Scheisse it’s been a minute since I have done a blog! A ton has been going on! I recently did a branding seminar with Beth Taubner from Mercury Labs, uhhhhhhhhh.. it was incredible! For those of you not sure about Branding, I will try and give you a brief synopsis (and when you are finished reading got get yourself Branded!).
Branding yourself is an intense, emotional, thought provoking, in your face strategy that guides you as a business to be able to market who you are for what your are. In my case my photography as a business “Sully” needs to be a brand so you remember me for Sully and when you hire me you are hiring me for “Sully”. So basically after the seminar I will have an entire new brand of Sully Sullivan photography so I can market my self to target Audiences. New website, business cards, promotional pieces, portfolio, etc! A big part of this though is realizing who I am as a person and applying that to my work. So on every shoot Im applying me, sully, my brand, my heart and soul into every photo. Alright it’s getting to deep, and Beth will kill me if I give out any more info check out Mercury labs if you need to find a direction and brand yourself. Its the smartest thing I have done!

The shoot in this post is from Hampden Clothing, a little fashion story we worked on together! It was amazingly hot and windy! Thanks to everyone for their super awesome help! Stacy at Hampden, Ashley Perryman for the awesome hair and makeup, Kyle and Kate for being awesome assistants, and Zoe for being a wonderful model to work with! The original place we built the set was to windy so we had to break it down and find a new location! My next blog I will explain a little more of set building and following through with your ideas on shoots!

A little behind the scenes action of the set I built for the shoot.

Greetings everyone. Quick update, these are some photos of Designer Julie Wheats new collection. Her line is called Cavortress. These are just a few polaroids from the shoot. Im so in love with shooting film, I am making myself shoot it everytime I pick up a camera. I used to only know film, even when the big “popular” switch to digital was made. I love both but Im in love with film way more. It slows me down, makes me concentrate on whats in front of me. I should have the rest of the photos up soon. I shot digital and film so as soon as I get out of the dark room and “digital” dark room aka computer land! I should have some photos up for everyone to see. Thank you to Mike Grady my new stylist/set prop designer who rocked out with me all day to get our swing together as well as Kyle Morris rockin out as my assistant! Its so important to have a good team that you can trust to help you make your vision come to life. I cannot stress this enough, without all of this help us photographers would be lost. I know this, as a full time assistant as well. Here is a little insight for what help is worth in our industry and the amount of work that goes on before, during, and after a shoot (worth reading, I dont expect these terms by any means they are just industry standards). It was a crazy night but we got some rockin stuff! Thank you to all the models for being patient and rockin out! You ladies effin’ rock!

Greetings all! The photo attached with this post is from the 1st Annual Southeastern Beard and Mustache competition held in charleston SC. This is an outtake from the shoot, Im not sure quite yet what I want to do with the photos… Im thinking to do a little preview show at my house, sort of like an indie rock art show, good ole’ house party style. Just something low key and super fun for everyone. (so be on the lookout for an update on a secret art show!)
I recently gave my first lecture ever at the Charleston Center for Photography, I want to say thank you to everyone who came out, I spoke about the importance of being an assistant as well as going over a little bit of my work and creative process. Pretty basic stuff, but hopefully informative! The reason I am mentioning this is that in my lecture I talked about making sure you shoot your ideas you are thinking about and always pushing your work forward. Always keeping your work fresh and shooting things that could get you great photos, even if it means spending your own money on renting equipment, paying for models, hair and makeup, stylists, whatever! SHOOT IT! Thats what I did with this beard and mustache competition. This also means not just shooting it just to shoot it but making yourself try new things, new lighting set ups, props, sets, whatever it takes BE CREATIVE! Make yourself try those crazy Ideas you have! The harder you work at something the better results you will have. Who knows, maybe a client will call you one day asking for that style that you did a test shoot with, and boom, you already know how to do it!
Alright, its back to the website updating for me! More news soon! Keep being inspired and push yourselves to new levels of freakin awesomeness!
Let me know if there are any other creative questions you have! Im thinking that maybe once a week on my blog I will answer questions that anyone has about assisting, photography, whatever! Ask away!

