Last night, a whole bunch of us Sydney photographers got to meet with the legendary Chase Jarvis for a social meet at the Blue Hotel in Woolloomooloo. A few guys actually flew in from Queensland and Canberra to meet him! 
Australia being in a continent of our own, we hardly get any famous or world renowned photographers stopping by to give a talk, workshop, or in Chase’s case – an informal social meet. With just under 48 hours notice on Facebook and Twitter, he pulled a massive crowd of fans. When I saw his post, I thought this may be too good to be true until I reread it several times haha!
It was both truly inspiring and an eye opener to hear the man talk, his experiences on the creative and production side of things, his recent Sandisk campaign in Queenstown, the brutal reality of photography when it comes to clients and using passion for photography as our driving force.
Halfway through the meet we got kicked out of the bar as they were closing. I thought the meet was gonna end but then Chase said, “Let’s crash the lobby!”
We continued on and that’s when the conversation got down and dirty with the true reality of earning a living out of photography, the perceived value of one’s work from one person to another, the subjectiveness of ‘art’, and taking on jobs not because of the money but for our passion for photography . Hearing Chase, Scott and Chris share their experiences put a lot of things into perspective for me.
On becoming a successful photographer, Chase’s answer was STAMINA – to keep on shooting, continuously developing your style and perfecting your art which differentiates yourself from the rest.
Speaking of stamina, this guy is a marathon runner. Extremely sleep deprived working on the campaign, riding in a helicopter for more shots just several hours before, then flying into Sydney later – we still got to hang with him for 5 hours until 2am! I don’t know how he does it but I was getting tired just standing! 
This goes out to Chase and his crew, thanks so much guys for taking the time to connect with us, for sharing your wealth of knowledge and experiences and for a really great time last night! I’m sure all of us would love to have you back again so give us a yell next time you’re down under!
If you like what I posted here, I highly suggest you visit his website at http://www.chasejarvis.com and his blog to checkout the recent behind the scenes video from his latest ad campaign – super interesting stuff! Go look him on Facebook and Twitter too!
If you’re not convinced, checkout this video of Chase and the crew working behind the scenes. Awesome stuff!
Also, I almost forgot to mention this – Chase said to me that he liked my barcode t-shirt! Not once but twice too! 
Good times!