MPLS Photo Center
Black & White People, Places and Things - Deadline 7/23
PCNW - Photographic Center Northwest
Present Tense: 15th Annual Photographic Competition Exhibition - Deadline 6/12
Descry Magazine
Catalogue of the Night - Deadline 7/30
F Stop Magazine : Portfolio Issue - Deadline 7/01
GUEST EDITOR AMBER TERRANOVA
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Competitions, Portfolio Reviews, Calls for Entry
APA/NY Photo Contest Early Bird Deadline extended to 5/14
Photographer's Forum 30th Annual Spring Photography Contest Final Deadline 5/17
Black and White Spider Awards Deadline Special Entry Packs 5/28
Picture of the Year International - a program of the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI)
The incentive will fund and showcase documentary work on social issues or political trends by aspiring documentary photographers. Application Deadline: 5/31
Download pdf here
Exhibit A Final Deadline 6/1
The Gala Awards
The 2010 WPGA Annual Competition Deadline 6/29
The Invisible World Early Bird Deadline 5/30, Final Deadline 7/25
Black & White Early Bird Deadline 5/30, Final Deadline 7/25
Center for Photography
Strange Beauty Deadline 5/18
Jurors: Darren Ching and Debra Klomp Ching
Black and White Deadline 6/15
Juror: Andrea Modica
RayKo Photo Center
Call for Entry: Portrait photography Deadline 6/5
Les Rencontres d'Arles Photo Folio Review
7/4 - 7/13 Arles, France Registration closes: 6/20
Photographer's Forum 30th Annual Spring Photography Contest Final Deadline 5/17
Black and White Spider Awards Deadline Special Entry Packs 5/28
Picture of the Year International - a program of the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI)
The incentive will fund and showcase documentary work on social issues or political trends by aspiring documentary photographers. Application Deadline: 5/31
Download pdf here
Exhibit A Final Deadline 6/1
The Gala Awards
The 2010 WPGA Annual Competition Deadline 6/29
The Invisible World Early Bird Deadline 5/30, Final Deadline 7/25
Black & White Early Bird Deadline 5/30, Final Deadline 7/25
Center for Photography
Strange Beauty Deadline 5/18
Jurors: Darren Ching and Debra Klomp Ching
Black and White Deadline 6/15
Juror: Andrea Modica
RayKo Photo Center
Call for Entry: Portrait photography Deadline 6/5
Les Rencontres d'Arles Photo Folio Review
7/4 - 7/13 Arles, France Registration closes: 6/20
Inspiring...
"Our dreams carry with them the energy for their achievement; our fears carry with them the energy of our defeat." M. Neill - SuperCoach
Monday, May 3, 2010
Procrastination and Creative Avoidance
As a consultant I often hear from clients that “there isn’t enough time in a day” or “I’m so stressed out” or “the day got away from me” or “I’m stuck and I don’t know where to go next”. We’re talking about procrastination, fear and time management – and recognizing this is the first step to achieving your goals.
I’m presupposing that you’ve done the work on your mission, priorities, and actually have a focused To Do List. If you do not have a focused list, take a few moments to identify one objective you’ve had for yourself but have not completed. The message of this article is focusing your activities in such a way as to get done the things that need to be done – without interruptions. It takes discipline and practice.
How do you currently spend your time? It’s often very hard to examine how you spend your time – it’s an eye-opening experience. To accomplish this, track your time in one hour intervals. Be honest about the time you are idle, or are filling time but are not working towards your principal goals. Write it down – do this over the course of a week.
Getting into action alleviates the stress of procrastination. Ask yourself why you’ve been putting off these goals. Put emotions aside and look at this situation as logically as possible. Your next steps are to complete a list of your creative avoidances and a separate list for your procrastinations. The difference between the two are that procrastinations are the things you need to do that you’re not doing – your goals; and creative avoidances are the things you are doing - the distractions - that are keeping you from doing the things you need to be doing.