mother fuuuuudger! Love that song! Hello to all! Things are starting to get a little crazy in my world. Work is picking up, phone is ringing quite a bit! Hell yeah to 2010! Bring it! Just got home from a shoot last week in Atlanta for a company VersionOne doing some portraits for the main people in the company. Thank’s to my boy Aubs for hooking the work up! Had a good time, it was kind of my first bigger corporate job traveling with assistants. Glad my trusty Toyota made it! We had that thing packed down with equipment! Thanks again to my assistant Kate and John for helping to rock out a good shoot.
On a side note if anybody is interested, I will be giving a lecture at the Charleston Center for Photography this coming Monday, February 8th at 7PM. I will be going over the importance/daily routine of being a photo assistant as well as a little history of my work. If you want to come out and laugh at how terrible of a speaker I am or hear some lame attempts at some jokes, then come on out. It should be a good time and hopefully informative.

Any of you who attended Kulture Klash this year and made it the photo booth I now have a website where you can see the images here. I had such a blast doing this! Thank you to everyone who made it happen. A special thank’s to my assistants Kate Hohorst and John Gaulden! Two amazing people I have working for me. Makes my life a lot easier!
Tons of new stuff in the works! New shoots, new ideas, New cameras and equipment added to my arsenal to help keep my shooting creative and changing (canon 5d mark II, as well as a Hasselblad 503cx with 6 film backs and 2 polaroid backs). Can’t wait for 2010 (twenty ten!!!! it sounds better and is easier to say. ha!) Hope everyone has a happy and safe New Years! I sure will! Love you guys

Sully

Hello Everyone! I just realized its been a long freaking time since I have posted anything on this blog! Crap! Sorry about that! I have been incredibly slammed with work, which is totally a good thing. The above photo from is from a huge art show they have in Charleston, SC called Kulture Klash! I did a floating portrait photo booth for the event and I had a blast! Thanks to Gus, Amber, Scott and all the other amazing people involved with the event, it was amazing! A HUGE thanks to my assistants Kate and John, despite the crazy lines, people yelling to get their prints and line cutting they did a fantastic job! Hopefully if I do the event again I can figure out a better way to organize the line to picking up prints ratio. It amazes me how fast people expect photos today with digital, I could have sworn I was working at 5 Minute photo lab! ha! Jokes everyone To any of you who bought prints, emails will be out before christmas of your photo. The photo booth was a personal project that I did for myself and for you guys. I appreciate everyone being patient with getting things during and after the event! Photography is how I make my living so don’t think I have forgotten about you, If i’m not in my office crankin’ out editing then Im on the road traveling with work. I cant be everywhere at once, (although I wish I could) I gotta work so I can bring wonderful photo shoots to you guys like the one at Kulture Klash again!
Anyways the reason I have been slack on blogs, despite busy with work, is also I want to know what you guys want to hear about. What do you want to know, what topics would you guys like to read about? I could ramble all day about nothingness, but I would like you to take something from this…. Send your feedback my way as well as anyone who wants to receive random postcards from me…. Thanks for stopping by!

Sully

sully sullivan photography

So….. I did not realize how much was involved with transferring over an old domain to a new server!  A LOT!  Getting all the right permissions, redirecting old site to new one, setting up email aliases, blah blah blah, and making sure everything works!!! Well, everything is working!  A huge reason why everything is working is because of my absolutely amazing domain hosting company Media Temple .  If you need a hosting company or you are sick of the one you have, dont even think twice!  They have hands down the best support system I have ever encountered with anything!!!!  They are there 24 hours a day 7 days a week, rain or shine. They walked me through every troubleshooting issue I had and even helped write my redirect code all over the phone and online.  I want to give a big thanks to all of the support staff there.  You rock!!!  It’s nice to know that you will be taken care of in any situation and not transferred to some third world country that does not even speak the same language as you! uhmmmm airline’s you should jump on that, thanks! Who is your web hosting company? Do they kick butt like Media Temple? Think about it!

