Dr. Elliot Hirshman for SDSU

I had one of those work weeks which made me remember why I love being a photographer. I had a gig everyday last week shooting for various corporate clients documenting some part of their company or institution. The images shown here are from a shoot with the new President of San Diego State University during his first day on the job. It just felt really good to get out and shoot the way I like and get paid a "grown-up" rate. Those kinds of jobs seem to be slowly disappearing lately.
I must admit that this has been a real transformative year in my career as many of my long-time newspaper and wire clients have dropped off the face of the planet and are slowly being replaced with corporate work. Most of this kind of work is a bit stiff and does not allow the kind of creative energy as the newspaper, magazine stuff but they pay the bills and are usually pretty stress free. It's been a hard and somewhat grueling emotional switch because I have become so accustomed over the last 20 years to keeping myself inside the news loop. That means getting up every morning, checking the papers for any stories that might be of interest to the editors in NY. Pitching ideas, going out and trying to find spot news, listening to scanners, looking East towards the mountains for smoke, checking numerous press releases, and going into numerous situations where there was a certain degree of danger(i.e. drug wars in Mexico, wildfires, hurricanes, late nights shooting illegal drag racers in the hood, etc... It is a real adrenaline rush that has turned into a kind of addiction. I started my own wire service, Creative Business Wire, as a way to always be shooting the news, even during slow times. It has been my way of life and obsession for over 1/2 the time I've been on this planet.
I'll always continue to do news when it comes along, but for my health, I'm finding it is just better to put all my energies into marketing myself to a different set of clientele. Any thoughts are welcomed as I know many of my photo-j friends are going through the same issues.