Two friends Laszlo Szloboda & Akos Papp focused on the very specific time in a day when creative directors are alone and willing to read just about anything – on the toilet. To show off their creative work they have created this amazing “The Toilet Book” and placed it into the bathrooms of NYC’s best agencies.

To break into advertising, we need five minutes from your busy schedule to look at our work.
Well, you have five minutes now, and let’s face it, you’re dying to ready just about anything.

In action:

Have you heard about any other alternative ways for getting attention like this? Tweet us @DIEWITHOUTART or write us on Facebook.

I worked hard over two loooong months to finish my portfolio and prepare to enroll the Academy of Arts – Photography department, in a very beautiful town Novi Sad, Serbia. This morning I’m going on a 600-km-long-trip from Novigrad to Novi Sad by car and my uncle goes with me. My dear friend Jelena, also know as Queen of the sunset, will be my host for a week or maybe more. Bags are ready, batteries are charging and my eyes are closing. Before I tap “Publish” I just wanna say “Big Respectable & Lovely Thank You” to all of my friends and supporters who wrote a few very kind lines for me. Hope my parents will sleep well these days.

I’M GONNA DO MY BEST, REALLY!

By the way, read my 3 months old post “Setting my goals, reachable targets” about my plans, it’s closely connected with this one, and it will explain a bit better what is in my head at this suppose-to-be-stressful-but-it’s-not-at-all moment.

PHOTOGRAPHY IS MY LIFE, SO WISH ME LUCK!

Good, better, best; never let it rest till your good is better and your better is best.

We always can and have to do better! Remember that and finally start applying it in your daily life if you still haven’t. Record your results and again try to be better.

If you are an artist I suggest you to open your portfolio (online or offline) and start filling it with creative work. I think online portfolios are better because people who are interested in YOUR WORK can find YOU on the internet much easier – global audience! Some of them will give you a feedback – positive or negative, you must take it. Never remove your previous work if you are not satisfied with it, because it can help you to see the progress you’ve done.

Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there—Bo Jackson

What the plan?

My career in the field of photography, blogging and journalism started already and I will work as much as I can to improve it. The current dilemma is where to go after high school. I’m closely related to the art(s) and I’ll try to enroll in the art academy, that’s my first wish and goal. I trust in myself, but in a case of fail there is always another option—I’m going to work on myself and improve my (special) skills, blog a lot, read and learn a lot, meet new cool and dear people, maybe change my location, drink as much as possible cups of tea, write a book maybe, photograph a lot and spend a year without the college. I do not wanna study something stupid and boring, one year off education is ok.

Following my dreams is going well so far and I’m really happy about everything I’ve done. I wanna live from photography and this blog in the future, I will wait for that moment until it happen. New equipment is necessary, I need a new camera, lens and maybe a laptop. Working whole summer to buy it sounds good. That’s my passion and I have to invest into it. 2010 is a year full of challenges, let’s see what will happen next.

Jan never really thought much about photography before he got into photo blogging. He was a web developer back in the days, and he built a photo diary for Mr. Naughty James and his 1095 Project. Jan also built his own photo diary as well, borrowed a digital camera from the advertising agency he worked in, and started photographing his life and experiences. He got really into it, and started imagining a professional life with camera in hand.

I guess that’s where my kind of random snapshot style comes from.

Jan taught himself to photograph by observing the world around him, the people at the parties he went to, all his friends, his girlfriends, pretty much everything he saw. Today Jan still care more for his diary style photographs than his professional, properly lit photographs.

Jan studied in London, at a fashion photography course at University of the Arts. Those were truly the most exciting and challenging years of his interesting life. It was fantastic, but he knows that he would never want to live that life again. Strange or not, it’s history.

As a fashion photographer and a student in London you’re constantly surrounded by chaos, drugs, parties, booze, women… And I got sucked right into that lifestyle.

He’s back in safe and comfortable Norway now, and he often thinks back at his time in London as a time when he could truly challenge himself through his work.

The photographers I look up to aren’t the photographers who light beautifully or get the best models and stylists, but the photographers who put themselves in situations with
interesting subject matter.

A girl rolling around naked in front of the sofa at a party, a couple still dancing around at 7 in the morning, oblivious to the fact that the party ended hours ago, friends having a toke in the back seat of a taxi, etc. That is the reality that truly makes great snapshots.

Jan does almost everything. Through what feels like a long life he has gathered skills that make him able to be a photographer, graphic designer, web developer, Flash developer and general know-it-all.

Ever since Jan was a kid he has thought about his goals for life and it’s never deviated from “If it feels good, do it!”. A few years ago Jan met a girl, Hilde that soon became his girlfriend (though she’s back to being just a friend now). They pumped each other up, they discussed photography 20 hours of the day, and they pushed each other to becoming better photographers.

