This Saturday morning, before I started to work on my deadlines, I browsed my RSS feeds, and ran into this Martin Schoeller.

Apparently he’s the photographer behind some iconic TIME magazine covers and some close-up portraits I’ve seen before. Seeing the portfolio he’s definetely a well-respectable name in editorial photography, and I’ve been ignorant not to hear his name before. Some of the images on his website :

My eyes literally glistened seeing the images.

They are so perfectly concepted. Perfectly composed. Perfectly lighted. Full to the brim with character. And the colours. Oh God.

Like any other artist, I asked myself: If I were to make these images, how long does it take? Definetely I’m not there yet, but if I were to make the right direction, how long does it take?

I’m a devout believer of the ‘if you want it bad enough, work hard enough, you will get there’ thinking. It is just a matter of when.

But at my 30+ age, will I make it?

I don’t consider myself too late for anything, but I was left with a single powerful thought this morning:

Life’s too short for mediocrity.

If I were only to keep doing what I’ve been doing, I will definetely not make it. But if I were to give it all I got, I just might.

That got me thinking:

If we wasted life on doing things half-heartedly, just barely, just as required, just as needed, just to get it over with, just to keep the clients off our backs, just to fill album pages with enough frames, just so we look busy until 5 pm… what a waste man.

Such a waste.

We’ll never make it. We’ll be only one in tens of millions. Churning so-so images until we’re too weak to hold a camera.

We’ll never make images like Martin. He’s definetely giving all he’s got. And I’ll bet he’s determined to do that since a long-long time ago.

…..

This morning, I whispered a silent vow: “I will give it all I got on every shot.”

Life’s too short for anything else.

*All of the images here, of course, are fully copyrighted to Martin Schoeller. I’m using them for reference only. Please don’t sue me.*