When it comes to procrastinating, many of us are experts – personally I weigh every option and “think everything through” – when often all I need to do is take the leap of faith, push past the fear, make a decision and move forward. We justify, rationalize, and redirect our focus to avoid the “difficult” tasks. Creative avoidances include organizing and reorganizing; preparing and repairing; diversions – telephone, e-mail, etc. All of these can take you away from your key goal, and often keep you spinning in a circle and never achieving your goals. Whether it is fear of success, failure, vulnerability, others reaction, or lack of “how to” skills, or lack of belief in yourself, fear can and will get in the way of attaining your goals. Procrastination is just a way to cover up your fears about a certain goal. This procrastination is always some justification and rationalization that seem right at the time. To prevent this justification and rationalization from occurring it’s important to get a reality check on the task at hand.
Once you’ve completed your lists of your creative avoidances and procrastinations it will give you a chance to finally think out and list all those things you really need to do to move yourself forward. And a good place to begin is with what you envision yourself accomplishing by a certain point in time. Write it down, and create the list of tasks required to move you toward that vision. Identify the first or next step towards accomplishing the goal, and commit to a time to start.
The rest is truly a matter of being self-aware – catching yourself when you lean towards a creative avoidance, when you should be focused on the procrastination list. To Do lists help tremendously especially if you can get outside feedback from friends, coaches, consultants, peers, and spouses, they can be helpful in holding you accountable.
Steps:
Angela Krass is the founder of fotoprojx.com.
I’m presupposing that you’ve done the work on your mission, priorities, and actually have a focused To Do List. If you do not have a focused list, take a few moments to identify one objective you’ve had for yourself but have not completed. The message of this article is focusing your activities in such a way as to get done the things that need to be done – without interruptions. It takes discipline and practice.
How do you currently spend your time? It’s often very hard to examine how you spend your time – it’s an eye-opening experience. To accomplish this, track your time in one hour intervals. Be honest about the time you are idle, or are filling time but are not working towards your principal goals. Write it down – do this over the course of a week.
Getting into action alleviates the stress of procrastination. Ask yourself why you’ve been putting off these goals. Put emotions aside and look at this situation as logically as possible. Your next steps are to complete a list of your creative avoidances and a separate list for your procrastinations. The difference between the two are that procrastinations are the things you need to do that you’re not doing – your goals; and creative avoidances are the things you are doing - the distractions - that are keeping you from doing the things you need to be doing.
When it comes to procrastinating, many of us are experts – personally I weigh every option and “think everything through” – when often all I need to do is take the leap of faith, push past the fear, make a decision and move forward. We justify, rationalize, and redirect our focus to avoid the “difficult” tasks. Creative avoidances include organizing and reorganizing; preparing and repairing; diversions – telephone, e-mail, etc. All of these can take you away from your key goal, and often keep you spinning in a circle and never achieving your goals. Whether it is fear of success, failure, vulnerability, others reaction, or lack of “how to” skills, or lack of belief in yourself, fear can and will get in the way of attaining your goals. Procrastination is just a way to cover up your fears about a certain goal. This procrastination is always some justification and rationalization that seem right at the time. To prevent this justification and rationalization from occurring it’s important to get a reality check on the task at hand.
Once you’ve completed your lists of your creative avoidances and procrastinations it will give you a chance to finally think out and list all those things you really need to do to move yourself forward. And a good place to begin is with what you envision yourself accomplishing by a certain point in time. Write it down, and create the list of tasks required to move you toward that vision. Identify the first or next step towards accomplishing the goal, and commit to a time to start.
The rest is truly a matter of being self-aware – catching yourself when you lean towards a creative avoidance, when you should be focused on the procrastination list. To Do lists help tremendously especially if you can get outside feedback from friends, coaches, consultants, peers, and spouses, they can be helpful in holding you accountable.
Steps:
- Admit that your time needs to be utilized better.
- Honestly log your current time use.
- List your creative avoidances.
- List your procrastinations.
- Create a future vision – where do you see yourself in six months, a year, three years, 5 years?