A 1000 ideas a day, a few of them realised.

Together, Jan and Hilde wanted to make stuff, break stuff. They hooked up with a couple of guys and founded a website called Phiary, a photo diary website where people could share their daily snapshots. They are still working on it, slowly making it become the photo diary website they all want to use themselves.

About the featured photo set, Tom and Emma

Tom and Emma are two of Jan’s very best friends. They let him live in their house when he had nowhere else, and they’ve been fantastic in every way since he first met them. This whole series was conceived when Jan needed to test situation photography for his graduation project at university. It started as a test, but the whole shoot became such a great experience and the photos came out above all expectation. They were all drunk and blazed by the end of the night, stumbling around like the idiots they are. Jan said, the fight scene could have been better but by that point they couldn’t see straight so whatever went down was how it would end up on his camera.

That’s it, thank you Jan for sharing your awesome story. Hope you will have something wow-like-this for us soon. Dear readers do not forget about the DwA’s first giveaway: Wallpaper alert! Take part and win a cool gift because it’s so simple. Read more here!

I’ve read you began photographing at age 13, that’s amazing. How you started? With camera obscura?

I first started photography at age 13 as a way to share time with my mother and grandmother. Both were hobbyist photographers and we lived on a large farm in upstate NY that provided ample photographic opportunities. We would take walks together and photograph whatever we saw—fall foliage, mushrooms, farm animals, hay fields, and more.

Photography took on an important significance in those early days. First, it was an important memory sharing time with my grandma who later died of cancer. Second, it instilled in me the ability to appreciate the beauty around me. It is far too easy to become blind to all the beautiful things around you—you see them everyday and they just become ‘normal’. But photography provided me a way to explore and appreciate my environment.

While I began just snapping away with a point-and-shoot, my first real camera was a Canon Rebel 2000 SLR film camera. I took it with me everywhere, and when I was 13 I went on a trip with my parents to the American West—The Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. While on vacation I took some stunning images that later that year were published in a calendar. My career began there.

While in high school I started a portrait business which helped me learn more about photography and to also ‘fund my habit’ of photography (film and equipment is expensive!).

Throughout my experiences I have been a nature photographer, portrait photographer, photojournalism, commercial photographer… and finally I have become a fashion photographer.

Succesful photographer is not so easy to be, is the education important? Which school, college you chose?

I attended Syracuse University with the Newhouse School of Public Communications. I had a degree in Photography, Photojournalism and Entrepreneurship.

I have always had a passion for education and learning. Since I was young I always strived to excel in school, and graduated as Valedictorian of my high school (award given to the student with the high grade point average throughout all of high school).

That being said, education is not really that important to success as a photographer. Much of what I learned I taught myself. You must always be pushing yourself to take make more images, push your creative boundaries, and to keep up on new/exciting photographic techniques.

You must teach yourself if you want to stand out… otherwise your skill set and knowledge is the same as your peers.

My education was important for two reasons. (1) It helped me mature mentally as an individual. I learned more about the world around me and how to be better prepared to face the world. When I entered college I was still a bit of a child, but college gave me a safe and free environment to figure out who I was and what I believed in. (2) College helped me find what exactly I wanted to do in photography. I did not always know I wanted to be a fashion photographer. In fact, I’ve tried every type of photography there is. In college I started to take fashion-influenced images. I then proceeded to take a fashion photography course that introduced me to the work of ‘the masters’—Avedon, Watson, Penn and more. This helped give me a perspective on fashion photography and also confirm that this was my desired career path.

In the end, education is not imperative. If you know you want to be a photographer, go work for a photographer whose work inspires you. You can learn most of what you need from them if you have real drive, passion and determination.

I’m sure DwA readers wanna know how you are finding your clients? Or they find you?

Finding portrait clients has been relatively easy. For ‘normal’ portrait a majority of my business has come from Facebook and word-of-mouth. Basically I started by photographing some local friends in the area, then I would post their images on Facebook and tag them, then all their friends would see the quality of my work, and then they would call and book my services. Fashion photography is much more of a challenge. Basically you just take it one step at a time.

To find my magazine clients, I slowly started to submit fashion editorials I have created to different fashion magazines. Slowly but surely my work was getting published in a variety of small magazines. Then as my work and contacts became stronger, I started submitting to larger magazines.

This editorial submission work is completely unpaid. Most people don’t realize this at all… there is NO pay or compensation for fashion particularly as smaller publications.

Instead magazines treat this as an advertisement for yourself. This is a showcase for your work, and helps you achieve the exposure and tearsheets that help you get an agent.

Once I started to get published more, magazine would hire me to shoot covers or images for special stories—and these pay. From there my exposure through model mayhem and within the industry have helped me find clients to shoot model portfolios, ‘look books’ for designers, and other misc jobs.

