When my former boss hired cabinetmakers, he would always ask for photos of their work. It didn’t have to be a fancy portfolio – snapshots were fine.
Some of the job candidates brought this to the interview instead: “I’ve made some incredible pieces. I just finished up this coffee table with bookmatched veneer panels, stringing and inlay. Just stunning.”
Those people were not hired.
That policy stuck in my craw. So when I started selling pieces in the 1990s, I kept photos of every piece I made – even if it was just a snapshot. Those photos are organized by date in three-ring binders in my office.
These days I simply load a selection of my photos to my personal website, christophermschwarz.com. Even though I closed my commission book in 2019, I keep the website up to date because it’s easy, and it’s a great way to answer the question: What sort of work do you do?
But there’s another reason I keep my website up – one that might not be obvious. Whenever I encounter someone online with interesting ideas or opinions, I try to find pictures of their work. I always like to see furniture. And I like to see if the person’s words match their deeds.
If I can’t find photos of the person’s work, or if the photos don’t jibe with the words, I roll my eyes. What do I mean when I say “the words don’t match the work?” Example: People who jabber on about handwork and David Pye but the only pieces they show are crazy-quilt cutting boards with a routed-out juice groove. Or the person goes on and on about furniture, but the only work they show is router jigs.
These days, keeping a record of your work is practically free. Phones take better photos than cameras. You can upload your photos for zero dollars to a free blog. Or Instagram. So I don’t buy the argument that only professionals or wealthy people can keep and display a record of their work.
I’m not saying everyone should do this (but it would be fun and awesome if everyone did because I love to see furniture). If you’re an amateur woodworker who doesn’t spout opinions, proclamations, maxims, criticisms and homilies everywhere you go, then feel free to just continue being a good citizen.
But if you’re trying to change my mind, you’re going to have to have the photos to do it.
— Christopher Schwarz
Good advice and impressive website!
This makes total sense and it’s one of the main reasons I started my blog. I dream of being a published author, and someday when I find that perfect agent, I’ll have a body of work to show. Look at all I’ve wrote, all the progress I’ve made and how far I’ve come.
Great idea to keep a photo library of the process and results of buying more tools than we will ever need to build what we actually complete. Starting my library today.
Thanks for the stimulus!
My most recent work (continuous arm windsor), I must have 20 photos, from rough wood to finished product. Not because it’s a great job; simply to review and learn. Perhaps it would be different after the 50th one.
Can’t imagine not having at least a solitary photo of every piece made, if I wanted to be a professional woodworker. Beware the furniture maker with 35 pictures of his dogs, and none of his work!
I upload a lot of stuff to my FB page, vids and pic’s. My problem is I sometimes forget to take pics. The country woodwright. on FB
The concrete background works very well with the furniture in the images.
Ha! That’s not concrete. That’s our bench room after I ripped the old bar out. It looked like a war zone.
I stress this with my students. As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words” but in what it states and the conversations it stimulates.
This is actually something i have been meaning to do. Not that i have made anything very impressive. But when people ask what I have made , or what kid of woodworking i do, I am always searching through photos or google photos or even trying to remember what i have made over the years.
I agree whole heartedly as I have customers ask occasionally about my work and nice to be able to show some pic’s. BUT also remember anyone can take a picture of anything and say look what I did, claiming somebody else’s work for their own. Have seen this interviewing new help. Dig the blog.
Kind of the whole premise of the Ted’s scam I suppose.
Great idea! I’m not a pro but I’m going to start doing it. It’ll be fun to look back.
I wish I was a better picture taker. I never was. I never brought a camera on vacation, or a trip. And since cell phone cameras came out I don’t take touristy trips.
Every once in a while I go on a spree, taking pictures. Then the impulse drifts away. Maybe I’ll use this as an impetus to do better.
“ If you’re an amateur woodworker who doesn’t spout opinions, proclamations, maxims, criticisms and homilies everywhere you go, then feel free to just continue being a good citizen.
But if you’re trying to change my mind, you’re going to have to have the photos to do it.”
So basically a nice way of saying, “put up or shut up”.
Haha. Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. More like: Your work makes your words more valid, my friend.
Sounds like a lead in to “Cheap Shutterbug Part 2″…
I still love that tool cabinet!
My phone photos have a date on them it sometimes helps me remember when I made it
Amen
I like to take pics of works in progress and the finished pieces and text them in my family thread. Tables, stools, mallets, cutting boards, desks and so on….as a good citizen I enjoy the results of my efforts.
One day i will learn to make chairs.
The photos you take, through their content and style, reveal your mind.
In the content, the viewer (and inter-viewer 🙂 ) is presented with what you find worthy of record, detail, or focus (pun intended).
In the style, it betrays your commitment to nuance and your awareness of the delicate shadings of ‘meaning’.
Yes, a picture is worth a thousand word, at the very least.
Shortly after I started woodworking, I created a blog (spending whole seconds I tell you coming up with a name). I thought it might be nice to document what I’ve done. Maybe, someday, my daughter or her future kids might get a kick out of look up a blog post that shows a piece of they have sitting in their room that I made 50 years ago (while I am taking my dirt nap). I need to spend a bit more time on the free app to see if it has a way to show a gallery view of the pieces I’ve made. I’ve been using that whole 80 20 approach to it. I spend 20% of the time writing it to get 80% of the results. Yea, I could certainly go back and wordsmith and edit and make them better. However, then it becomes too much like work. Good enough as is. On my most recent project, I’ve been filming it on my iPhone. Need to learn how to edit video. Plan to post that on YouTube, etc. I don’t think I will become a YouTuber as it interferes too much with the woodworking itself. In case anyone wants to see my blog (shameless plug, my apologies), I’ve put the link below.
https://joeswoodworkingjourney.blogspot.com/
Just got to thank you Chris. You gave me the nudge to figure out how in the world to get an archive folder of my woodworking photos. Found out there are these things called Widgits. There was some company I found that I can pay some sort of monthly fee to use their widgit and in the blogger program I found it was easy to add. They had fancy scary words such as HTML but it was just a copy and past exercise. Now just need to upload the photos (did 3 this am just to see if I could get it to work). Shouldn’t take more than a few hours and I plan to get it done this week. With blogging and documenting my woodworking and every Monday transferring photos from my phone to my computer, it won’t be that difficult.
This entry roughly approximates the reason I started to blog in the first place. I’ll likely never sell a piece of furniture and most of my work will probably end up in my kids houses after I pass. But one day a few years ago I realized I had no photos of work I’d done over the previous 20 years of woodworking and I decided I needed an electronic journal of what I make. Now I get encouraging words from friends and co-workers who might not have known about my hobby.
I get asked about what I’m doing lately in my garden, workshop in email, chat and got tired of retyping for different people 🙂 So now I take pictures and have a blog & can link to. My phone auto uploads pictures so I put them in albums I share with family.
Just finished delivering a piece this morning, and totally forgot to take a picture of it.