- Commit to a TO DO LIST that supports your vision.
- Hone the TO DO LIST into a daily task list if it’s overwhelming.
- Select a goal and identify the first or next step to accomplish the goal.
- Commit to a time when you will begin the first step.
- Stay self aware – recognize your pattern of excuses, and don’t get bogged down in an activity that doesn’t support your end goal
- Partner with someone – Joining together with a colleague will keep you focused and on track.
Angela Krass is the founder of fotoprojx.com.
Thoughts...
Continuing along with last week's post I recently read this tidbit and wanted to share. Michael Neill is a super-coach to coaches and shares great insight...
Enjoy...
"The worst thing that can ever happen to you is a thought - generally speaking, a thought about whatever you think is the worst thing that could ever happen to you. But just because a thought pops into your head doesn’t mean it will immediately manifest in your life. (If it did, there would be more deaths by roller coasters going off their tracks, people falling from very high places, and heads exploding due to stress than any other cause.)
That’s because in and of themselves, thoughts have no power. It’s only when you invest your own energy and consciousness into them that they begin to become real.
A thought without your personal investment is no more powerful than a tea bag without boiling water. It’s only after you add the water that the tea begins to infuse and create the flavor, and it’s only after you add your agreement and energy to a thought that it begins to impact your life."
Enjoy...
"The worst thing that can ever happen to you is a thought - generally speaking, a thought about whatever you think is the worst thing that could ever happen to you. But just because a thought pops into your head doesn’t mean it will immediately manifest in your life. (If it did, there would be more deaths by roller coasters going off their tracks, people falling from very high places, and heads exploding due to stress than any other cause.)
That’s because in and of themselves, thoughts have no power. It’s only when you invest your own energy and consciousness into them that they begin to become real.
A thought without your personal investment is no more powerful than a tea bag without boiling water. It’s only after you add the water that the tea begins to infuse and create the flavor, and it’s only after you add your agreement and energy to a thought that it begins to impact your life."
Thursday, April 29, 2010
CAN AND CAN'T
I recently re-read TAMING YOUR GREMLIN, and found this excerpt from the writer Rick Carson which got me thinking about how we set ourselves up for not being able to change, for failure and with a simple change of mindset we can effect positive change in reaching our goals.
It's an interesting read...
CAN AND CAN'T - Rick Carson - The Gremlin Tamer
It's an interesting read...
CAN AND CAN'T - Rick Carson - The Gremlin Tamer
"There's a not-so-old adage that says, “some people think they can, and some people think they can't, and they're both right.” It's a good adage. You may have some “I can'ts” floating around in your head that you're not even aware of, or that you haven't been aware of until now. Until now you may have been, and forgive me for abusing another old adage, “too close to the forest to see the trees.” But I tell you, a little awareness goes a long way. As you begin to notice the “I can'ts” you live your life by, you may find some of them are accurate. I mean, it's true, you can't fly, you can't grow taller on the spot, and you can't walk on water. A lot of your “I can'ts”, however, may be subtle and yet powerfully self-limiting, like “I can't change,“I can't commit to a relationship,” “I can't remember names” or “I can't fix anything with my hands,” or “I can't relax,” or the grand-daddy of all “I can't” Myths: “I can't handle it.” The “I can't handle it” myth gets applied in all sorts of circumstances. I never know what people mean when they say I can't handle it. Do they mean that if they handle it they'll explode, or melt maybe? Next time you hear an “I can't” rumbling around in your head or coming out of your mouth, I want you to notice it. Consider replacing the words, “I can't,” with the phrase, “I won't,” instead of “I can't,” or better yet, “I don't want to,” or better yet, “I choose not to,” or even better yet, “Until now I've chosen not to.” These words will remind you of your responsibility for your part of the limitation. They'll remind you of your choice in the matter. They'll remind you that your “I can't”, in most cases, is no more than a belief, a hypnotic belief that you've been carrying around, probably outside of your awareness. Until now, that is. And a belief is, after all, no more than an opinion thatyou've developed loyalty to."
