Captain's Log: Spring Fever

Hey gang,

Happy May Day and Spring to everyone. The weather in New York City is finally changing, though it's been volatile the last couple weeks, going from 75 F to 55 F from one week to the next. Sorry that the Captain's been MIA for a few months. I think my last Captain's Log was around the new year. So I'll be catching you up on the last four months - but first a message from our sponsors...

Help Wanted

I need you all to start thinking of your social/business networks - you LinkedIn and myspace/facebook users.

1) Literary Agents - I need recommendations for a good agent for my book. A non-fiction work, a memoir about a naive young man that joins the Marine Corps. In essence a coming of age story; think combo of Accidental Asian meets Jarhead and The Caine Mutiny.

2) Movie People - I'm finding work as a Production Still Photographer very interesting and gratifying. I want more. So pass on names of movie people, producers, directors, etc. that I might reach out to for more work.

3) Event Planners - I do great work shooting events, and especially like corporate type gigs. So let me know who you know that is involved in this area that I might approach.

...now back to our regularly schedule program...


2008 has been a great year overall. I continue to build my photography business (check out revamped website www.michaelseto.com), with writing taking a back seat for now. I pretty much am committed to try and make a viable living from photography and more work has been slowly coming my way. I realize that I need to market myself much better since most of the work comes through word of mouth and recommendations. At the same time, I'm consciously holding back to make sure I carve out enough time to finish my book project.

What Now Lieutenant? is my memoir about my six years in the Marines and how it changed me. (updates on www.whatnowlieutenant.com) I have about 275 pages of the rough manuscript done. My outline projects a final manuscript of about 430 pages - so about 2/3 done. What I am focusing on is polishing a book proposal. I understand 90% of non-fiction is sold by proposal, a 10-12 page document that summarizes the book, market, competition, and why you should write it. It's supposed to be sent to agents and editors to try and get them to offer you a contract. A few selected friends, with writing experience, are helping me as readers for the proposal; it's always impossible to edit your own writing.

Now that I'm finished with my three month internship at a small publishing company, INK Publishing, the book proposal is my priority. The internship gave me some useful structure and a schedule. I learned a lot about how magazines, especially with tight budgets, solve their imaging needs. As a photographer, this was an invaluable lesson in how to make myself visible to the right people, and what skills I need to win their business. I successfully got a few pictures published in Skybussing, My Midwest, and Go, all airline in-flight magazines.

But April suddenly became busy with photo gigs - in one week I shoot a record eleven gigs. Wow. I'm finally emerging from under the resulting post-production; yes, the work does not stop with just snapping the shutter. I'm finding I spend two hours on post- for every hour of shooting I do. It's been great - I think I grossed about $4k in April, my best month yet. The great thing is that I feel much more certain about what areas of photography I want to concentrate on. I really enjoyed a couple of indie films where I shot the production stills. These are the stills that go into ads; they're meant to capture the look of the actual film. Then you've got the behind the scenes stuff as well. To me unit/production photography combines documentary with a commercial flair - all shot PJ style. That's photojournalistic style, I really like this type of work, as opposed to fashion. I'm also enrolled in a class on photojournalist at ICP, the International Center for Photography - the class is in it's third of ten weeks and I'm benefitting from having others look at my work, though most of the participants are more intermediate photogs and students.

With the maelstrom of photography work, the book proposal got put on the backburner till this week. Now, I'm starting on a revised proposal. My goal will be to get query letters out toward the middle of May. It's tough trying to balance working on the photography, marketing my photography, and setting aside the proper time I need to work on the book. It always feels like each week only allows me to do one or the other. Hmmmm. My plan going forward will to be try and build on a few areas like events and unit stills - stuff that pays well and motivates me, respectively - while setting aside adequate time to write. We'll see how that works out...

I do want to mention that the project I hoped for, a three-month documentary for City Harvest, a NYC based charity that rescues food, had been approved in Feb and we're entering our third month of shooting. This is strictly pro-bono but a great opportunity for me to get a foot in the door and associate my name with a well known non-profit. They'll use the photos for publicity, fund raising etc. And there's been some talk bandied about of a gallery showing to publicize the program I'm documenting - but that's putting the cart ahead of the horse and in the next valley.

Socially, I say I've been pretty reclusive and monastic; the immediate response from those who know me is, "bullsh-t!" They're probably right. I do get out, but I must say the range of what I do and where I go is curtailed. I'm trying to save $$$ so weekly $200 dinners are out of the question. I'm trying to keep my living expenses (outside of rent/utilities) to about $1000 a month. Maybe 30% of my previous spend rate when I worked on Wall Street. The Seto freezer is filled with leftovers and frozen pot pies - yikes. The only real luxury I allow myself is...you guessed it...GOLF! I've been on like four trips to Myrtle Beach since Thanksgiving with another planned for the Memorial Day Holiday. I'm also going out to the US Open in June at Torrey Pines San Diego with the hope of doing some golf photography. A friend of a friend is trying to hook me up with some folks from Sports Illustrated so we'll see how that works out.

Anyway, that's a very quick rundown of my last four months. I apologize for being MIA. I feel like I'm seeing people a lot less - those once a month things now have become once a quarter. Working a sole proprietorship, especially one where I'm constantly learning and far from any mastery of my subject takes a quantity of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual commitment that I did not conceive of beforehand.


Michael Seto