If you think of a photographer’s career as a roller coaster, then Joe McNally’s car has been around the track a bunch of times. To get a sense of his persona, mix equal parts of photojournalist, theatrical lighting director and New Yorker. Then infuse that mix with the cool intensity of an ER physician and add the spontaneity of a court jester. The cocktail makes for a great photographer with a long list of colorful stories to share. Or is it a colorful photographer with a long list of great stories? Either way, you’ll find these tales and the photos that inspired them in Joe’s recently published book, The Moment It Clicks {more below}

If you missed the circus last February, the release of The Moment It Clicks created quite a stir among armchair critics on Amazon. Many among the enlightened, myself included, praised Joe’s unique style of writing (part memoir, part photography how-to). Others were critical because Joe does not provide step-by-step recipes for each of the amazing shots in the book. Nevertheless, The Moment It Clicks climbed straight into the stratosphere on Amazon and topped out in the Top 10 one day — not for photography books, but for all the books sold on Amazon. It was right up there, sandwiched between two selections from Oprah’s Book Club. Mrs. Joe must have been so proud. Today, some three months later, sales remain strong with Top-5 ranking in photography books and Top-500 for all of Amazon.

I’ve had the good fortune to take Joe’s week-long Santa Fe workshop. I’ve had the greater fortune to work with him as a location assistant on the pre-launch Nikon D3 marketing shoot last summer (think beautiful babe and elephant in the middle of nowhere or acrobat hanging from a red silk banner against a mysterious sunset). I’ve sat through his presentations at Photoshop World in Vegas and at PhotoPlus in New York. You’d think I’d have had my fill of this guy, right? Not so. My copy of The Moment It Clicks arrived the day it was published. I read it cover to cover. Then I grabbed the highlighter and the sharpies for my second pass through. A third time anyone? Yep.

So how do you customize your McNally? You gotta pimp it. I’m talking a big coil binding, laminated covers and graffiti on nearly every page. The bennies are huge. Your McNally will take up more room on the bookshelf. It will be easier to get back to that nugget of wisdom you’re thinking of. You’ll stop fighting with the gutter when admiring the extra wide pix. Feeling envious? Read on.

How To Pimp Your McNally In Five Easy Steps.

Step 1 – Sand Off The Original Binding
Seriously, use a disk sander to remove the spine and all of the glue that holds the pages together. There will be no question about your enthusiasm for your McNally at this point.

You’ll end up with a pile of looses pages:

Step 2 – Laminate The Covers In Heavy Plastic
Head to the nearest office superstore and tell the clerk that you need the covers encapsulated in 10-mil plastic. I had my edges trimmed to an eighth of an inch.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of laminating the covers is that you can now use this masterwork of McNallyisms as a coaster for your morning cup of java.

Step 3 – Bind Her Up With A Nice Coil
Trust me on this. An inch-and-a-half plastic coil is the Cadillac you need for this project. Don’t skimp by using a skinny comb binding. The big, fat coil lets the pages flow smoothly. Your McNally will now lay perfectly flat on the table. Or, you can fold the cover back completely for a more comfortable read in bed. {If you’re totally OCD about pimping your McNally, check out the extra credit section at the end.}

Step 4 – Boldly Break Out An Assortment of Sharpie Markers and Neon Highlighters
One of the great joys of Joe’s book is that he does not spell it all out. You have to want to learn. You have to work at honing your craft. So round up the Sharpies and draw the lighting diagrams. Grab a highlighter and mark up the text you find most relevant. When you’re done, there should be graffiti on nearly every page. Now you have the McNally those whiner critics on Amazon wanted - but this way feels better because you earned it.

Step 5 – Use Adhesive Flags With Impunity
Joe in a tie? Those who know Joe know how unique a moment that is. Apparently, even the Metropolitan wanted to sit down next to Joe and get his picture taken. I’ve flagged a number of pages with these cutesy adhesive strips so that I can quickly return to moments like this.

Extra Credit Section – Print Out the Online Section As Double-Sided Spreads
There’s an extra chapter available online at Peachpit Press. You can download it as a PDF for free. Now those with OCD, like me, can proceed to the extra credit section. Use Photoshop to chop the PDF spreads into single page bites for printing. Then lay them out in InDesign and print them on two-sided paper. You can insert the entire chapter right at the end of the book {the pages will be just a bit smaller}. Hey… I said this was the extra credit section. It’s not meant to be easy.

Congratulations - You’ve Pimped Your McNally
When you’re done, you’ll have a McNally that’s about twice a thick as when you started. You’ll also have a McNally that’s a heck of a lot easier to refer back to on the fly when you need a quick reminder. Are you smiling now? I thought you would be. If not, we know who you are.

Need more McNally to feed your obsession?
Subscribe to Joe’s blog and you’ll get an installment or two direct from the horse’s mouth each week.

A tiny hiccup was heard in the blogosphere a few weeks ago when I launched PasoRoblesPhotographer.com. Another burp will pass quickly when I push the “publish” button for this, the first official post on Pixsylated.com.

Why Would A Commercial Photographer Blog?

As a professional shooter, why would I want to spend more hours in front of my computer? As if my twin mistresses Photoshop and Lightroom haven’t tried to monopolize all of my time. I have a couple of motives for my blogs.

Reason #1 - Paying It Forward. I had the good fortune to meet Bruce Fraser in San Francisco about six months before he passed on. Just as Bruce managed to touch the lives of virtually every digital photographer through his research, writings and workshops, in a mere 90 seconds together, he branded my soul with the thought of a world in which people freely share information for the betterment of all. [more below]

I had the honor of creating the image that was used on the Bruce Fraser Tribute DVD. Many thanks to Larry Baca, leader of the tribute committee, for giving me the shot (glasses).

While I’m not ready to work for free, Bruce’s wisdom on the value of sharing one’s knowledge continues to inspire. Further, my work in photography over the past 20 years has repeatedly been pushed forward through the insights and suggestions shared by colleagues and mentors. Pixsylated is my first public venue towards paying forward the help that my career has received from others.

Reason #2 - Marketing. My first blog, Paso Robles Photographer, is a marketing tool I created to communicate with my local clientèle. I live in Paso Robles, a small town about half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Our claim to fame is that we are the hub of California’s central coast wine district with nearly 200 wineries in the neighborhood. For more than a year, it drove me crazy that my commercial site would not show up when someone Googled “Paso Robles Photographer”. So I grabbed the URL for “Paso Robles Photographer” and created a blog that Google has recently discovered. I’ve added several resource pages that local clients find helpful. I post links to web galleries for nearly every local shoot. Google is paying attention and so are business owners in my hometown.