Fashion photography, until you are at ‘the top’, can be a bit messy with doing jobs here and there to build your reputation ad support yourself.

I often use dmy teaching and portraiture to fund the fashion photography while trying to get on my feet.

You started the FPI Workshops with Lara Jade, can you tell me more about it?

When I lived in London after college, I supported myself as a photographer by teaching 3-day fashion photography intensive courses. These were very popular and I had a great time doing it. Recently I have decided to start teaching these courses again in the US and started promoting the classes to Calumet, Unique Photo and other major camera companies. I very quickly got booked for NY, LA, SanFran, NJ and more.

These 3-day intensive courses provide photographers all the tools they need to successfully complete their first fashion shoots. They learn about inspiration, gathering a creative team, finding models, working with models, lighting, retouching and more. They will learn about getting editorials published and even have the opportunity to work 1-on-1 with professional styled models. It is a great learning opportunity.

I decided to bring Lara on as a partner for a few reasons. (1) Since she lives in England, she could help organized the European side of the business. She could arrange our courses with in London, France, Germany or wherever else we desired. (2) These classes could certainly benefit from having multiple instructors to help give the best one-on-one attention when needed. (3) Lara is a very talented individual and could certainly bring some important knowledge to the table.

You can learn more at fashonphotographyintensive.com.

Your first book “Linked Photographer: New Media and Social Networking” will be available in bookstores in May. What is the book about?

In short, this book helps photographers to utilize social networking to build a reputation, find clients and networking with colleagues to help their business grow. The book guides photographers through the tools and best practices of uses social media as a business tool. We cover blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Search Engine Optimization and more to provide photographers with the essential tools for online success.

I decided to write this book because after college I found that a great deal of my business for magazines and portraiture was coming DIRECTLY from social networking activities. I thought it would be very helpful for photographers to learn from my experiences and the experience of others to get online quickly and efficiently to reap the benefits.

The book will be out sometime this spring (probably May), and is published through Cengage (a large publisher).

Now when we know a little bit more about your career, I wanna know how your usually day looks like? New York-London relation?

My day varies every single day. No day is the same. Most days I wake up and spend all day behind my computer answering emails, responding to interview questions, writing blogs, retouching portraits and writing articles for magazines. Recently a majority of my time was spent on the book, and most other things fell to the wayside. Other days are packed with client shoots. I go into the studio and line up portraits back to back… each client is allotted about 2 hours for a typical portrait shoot. Other days are filled with networking… going around to different agencies, writing important emails, meeting up with potential clients.

The most exciting days are my fashion editorials. I come up with a concept, gather a creative team, and then spend a full day shooting the editorial.

After college I lived in London, and since have moved back to New York. Both cities provide amazing opportunities with fantastic creative minds. While I am mainly based in NY, I travel to London often for editorials and business opportunities.

In the end, do you have any advices for the beginners? Just simple short tips.

* Teach yourself and push yourself. Don’t rely on others or college to teach you what you have to know. Go out there and work for a photographer you admire. Watch online tutorials. Practice and experiment.

* Use social networking. Get yourself out there however you can—start a blog, have a Facebook page, get a twitter account. Do whatever you can to get your work in front of more eyes. Don’t be afraid to promote yourself and share your work with others. On similar note, use your social networking to share your knowledge and experiences. This will encourage people to pass your work around and to see you as an expert.

* Shoot what inspires you. We all have to shoot ‘boring work’ that pays the bills. That’s the nature of the game. But no matter how busy you are or how much work you have, you must make time to shoot for yourself. Shoot editorials or subjects that inspire you. It is this personal work that will be most powerful, and when seen by others will most likely spark the most interest. This personal work will likely get you more exposure and help others to understand your personal style.

* Start small, work up. You most likely won’t land big clients right away. Start with any work you can get. This will give you experience and money to fund your passions. Don’t be too proud to take small or insignificant jobs. Far too many photographer give up early because they don’t ‘hit it big’ early or because they are too proud to take the jobs that will pay the bills.

And a few words of mine…

Thank you Lindsay for sharing your story with us and for giving those important advices for begginers. Hope they will learn a lesson from your example.

There is a situation when you have to drop some habits and start thinking about the future if you care about your career. I suggest you to write down the list of what you’ve done and what you are planning to do. For example, my plan was to start a new blog and connect my main passions art and blogging. First of all I wrote my blogging plan for 2010 and started working on design. After one month Die without Art (DwA) was born as my today’s *full-time* activity.

DwA’s main mission is to help *unknown* artists by publishing their stories/works. Maybe I can help you to find the audience, feel free to submit (submit@diewithoutart.com).

You don’t have to write a blog like me, just be yourself and follow your inside voice(s), you will not regret it. Good luck.