A list of twenty four life considerations for anyone who’s crazy enough to keep reading. Who knows if I’ve got any of this right? Some of it seems to work.

1/2. Learn whatever applies to your life early from those who’ve made the mistakes.. or don’t. The choice is yours. Its all about choice.

1. Finish high school, go to college. Get a degree unrelated to working in the ski industry. Get a degree unrelated to the ski industry. Get a degre.. you get the point.. and the degree. Work in the ski industry with the knowledge you don’t HAVE to and be passionate about it.

2. Choose a career, not a job. Learn the difference.

3. When you get a job, choose one that allows you to pursue another career or a passion. Flexibility, night schedule or plain high pay and low hours all work. The key is to be able to do a job/career AND photography simultaneously. Landing a job ONLY in ski photography is like landing a 747 with no training or landing gear. Its possible but rare.

4. Save some money, with the oncoming economic onslaught (I didn’t say RECESSION), SAVED money will be important. Too young to care about whats going on with business and money on a NATIONAL scale? Don’t be dumb. You’re not. It will affect you SOON. Learn NOW.

5. Be cheap. I mean really cheap but maintain some classy cheap choices. No one wants to know a freeloader or a bum.. and no one wants to live with one. Classy cheap isn’t that hard. Cook rice dishes (dishes? you pansy) with frozen vegetables over the $6.00 Subway sandwich. Knowing how to cook will bring in the ladies too.

6. Gather friends that push you and pull you UP. Recognize the social/professional dead weight. Pick and flick people who hold you back without mercy but be willing to be a true friend to those worth your time. This will benefit you ultimately and make life MUCH more enjoyable.

7. Watch hyping yourself. There’s serious ego inflation going on right now. Getting stuck in your own SELF HYPE is a surefire way to become nieve and unaware of changes around you or changes in yourself. Awareness fires positive growth.

8. Share knowledge. Every little bit you learn, share it. Share it on the internet, over the phone, in person, however you have to. Knowledge exchange develops bonds, creates culture and furthers the greater good of our community. Listen too, listening is actually more important. Listening means sharing your time.

9. TV.. is really great for your XBox, PS2 or DVDs. Horrible for your ability to deal with real live people everyday. Spend endless amounts of time educating yourself by socializing or reading.

10. Socialize outside technology, absorb culture. Cultured skiers, photographers, filmers and professionals move the industry AHEAD and are more fun to travel with. Culture is an accumulation of diverse interests, knowledge and ability to think. Thinking people ball hard in the world of automation.

11. Get where you want by gaining friends, not enemies. Reputations are viral in the biz and its rare that everyone doesn’t know everyone else’s business. Achievement is more about people than actually gaining anything. This is a hard lesson.

11.5 Achievement is actually pretty short lived, lame and disappointing. Getting to achievement is the killer part. Chase the dream but don’t ever truly attain it. What do you do once you’ve realized your dreams?

12. Look ahead by making mistakes, learning, adapting and looking ahead again. Keep staring at your toes while you walk and you’re sure to hit the lamp post while others run around it.

13. Big secret: Few people actually run around the lamp post or have the forethought to PLAN and see the BIG PICTURE or CONTEXT. Sometimes you can actually blow the lamp post up and walk through the debris. Anything is possible.

14. Fear is the major limitation in our current world-think. Fear only fear. Fear is the worst four letter word that will stifle your creativity.

15. Creativity is a lasting skill and ability you can SELL as a product (what the..?) or commodity. If you live in the US there’s LITTLE that can’t be sourced to India, China, Japan or Khizakistan (great success!). Creativity is a service.. creativity is HARD to outsource. Nurture your creativity and your friends creativity. Profit off this.

16. Technology is advanced enough to OWN YOUR LIFE. Don’t let it. Let PEOPLE, NETWORKING and PARTNERSHIPS own your life. Even if you’re 17. Staring at bigbackflip.com didn’t help me meet the people that any of us anywhere. Physically shaking hands, real life conversations and listening did.. in real time.. with real air.. and actually being in the same room. WILD I know.

17. Don’t listen to me.. I’m just full of crap.

18. Still reading? Harness the power of FREE on the internet. By this I mean don’t be afraid to offer a product for free on the internet. Many businesses aren’t, these businesses will soon be rudely awakened. Everything is free here; the key is to learn to offer it free as digits to further branding and benefit a physical product or service you can offer in the REAL WORLD as DOLLARS.

18.5 Doing photo jobs for free or next to nothing will piss off all the guys trying to set a fair market price CHARGING for photography services. Even if it gets you ahead by one job it gets you behind in professionalism (you know who you are.. so does everyone else). If pissing off all the guys that could potentially throw you a paying gig, get you access to an event or even publish your pictures is your goal than by all means.. give away your services.

19. Fun is ONE key aspect (there are many) to everything worth while.

19.5 Do what you say you’re going to do. Realize also sometimes the best way to do everything is to spend time doing nothing. Efficiency.

20. You can get twice the quality from something done in half the time even though you get half the quantity. Absorb this, apply it to your life in general. The world is moving at an insanely fast pace. Think hard.. did doing twice as much in half the time ever make you or anyone else you know feel better? Did it allow you to have any more time? Hmmm..

21. By used gear and avoid debt. Avoid debt. Avoid debt. Buy the BEST used gear you can afford. Buy PROFESSIONAL level gear. You will never regret it. I’m the 150973525986324th photographer to tell you this.. Hopefully someone else will write about this too.. tomorrow.

22. Photographer? Train like an athlete, you’re going to WORK on the same terrain and in the same weather with sherpa loads of weight.

23.Another well known “secret”: We ALL want to go into advertising, fashion, portraiture, etc. after seeing our photos in mags. Go into product/lifestyle photography for sailing/golf/car/horse product manufacturers. Deeeepppp ppooocckkkeeetttss.

24. What does any of this have to do with ANYTHING on Freeskier.com?
You decide. I’m just sharing what I’ve learned from shooting photos for a couple of years now because Freeskier hasn’t cut me off yet.

Booyah.