RESUME OF FAILURES

RESUME OF FAILURES

General Principles Edition, Photography

“Most of what I try fails, but these failures are often invisible, while the successes are visible. I have noticed that this sometimes gives others the impression that most things work out for me. As a result, they are more likely to attribute their own failures to themselves, rather than the fact that the world is stochastic, applications are crapshoots, and selection committees and referees have bad days. This CV of Failures is an attempt to balance the record and provide some perspective.”

Johannes Haushofer, CV OF FAILURES.

ASSIGNMENTS AND COMMISSIONS I DID NOT GET

2004-Present
Projects where I gave ballpark pricing on the first phone call, despite the warning voice in my head screaming “It’s a losing proposition!” (Number of these incidents has been redacted.)

2004-Present
Projects I priced too low so it looked like I didn’t know what I was doing. (Number of these incidents has been redacted.)

2004-Present
Projects I priced too high because I was afraid of pricing myself too low. (Number of these incidents has been redacted.)

2004-Present
Negotiations where I knew in advance of developing an estimate that I had been silently assigned by the art buyers to play the role of “beard” because they had already decided to hire someone else before contacting me, but were required to prove due diligence to their client by getting three bids. I tell myself these interludes are opportunities to perfect my negotiating techniques and maybe the beloved photographer would get hit by an asteroid and they would need a substitute, and, anyway, there was at least one other person who was never going to get that job, either, so what’s my problem? Or so I tell myself.

PROJECTS I CONTRACTED FOR BUT SHOULD NEVER HAVE DONE

2004-Present
Gigs where I knew there was not enough money in the project, but convinced myself they would be really painless, easy-to-accomplish, and go quickly. (Hah!)

2004-Present
Gigs where the clients didn’t know much about how the photo or design process worked, but where I convinced myself they could be made to understand the process, so, thereby, in the end, would be easy to work with anyway. (Hah! Hah!)

2004-Present
Projects that came to me through a graphics / branding / advertising agency where I assumed because they’d done this before they knew what they were doing and so would insulate me from their own client who was mostly clueless, and despite this fairly typical obstacle we would produce great work and make good money. (Oy.)

DOCUMENTS THAT WERE REALLY NOT VERY GOOD

2004-Present
Estimates and contracts that contained buckets of paranoid legalistic language that even scared the hell out of me. And where the font on the Terms & Conditions page was so tiny you would squint through an electron microscope to read it.

2004-Present
Emails whose tone was too casual, or, too coldly businesslike. Or some confusing combination of both.  And too long. Much too long. No, really, seriously, they just went on and on and on and on. You know?

PERSONAL PROJECTS NOT COMPLETED, SO THEY’RE NOT ON MY WEBSITE TO INSPIRE CLIENTS TO HIRE ME BECAUSE OF MY OH SO VERY SPECIAL TALENTS AND ABILITIES.

2004-Present
Not going there.

META-FAILURES

2004-Present
Failing to remember I’ve learned more from my failures than my successes and who cares how much of a cliche that is?  Anyway, I’m only human so I should just chill and give myself a break because I’m reasonably skillful at hiding my disasters, so, really, what’s the problem here?

(Based on Johannes Haushofer’s CV Of FAILURES. He’s an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University. See for yourself: https://www.princeton.edu/haushofer/Johannes_Haushofer_CV_of_Failures.pdf)