life is a highway

dave howlett
by braden hanna

This past week I was in Ottawa attending our annual staff meetings where Dave Howlett was our keynote speaker. If you have never heard Dave speak, you should find a way to attend his “Knocking Down Silos” presentation. You won’t regret it. His philosophy is simple yet powerful and when you see it in action, you will want to be a part of it.

He begins with the analogy that life is a highway and that the way we drive a car is how we are as human beings. First gear is reserved for people who care only for themselves. When you first meet them, you will recognize them by their arrogance and their self-interest. You are just an obstacle on their own personal highway to fame and fortune or the grocery store and they’ll drive right over you. Second gear is the gear of reciprocity: I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine. People who drive in second gear are courteous as long as you are; they let you merge ahead of them but if you don’t acknowledge their “kindness”, they revert back to first gear behaviour. Third gear is where you want to be. This is where you’ll find good guys and amazing women–extraordinary human beings who do the deed for the deed itself not for the appreciation.

The field of photography is full of people in all three gears but today I’d like to shine the light on some of the good guys. At the top of my list is David duChemin. I first found David through his blog and soon after I met him at a gathering of local aspiring and practicing photographers which he organized. At that meeting we mentioned that we were doing a shoot the next day but we were short of some lighting gear. David didn’t miss a beat and offered to let us use his gear. Afterwards when I wrote to thank him, he said “You’re most welcome for the loan. Stuff is for using, right?“. If you swing on over to his blog posting for Friday, you will see that David lives in third gear. Also on my list is Pete Saloutos who I met through my friend Alex. Pete is a seasoned commercial photographer whose clients include Nike, the US Olympic Committee, Bank of America, and Nikon. I recently took a Microstock course where I learned first hand about Pete’s pay-it-forward philosophy. Check out the Arms Around Bainbridge project where some of his work is for sale to raise money for a worthy cause. Pete shared so much of his wisdom with us beyond what was required in the class and I look forward to taking him up on his offer to assist on one of his photo shoots down in Washington.

I haven’t met all the people on my Good Guy list, people like Scott Kelby. Many of you know Scott from his bestselling Photoshop books or the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). Visitors to his blog will also be familiar with his connection to the Springs of Hope Orphanage in Kenya. Scott leverages his reputation and his blog to do good deeds and many of them related to photography. Just spend some time on his blog and you’ll see that Scott lifts up other photographers and aspiring photographers by linking to their work. Not all the third gear photographers I know are famous, like my friends Alex, Ron and Sue. I met Ron and Sue through PPSOP and Alex through a photography workshop in Seattle. All of them are so willing to help others in their quest to learn photography. Dave Howlett is also a third gear guy willing to help aspiring photographers. Here he is posing for an assignment for photography student Braden Hanna who chose to re-create a Clorets commercial.

As a photographer, in what gear do you want to be? I know I’d like to be in Third Gear and I hope this blog detailing my learning journey is a way of paying-it-forward.