each one of them is different for whatever message it may be you're trying to get across, simple as that. I have been writing emails my whole life and think I have a pretty decent grasp on being able to successfully write an impactful and professional email, bringing me to wonder what the purpose of the reading was for me specifically. Don't get me wrong, several parts of the reading was helpful and there were some good tips to throw in my bag of email conventions, but overall it was some pretty simple material.

Assignment #1

So, this week I looked around for a few artist statements.

Much of what I found was small little blurbs about the artists work, where they started, and what influenced them. I pulled three different photographers work that I thought was cool and assessed their statements for why they do what they do.

The first artist I chose was James Hickey. He had some very interesting images of people that I found pretty cool. His artist statement went somewhere along the lines of -- "Professional Los Angeles photographer, creating artistic fashion and lifestyle images with unique style. These are often identified with vivid color, and expression. The images tell stories and ideas of people who are full of beauty and life. With a solid technical workflow, state of the art studio, and a love for the craft James Hickey brings a consistently contemporary style to his images." To me this says James Hickey is a fashion and lifestyle photographer that has a certain style to his images that tell a story and draw your attention as well. I think it is safe to say that his genre of photography is shooting people or fashion. The way he worded his artist statement was in a way to let people know what he does while maintaining simplicity. It is not super wordy or informal. This tells us something about the audience the artist is trying to appeal to. He's not directing this statement towards his friends or someone like that. This is potential clients he is appealing to! It goes to show how the rhetoric plays a big role in the genre and how he presents his personal genre.

The next artist that I looked at was Kiko Ricote who shoots lots of lifestyle type photography, some documentary-type photography, and some travel photography. His artist statement went something like, "Native of Venezuela Kiko started working as a model at the age of seventeen, for the next six years he was working in Europe where at 23 started to test for the best modeling agencies in Milan, Munich and Zurich, at 28 he left to Sidney were he lived for a year still working as a model and a photographer, next stop Los Angeles were he opened his first studio and spend there the next 7 years working in commercial photography . Mexico City was next in his agenda were he spend the next three years working with the best agencies like Mc Cann, Erickson, Walter Thomsom, BBDO, etc. For the past 10 years he had been in Miami where he opened one of the best studios in town, working exclusively with advertising agencies. Today after 27 years dedicated to the field he is confident to do a great job no matter how complicated the assignment is." As you can see from this artist statement, he goes more of the "history" route. This way, you can see his experience and where he has been across the world and who he has worked with. He is currently at a very prestigious studio shooting photography for advertising agencies. His genre is kind of all over the board, but I would pinpoint him as more of a commercial, people, lifestyle oriented photographer. His style of photography really makes the viewer feel that they are present in the photograph in my opinion. I think he has worded his artist statement in a way that attracts more customers. It is more oriented in a way to list his previous work and how far he has come rather than explaining specifically the different types of photography he shoots. This differs from the style of James Hickey's artist statement in a sense that he is talking himself up in a way where Hickey was just explaining what he shoots and what kind of look he is representing in his photography.

The final photographer I pulled for their artist statement was Setia Nugraha. Nugraha's artist statement was much different from the previous as well. He states, "Street photography has a great influence to my work. I believe that when we are standing on the street we can explore our imagination, social responsibility, and of course sharpen our eyes and heart.
As long as the wheel of life spinning around, we will not run out of idea. As time goes by, and I realize, things we have been through, things we have done, in fact can result a piece of work. Creating work can be carried out everywhere, anytime. It does not depend on time and place." This artist statement falls in the genre of imaginative, fine art style photography in my opinion. His work is more based off the idea that there is beauty in every aspect of the world whether it's a sidewalk or a gorgeous valley. I think that his artist statement is worded in a way to appeal to other artists who can become inspired by him and what he is trying to do with photography. To make the unseen seen, to find beauty in all, to help the viewer see the world through his own eyes. This is different from the previous because it's not saying what he shoots exactly or who he has worked for. It is more oriented around his influence and belief in the world of photography.

Artist's statements have a huge impact on what viewers or customers they are after. You can clearly tell an artist is a commercial photographer and shoots for business and to get paid by the way he/she presents their artist statement. If it is in a way such as Kiko Ricote where it states the history of the artist and what prestigious work they have done that is going to be shooting for more of the business of photography crowd, opposed to Setia Nugraha who is shooting for the ambiguous and creative realm of photography.

Week 2 Blogpost -- Rhetoric!

Hello all readers!

This is my first post so please excuse the informality.

Anyways, I thought the readings for this week were pretty interesting in fact. Especially since one of them was in fact a comic. Yes, that is right I am a 3rd semester college student reading comics for English homework. Isn't life sweet guys. I really thought the idea behind the comic was interesting though, in all seriousness. They utilized the imagery and ability to appeal to our eyes while expressing their thoughts. I believe that is why we are more likely to pay attention to something formatted in this way, in the correct context of course. I'm not going to put a letter to the president of the United States in comic book format just to get my point across and heard. That would be unethical ladies and gentleman. The ability for the public to hear all alien encounters and experiences is a serious matter and should not be presented in comic book form. 8) I also appreciated the Murder Rhetorically reading as well. It was kinda "fun" i guess some might say... but the content was interesting. The main idea of what the writer was trying to get across in my opinion is, there is a certain way for speaking in certain situations and to certain people. We all will speak in different ways according the what we mean, what we want, or how we feel. We have grown accustomed to this and almost 'trick' people per say with the way we speak. We put on our puppy dog eyes and beg for what we can, don't we guys. Don't fool yourself you just simply want something and want to appeal to the person you want something from, simple as that. Overall, cool material and interesting reads!


Peace & love