Saturday, August 30, 2008

Purple Cow


So what is a Purple Cow? It is actually a book by Seth Godin about products and marketing. (Ok, I know that my picture is not really a "purple" cow, it is just a picture of a normal cow with the colors wacked out of shape to have a pink/purple haze to it - but it's close enough.)

What the book is about is being remarkable. The author was driving through France and saw a field with cows and thought how nice a sight it was - at first. But as he kept driving, he saw more and more fields with cows and they were not remarkable anymore, they were just boring. He asked himself, what would make a cow not boring now, maybe if it were purple it would be remarkable.

In today's world, people have learned to ignore the tsunami of information coming at them at all hours of the day from a gaggle of sources so that the real message rarely gets through our information overload defense shield.

So, the only way to get through, to stand out, is to truly be remarkable. That doesn't necessarily mean to just be weird only for the sake of being weird. But it does mean finding a niche that suits you and is not crowded and then be the best in that niche. That really resonated with me that I want my images to be remarkable, so I am on a quest as to how to do that. I know, you're saying "good luck with that!" But why shouldn't I go for it. Maybe my tombstone will read "Here lies a crappy to average photographer that had the temerity to think he could even approach the province of fine arts - but at least he went for it." So that is my quest, how to be remarkable in my own way.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008


This photo of Pittsburgh at night from Mt Washington reminds me that it all looks great from the bird's eye view. It is good to get away from the day to day "street level" view every so often and as Covey says "sharpen the saw". Vacation in Michigan was like that and I realized that I want to search for purple cows. What is a purple cow? That my friend, will get you coming back to find out! Anyway, this weekend will be church family camp which is also another ten thousand feet view that leaves the pedestrian street level behind and gives a clear shot of the "bigger picture".

Sunday, August 24, 2008

First post

This is the first post for Photobyhart.
Many thanks to Suzy for her encouragement and help.