So I am a photographer, but I also have spent the last seven years working as a creative within local Churches. It’s what brought me out to Albuquerque to begin with. The Church I was brought out here to, I do a number of different things for… one of which recently has been to take over the website and redesign it. I recently finished this project, as I moved the site from a terribly outdated Dreamweaver-based model that was a nightmare to update, and had about a 5-10 year old look to it. Seriously, I showed it to some of my design friends, and they all had the same response; “ugh.” For the next version of the site, I outsourced the basic design to a great little company called Clover. They’re a flash-based template company, so while there isn’t a ton of variation on the structure of their sites, the incredible ease-of-use of updating the site, the dead-simple administrative back-end, and their affordability made it an easy choice.

Well, the site just went live on Monday, and on that same day I received an email from Chris Kramer of PearsonKramer.com (the company that designed the previous website, who we were no longer doing hosting business with either). Here were his exact, quoted words:

“WOW you got rid of that beautiful site we did for the church in exchange for that crap thats up there now? Probably lost all the search engine rankings too!

By the way, none of your emails are working, but I’m sure you know that. Good luck with the new direction Josh.

Chris“

Now, to be fair… he was right about the email. That was a slight mishap on my part that was fixed right quick. I suppose I can thank him for that heads up. What astounds me, besides the obvious lack of any practical business ethics, is that he took the time to dig up my personal, non-work email address to send that to me.

If I met with a rad couple who was considering hiring me as their photographer, but they ended up going with someone else, I cannot even fathom the type of bitterness it would take in my heart to send an email to that couple, bashing them and their photographer of choice. From the get-go, whether it was just me, or me and Gregg, any time we’ve been asked about other photographers we always say nice things, regardless of our personal opinions. Gregg and I agreed from the start that we would be caught spooning in public with nothing more than tutu’s on before we would be caught openly bashing another photographer. What on earth was this guy thinking?

Listen, regardless of anything else art, photography, design… they’re all incredibly subjective. We all have our preferences. What you like, may not necessarily be what I like. As artists/creatives, we should get this better than ANYONE. We have to deal with a daily struggle of wondering how many people we’re putting off, and hoping people will like our work.

There is a current trend in the wedding and portrait photography industry of making every single little piece of business in other photographers lives the business of our own. I have spent entirely too much time recently reading drama happening on various websites and message boards where photographers are basically just skewering other photographers. Whether it’s for a workshop someone put on that people don’t believe is worthwhile, or openly bashing their work. Honestly, I just don’t get it. Admittedly, I never went to college and I never took a business ethics course, but I can’t imagine openly skewering your competition or peers would ever be considered a good idea. Having a private opinion is one thing, going all over the internet and spewing your opinions for little else other than what seems to stir up controversy is something else altogether.

That email I received from Chris, it ruined a perfectly good day I was having on Monday. I let these things get to me way more than I ever should. I don’t really know how to not take things personally, because everything I do is personal to me. It didn’t ruin my day because I wonder if he’s right about the website (he’s not, the new site is beautifully clean, simple, and dead-easy to update… plus Clover does a great job with SEO), it ruined my day because I just can’t stand dealing with the bitterness of others.

I dislike the idea of it being a “dog eat dog” kind of world. Honestly, I wish we all could have just listened to our parents and grandparents a little more.

“If you don’t have something nice to say, keep your darn pie hole shut.”

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