🤠#022: Powerful books for powerful people

I want to share four books that have had a big impact on my creative career, in the hopes that one or more might help you too.

1️⃣Do you feel like you’re in a creative rut? Check out Creative Calling by Chase Jarvis.

💡One brilliant thing from that book: Three challenges that crop up in every creative person’s journey are money, creative control, and the company you keep. Some notes I took on each are below.

💵Money: Nobody tells you Ansel Adams wasn’t too proud to accept a quarter to get his photos on a restaurant menu. Nobody tells you Michaelangelo haggled for the good blue paint when he was doing the Sistine Chapel. We need our Michaelangelos to get paid so they can keep on doing it. When aspiring artists have this distorted belief of accepting little or no money for their work, the rest of society gets creative work done too cheaply, and as a consequence other artists have a harder time charging appropriately.

👨‍🎤Creative Control: What matters to you about your work? How much does it matter? And why? How much do you care about final cut? How much do you care about holding onto your own company? I’ve stood my ground and given up large sums of money to protect my integrity. I’ve also compromised when I need to put food on the table.

🤝The Company You Keep: Your life is not a democracy. Seek feedback consistently, but be prepared to ignore haters regularly. I’ve disappointed family members who thought I went astray.

2️⃣Do you feel like you’re limited by your equipment, or you don’t have the tools you need to shoot great work? Look at Read This if You Want to Take Great Photographs by Henry Carroll.

💡One brilliant thing from that book: The book shows you many people using cameras many ways. It’s an important reminder that gear sometimes helps you level up, but not always. What matters most isn’t the tool, it’s what you do with it.

3️⃣Do you feel like there’s a million things you could be doing, and you’re not sure what to do? You might look at Essentialism by Greg McKeown.

💡One brilliant thing from that book: The book beautifully, painfully illustrates how distracted, spread thin, and unfocused we are, and how much you can change your own life if you get good at prioritizing. One thing I wrote in my notes really hits hard.

“There was a dad who once had a daughter, and she died when she was three. It was really sad. In his grief, he put together a video of her short little life. But as he went through the footage, he realized something was missing. He had taken video of every single outing they’d gone on, every trip they’d taken. But he realized even with all the footage - the sights, the meals, the landmarks - he had almost no close up footage of her. He had been so busy recording the surroundings, he failed to record what was essential.”

4️⃣If you’re feeling unseen, like you’re doing the work but it’s not being noticed: You might dig So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport.

💡One brilliant thing from that book: The title of the book comes from a line from legendary comedian Steve Martin. In an interview Martin once did with Charlie Rose, he says the following:

I don’t know if this’ll resonate with anyone, but I’m sharing because I know how lonely the life of an artist, photographer, musician, creator, etc can be. In times where I felt like I was in the wilderness, these books helped me in some way. Hopefully, they may help you too.

📊PART TWO: TRACKING MY PROGRESS

📡 Fig. 1: Captain’s Log

A few things on deck right now:

1. I’m on the back nine of shooting three big (for me) commercial jobs that all landed in a two-week stretch. Steadily working through edits, getting billing all sorted with clients, making sure everyone’s satisfied with the finished product. More than ever, I feel like a pro.

2. As a result, I look at the time I’ve put in on short form video in the last 30 days, writing the newsletter, and it’s not all that impressive an output. I want to change that, and I’m feeling really optimistic, and excited, to close out all the edit work, and get back in the saddle more frequently making videos.

3. Starting today, I’ve got a paid tier of my newsletter available now. Anyone who subscribes will get this newsletter (still free), plus a monthly deep dive workshop video on some of the things people ask the most about - lighting tutorials, working with models, art direction. Right now, it’s the cheapest it’s ever going to be, I want to make it low risk for folks early on. At the moment, there’s not a volume of content for people to refer back on. But as time passes + I publish more and more valuable stuff in there, the price’ll go up. Here’s a link to what you’ll start seeing more of. Button below if you wanna upgrade. No big deal if not.Subscribe now

📸 Fig. 2: this week’s stills

Four posts this week, tips at the back of both portrait shoots.

🎬 fig. 3: this week’s videos & some learnings

2025 #34: “Go west” IG | TT 2025 #35: Cindy Crawford x Japanese Gatorade IG 

Let’s break down one key learning from each:

1. “Go West”: These one-shot videos are really interesting and I haven’t quite cracked them. On one hand, I see other creators using them frequently, which makes me think there’s got to be something there. On the other hand, I do wonder a little bit - is this something I want to be clogging up people’s feeds with?

1. The Cindy Crawford video: Classic example that I’ve run into several times before where there’s a big gap in between “what I think will happen” and “what actually happens”. This video totally flopped. I’m chalking this one up to “sometimes, it just doesn’t work” because I like the hook well enough, I think the visuals are interesting.

The hunt for another couple of consistently successful video formats continue…

📈fig. 5: audience growth

Instagram: 14,240 followers, +287 (+2%) vs. last post, +39% YTDTikTok: 1456 followers, +36 (+3%) vs. last post, +20% YTDNewsletter: 1560 subscribers, +30 (+2%) vs. last postYouTube: 38 subscribersThreads: 720 followers

Slow week across the board - not putting as much out right now as I’d like to be. That’s okay, it’s about to change.

Think I could help you 1:1 with your portfolio, lighting, short form, creative strategy, building mood boards, just being a sounding board? I’ve started taking a couple 1:1 calls here and there, so far they’re going great. Here’s a link if you’re interested.

📍Free mood board #14, gucci at night: LINK (and here’s a link to all free boards)🆓Five free Lightroom presets: LINK🛠️All the cameras + flashes I use: LINK

Everybody have a good rest of your weekend,

Garrett