Now, on to other things.  The September issue of Vogue…… …. WEAK!! Is all I have to say. I mean my boy Steven Klein crushed it as always. Annie Lebovitz looks like she stepped up her portraiture again (her whole debt situation sucks! I think she is incredible, everyone is attacking the hell out of her. Don’t be mad because you will never be as talented as her. You are never liked when you are on top! Why is that? I will never understand that.) Overall, the photography was pretty great throughout the issue, but there was not enough full blown crazy, mind blowing, 20 page spreads. ehhhhh, I guess with the current excuse (aka economy) our country is in they didn’t have room print 20 + pages of fashion for each photographer. A still thoroughly enjoyed the issue. I have seen better.

I have some more exciting news. My website will be launched before 11:58 PM August 31st! Its about damn time, right? Its been over a year since I have had a working website. Thats so unprofessional! Not anymore!
A lot of my information has changed
new email: sully@ohsully.com
website: www.ohsully.com
thats it!
Sorry for the long jumbled post. I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Love you all!

Sully

sully sullivan photography

Its Sunday!!! Hope everyone has had a great weekend. We actually had some amazing surf here in charleston, the report said 12-17 feet! It was awesome and now I have a terrible rash on my stomach from surfing 3 days in a row! Totally worth it!

Saw Inglorius Basterds the other night, one of the best movies I have ever seen. Loved it!!

Seth, RJ, Bergen and Myself had our first official meeting about our special project we are working on. Things are starting to come together, Im super excited and cannot wait to share it with all of you!

The last post I said I would finish after kickball, but we lost and I was in a terrible mood. Who knew kickball could get you so worked up.

I woke up at 5 AM in a bit of a panic… with all kinds of thoughts running through my head. Mainly work related. This usually happens when I have a ton of editing to do and I get super backed up. The main thing that came to my mind, which was strange, was about clients and how us photographers are “supposed” to interact and handle them.
The thought I was having was of a specific client I had. I got a call to shoot a story for a European magazine, a great magazine I might add, and the deadline is in…. oh tomorrow. I really wanted to do it so I of course agreed. I wish I could show you the emails back and forth with these people. First off I want to say I am by no means complaining or bitching, I am simply sharing to all of you what as photographer’s we also deal with. I would say our time shooting is about 15% and the rest is everything else. I love it no matter what. Back to the story. They send me emails with examples of the story and what they are looking for. Perfect, I can do this, great subjects should be great. OH BOY! I do the shoot, they hate it “not really what they are looking for”. Im a pleaser, so I shoot it again. Get some amazing stuff. I love it!
Lets back track to before the second shoot. I get more “specific” emails. We want light but dark, cool but warm, black but white, daylight but strobes, daytime but at night! What? It was like trying to listen to a dining room table looking for chairs but instead I was searching for a lawnmower that worked underwater?????
So I turned in the images and of course they picked the most obviously boring one. I asked if they were sure thats what they wanted. They said they guess it will work. I was fed up by this point because of all of our hard work to make some great photos.
Never really got any thank you’s or even a copy of the magazine after several attempts to contact them.
About a month or so after the shoot I get a preliminary version of my new website and decide to send it to them for some feedback, hoping they might actually read the email. I get a reply almost instantly. “oh my gosh, sully! Can we please have the photo of blah, blah blah. We love it! when did you do this” Are you effing kidding me!!! Its the shoot I did for you guys.
It turns out the editor did not even go through all of the film I sent them! They just picked the first one they came across. I understand Im not Steven Klein or Ryan Mcginley, but at least look through my work that I do for you. Worst of all, I was not even paid to do the job.

I love my job with all of my heart and just want people to understand how much we as photographers go through to bend over ass backwards for clients to keep them happy so they don’t go on to the next 1 million joe schmoe photographers that does not know what they are doing.

Do you have any crazy client stories? How do you deal with your clients on a daily basis?

Thanks for reading!

Sully

I need to release some thoughts I had this morning when I woke up in a rush of anxiety this morning at 5AM… read more after the image… and after I get back from my kickball game around 7:30….