self timer.

I’ve never wanted to be the barber that gave the best haircuts but never has his own haircut. No I am not a barber but what I am saying is there is absolutely no reason why I am apart of one of the most creative teams around and I do not have cool photos of myself. Random I know but I am tired of looking at weak shit. Looking back at some of the work we have recently put out and I realize that it is not work that I am 100% happy with. I apologize to myself for falling off.

Dear self,

next time you get the ball, shoot that shit.

thanks,

Dante

Pursue Love

Some of you may have seen this already. Many have not. Pursue  love.

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buy impulse

I always get happy when I get to buy new things. This time I was shopping for a few things because of an upcoming shoot. 32 GB CF Cards, Additional memory for the iMac’s and 8GB of memory for another purchase in which I had no intentions on buying when I went to the store. A new Macbook Pro. It was about time for me to get a new one. Or at least I would like to tell myself that to make myself feel better about buying a damn $2000+ laptop on out of impulse.

Oh, and those little yellow boxes are the little annoying lights that camera ops stick on top of cameras when they are all in your face in the middle of the club. I hate them just as much as you do.

I told myself I am going to finally switch over to editing on Final Cut Pro X this month. I got it, opened it. Looks like iMovie… Closed it. A little too busy to try to learn a new program in the midst of wrapping up projects. I will have to play it on my own time.

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briefly speaking

This week we finally caught up on most of the work we did not finish up at the end of last year. A lot is happening right now. We are in a great place going into this year. The team is family and I feel we get closer each day. We agreed to make sure we work on more exciting projects at the beginning of this year. Towards the end of 2011 The Art Direction started to take on larger projects that were not as fun but paid well. We are trying our best not to get caught up in the same cycle this year.

I also had a few things that I told myself I was going to personally try to improve on. One of those things being that I need to shoot much more this year. People that met me in 2011 probably have no clue that I am a photographer only because I have not been posting much work. Speaking of work, I did a shoot for StyleLine Magazine yesterday that was lots of fun.

The photo was shot by the newest member to The Art Direction family Jasmine. We actually played around and took a few photos together this earlier this week. The photo below being one of them.

Another thing I plan to work on is our timelines. 2011 we had a few projects that went on much longer than they should have. A lot of that had to do with us moving at speeds we were not at all use to. I had no clue we would be moving as fast as we have been and it took us a little while to adapt to it all. Slow and steady growth. If my friends Coco && Breezy are reading this I am sorry for taking so long on the video ladies. I promise I am sending it over tomorrow.

The next thing is to show my face more… Let people know what the hell is going on! I plan to start accepting more of the interviews people ask me to do and speak on more panels and cool stuff like that. Who knows, I may be able to inspire a few people this year. I have been asked to be one of the panelist to speak at the Revitalization and Business Conference at The Ross School of Business at The University of Michigan on  January 20th, 2012. I am always flattered by these sorts of  opportunities. To receive invitations to these sorts of things are awesome but to be personally asked to be apart of a panel is super exciting. I did not go to school for this so to be able to tell my story and know that it is not necessary the most conventional way of doing things is exciting.

I have a laundry list of other shit that I could write about but here it is almost 5:00am and I am already going against one of the things on that list which would be try to create normal hours for myself… Meaning take my ass to sleep at a reasonable time. Oh and I started taking vitamins a few months ago. I don’t really feel a difference but maybe thats how I know they are working? Who knows…

Off to bed for me. Another long day of work tomorrow. Cool Auto Show stuff.

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Boom for real.

A few days ago I was out and this guy randomly approached me and said “Man, a little over a year ago all I heard was your name Dante Marshall… Everyone wanted to work with you! He went on to tell me how I obviously don’t shoot anymore because he has not heard my name at all this year. He said that the only people he has been hearing about is this company called The Art Direction. Then he asked me if I’d ever heard of them…
I smirked and told him I am quite familiar.

If you want to go fast go by yourself, if you want to go far go together. Life changed for me about 11 months ago…

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Toast.

photo credit: dante marshall

Still here. Still getting accustomed to these new people… or new things. or something like that. All you ever hear is be prepared but you never know what you are preparing yourself for. Dont plan too far ahead and make sure you have a damn good time in the planning process. That is the best part.

we are still in the planning process.

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Artists Sessions – Lupe Fiasco (The Art Direction)

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Artists Sessions – Wiz Khalifa (The Art Direction)

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Ambassador Magazine Bridal Behind The Scenes

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The Art Direction – Progress Report 7

Went to L.A. and did stuff.

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