SELLING
I was listening to Tom Hopkins recently at the Sheraton Ballroom in Auckland talking on selling.  He came up with some rather interesting quotes which I will list.

• He says you have to spend money to earn money. He says suicide is the most sincere form of self criticism.

• He says that everything that you want in life is behind a closed door.  You have to learn how to love doors so you can open doors.

• He is known right throughout the world for his formula for success, which is "get off your backside".

• He also says that do not hang onto the past, the past is a pile of ashes.

• There is a list of words you do not use in the Hopkin's dictionary.

• He says you never mention the word cost or price, just total investment.

• Never down payment, only initial investment.

• Not buy, use the word own.

• Not sign here, rather would you o.k. this paper work.

It was a very good seminar but not necessarily full of meat.  One could almost justify the $98.00 with these little gems that I have recorded.

TEACH YOUR COMMUNITY
In talking to Jay Stock, he made the point that he runs seminars for doctors, for lawyers, for many professional people, teaching them about photography.

In doing so, of course these people will not set up in business in opposition to you.  You have really got nothing to worry about from them, but these people will start to know what fine photography looks like and consequently whenever they go, wherever they go, they will of course be looking for what they will learn to recognize as the best.

THE YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
The Yale university art gallery has the largest collection of English paintings in America. They define an English painting as one that was painted in England or painted by an Englishman abroad.

The art adviser of the gallery who spoke to us about the collection told us that English art was influenced by Henry VIII when he broke away from the Catholic church, in so much that he forbade any religious paintings, he forbade the Church sponsoring art and right up to that stage and in the continent at that stage, the Church had been the biggest sponsor of art.

This meant that the artists in England had to turn to portraiture to make a living. He showed us first the Elizabethan paintings which were extremely flat filled the frames and lacked imagination altogether.

We then went on to painting around the time of Charles 1 when Van Dyck visited England and he changed the complete style of painting with his technique of doing the full length figure allowing space, creating form with shadow.

We then saw how some English painters copied his style. He showed us how they put various pieces of clothing, armory etc. into the picture to show how important the person being painted was. In just about every case, the portrait flattered the person. They placed articles of clothing or armory or if he was a holder of the knight of the garter, that was on the portrait. They were magnificent paintings.

He then went on to show us the next stage of paintings and that was of houses. This was the next stage that happened and the artist used a birds eye view of the castle, painting massive large paintings of the castle, the surrounding land that was owned by the castle owner and the castle. It basically showed every little dent in the brickwork. You could certainly see the turrets, the pinnacles on the roofs, the cabbages growing in the garden, people walking on the promenades, even to the stage of the field that they laid the clothing out to dry in. There was of course a carriage pulling up at the entrance.

These paintings then developed into some that were almost turned into landscapes but of course landscapes weren't bought by anybody so they had to include the birds eye view of the castle and the land to be able to get away with the landscape.

The next stage of painting was the pictorials of the people outside in a setting and what was called conversation pieces of people chatting in a parlor, playing cards etc.

It was interesting to note that the portraits that were done of these people outside the whole family, whatever the person's interest was they had something to indicate that in their hands. For example if one of the children was a keen reader, they had a book. If one of the others was a fisherman, he had a fishing rod. The woman had her fancywork, and so forth.

It was round this time that Gainsborough made an appearance and Gainsborough was self-taught. He was particularly keen on painting landscapes, but of course landscapes didn't sell, so he had to resort to the family group type portraiture, outside and build them into a landscape. Of course, Sir. Joshua Reynolds was in this particular period as well and his portraiture was extremely beautiful.

It was interesting to note the way that the portraiture changed over the hundred years, how it was influenced by the various artists who traveled to England from the continent and how the portraiture improved from a flat, badly cropped portrait through to the beautiful portraits that were produced from the Van Dyck period on.

It was interesting to note that whilst most of them wanted to paint landscapes, etc., they produced what their customers wanted and would pay money for. There was a stage when people did not like sitting for the portraits and one of the painters used tailors dummies to get the majority of the portrait painted and the subject would come in a t the last minute and the artist would place their head on the various paintings. They certainly did not have it easy, yet they produced beautiful work to a standard that today other paintings or photographs are compared to.

NEWSLETTER FOR DECEMBER 1985                        VOLUME 74     
PAUL YAFFE  at N.Z.P.P.A. convention

I have just come across some notes I made while I was listening to Paul Yaffe. Unfortunately, I did not sit through his whole talk and I am sure there would have been many more notes had I done so. Any notes in brackets are my comments otherwise the comment is as I recorded it from Paul Yaffe.

Social photographers (portrait photographers) must make people look as good as they can. They must be convincing, they must be spontaneous, the portrait must flow and balance, it must flow in and out. It must have sensitivity, in other words you must capture the tender moment.