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Targeted Emails
There is so much information about e-mail marketing; here are four key things you should consider before planning your next campaign.
What is Targeted Marketing?
Targeted marketing is, according to the text books, "the process of distinguishing the different groups that make up a market, and developing appropriate products and marketing mixes for each target market involved."
Know your Recipients.
In today’s technology driven media it is easy to acquire listings of potential clients and blanket wide sectors with your promotional message, with the hope that some of the messages might be received, read and responded to. This is not only a waste of your resources, and your recipient’s too, but it can work against your image as well.
Thoroughly research your prospects – if you are a car shooter you should only be marketing to agencies, design firms and corporations who are in the auto industry – potential prospects who advertise food, apparel or pharmaceuticals will not be interested in your promos and in all likelihood will treat your promotional messages as spam. Make sure your promotional message is relevant to your prospects.
Break your list into manageable segments – one specific industry, or a geographical area, or demographic profile. List research via a subscription service should be followed by telephone research to ensure the information gathered from the list is accurate and to get any additional information. From this research create a sub-list, eliminating any inappropriate prospects.
The All Important Subject Line.
Once you’ve targeted your list, next in importance is your subject line. The words used there will motivate your recipient to click on it – either to hopefully read it, or hit the delete button, a very attractive option as time is so important. Your role is to stand apart and be noticed, think of the subject line as a headline – spend considerable time and thought composing it.
The Body of the E-mail
A well written intro should motivate your recipient to continue to read the rest of your e-mail. Don’t exaggerate, don’t hype – the opening sentence should be relevant to your recipient. And lastly, keep it short – less than a paragraph at most, accompanied by imagery, and a link/click-thru to your website.
Follow-up
This is where you really go for what you want … to arrange a meeting, drop off your portfolio, renew an old working relationship … whatever your objective is. Record, measure and monitor your stats – who opened your e-mail, who clicked through to your website, who reported you as spam, etc. This way you know what worked, what has not, who to call, who to delete and what actions you need to take next.
Angela Krass is the founder of fotoprojx.com.
What is Targeted Marketing?
Targeted marketing is, according to the text books, "the process of distinguishing the different groups that make up a market, and developing appropriate products and marketing mixes for each target market involved."
Know your Recipients.
In today’s technology driven media it is easy to acquire listings of potential clients and blanket wide sectors with your promotional message, with the hope that some of the messages might be received, read and responded to. This is not only a waste of your resources, and your recipient’s too, but it can work against your image as well.
Thoroughly research your prospects – if you are a car shooter you should only be marketing to agencies, design firms and corporations who are in the auto industry – potential prospects who advertise food, apparel or pharmaceuticals will not be interested in your promos and in all likelihood will treat your promotional messages as spam. Make sure your promotional message is relevant to your prospects.
Break your list into manageable segments – one specific industry, or a geographical area, or demographic profile. List research via a subscription service should be followed by telephone research to ensure the information gathered from the list is accurate and to get any additional information. From this research create a sub-list, eliminating any inappropriate prospects.
The All Important Subject Line.
Once you’ve targeted your list, next in importance is your subject line. The words used there will motivate your recipient to click on it – either to hopefully read it, or hit the delete button, a very attractive option as time is so important. Your role is to stand apart and be noticed, think of the subject line as a headline – spend considerable time and thought composing it.
The Body of the E-mail
A well written intro should motivate your recipient to continue to read the rest of your e-mail. Don’t exaggerate, don’t hype – the opening sentence should be relevant to your recipient. And lastly, keep it short – less than a paragraph at most, accompanied by imagery, and a link/click-thru to your website.
Follow-up
This is where you really go for what you want … to arrange a meeting, drop off your portfolio, renew an old working relationship … whatever your objective is. Record, measure and monitor your stats – who opened your e-mail, who clicked through to your website, who reported you as spam, etc. This way you know what worked, what has not, who to call, who to delete and what actions you need to take next.
Angela Krass is the founder of fotoprojx.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)