Last year, the New Orleans Ad Club asked me to give a talk on commercial photography. It was at a time when I had been directing video shoots all summer long and had not shot any stills. I mulled over the subject of what I really wanted to talk about, and let them know that I wanted to talk about vendors vs collaborators: understanding the difference when it comes to photography, video and content creation. The talk got cancelled because of scheduling conflicts. I did not want to throw out my notes as I kept bumping into this issue: how people that we work with evolve. It also pointed to how my career had evolved over time and pointed the way to some ponderous reflection 
Ten years ago there was a system – almost like a conveyor belt, it involved my rep, art buyers, print producers, cost consultants, legions of people in the creative department, still more legions on the account side, somewhere in that mix was the client. The advertising environment has changed, that “factory” is closed! Today I am honored to work with some remarkable advertising people.
