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Tuesday I was interviewed by Beate Chelette of photosecrets.biz. We discussed how I go about creating my distinctive imagery and how I approach managing my life, business and finances. Anyone who contemplates working for oneself will benefit from listening.

Here is the link: Michael E Stern.

After the interview I called the Beate to review and summarize our talk. As the host Beate is able to see who dials in to the call and who drops off the call. She noticed that when I spoke about business aspects, the audience shrank and when I talked about creativity, the audience grew. Similar to lungs, the interview was breathing in and out. Cool. We surmised from this that people wanted to hear about the sexy part of photography…creating worthwhile images. They didn’t necessarily want to now about the grunt work, the nuts and bolts of putting together and managing a successful career.

Make no mistake it takes both parts to make a career work. It takes lots of common sense and focused effort not only to create each image, but also to run a sole proprietorship. The business and creative aspects must be integrated, they are the flip side of each other. They have to be blended into a mutually supportive structure, otherwise failure happens.

I mentor young photographers all the time, both in the creative aspects and the business, (selling, pricing and negotiating). It has been my experience that one out of ten will actually do the hard work that leads them to success.

Are you one of the ten?

Michael