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Book Review: The Accidental Millionaire by Gary Fong
Have you ever read a book or seen a movie and said to yourself: “This is so unbelievable, it must be true!” Well, this book: The Accidental Millionaire: How to Succeed in Life Without Really Trying, by Gary Fong (BenBella Books), contains quite a few “scenes” that fit that description quite well. If you are not familiar with the book’s author, Gary Fong is a well-known photographer, inventor and entrepreneur who has become one of the most recognized names in the photo industry. I really enjoy biographies of people who have gone through great lengths to achieve success, and this autobiography is an excellent example of that.
The book starts with Fong’s early childhood–much of it spent in a haze of hairspray due to his mother’s wig business. When he wasn’t in school or helping his parents with their work (including prepping and delivering newspapers from about 3:30-6:30AM every day of the week during high school), it seems as though young Gary was always contemplating how he could do things a bit better (or just survive). For example, he worked out in his mind how he would survive if his family became homeless, and he tested the theory by spending a whole night until dawn outside his home without his parents’ knowledge…at age 12! He also worked out elaborate ways in his mind and on paper which he could protect his family from potential burglars during the time when they ran a retail store in Los Angeles. When Fong talks about many of the experiences he has had, he gives the reader a good sense of what it was like to be in his shoes at specific times in his life. He also reminds us that there are many who do very difficult jobs every day for very low wages.
Once I started reading the book, I found myself always looking forward to getting back to it, and I was frequently amused and/or stunned by the situations in which Fong found himself–including a shocking story of how one of his mentors helped a bride deal with wedding jitters. And that brings me to the many female heroines in the book. I must admit, I sometimes felt like I was getting a little TMI (too much information), but that didn’t stop me from reading all that Fong had to say about his dealings with girlfriends, assistants and online women with whom he found himself involved in one way or another. Let me sum it up by saying that “As the World of Gary Fong Turns” might be a good title for the 8-part TV mini series!
The book has a small number of black and white photos to help illustrate the events and information Fong covers in the book. One of the photos is of a tiny room in his parents’ home where he started and built his wedding photography business. Another shows a photo layout from 1986 illustrating his Storyboard approach to wedding photography and album layout.
I don’t know Gary Fong very well, but we’ve met on a few occasions over the years, and one event that sticks in my head was a photography trade show in San Diego, CA in 2004 or 2005. He was doing a photo lecture and the room was filled. People appeared to be listening intently at his every word. At the end, he took orders for some of his products, and people could not hand over their cash and credit cards fast enough! I think that Fong has a great sense of knowing what people want and need based on his struggles and experiences throughout his life.
I’m a bit of a garage inventor/product developer (GalleryPouchâ„¢ is one example), and I’m also a longtime portrait and still-life photographer, so I found Fong’s advice regarding how his ideas for software, photo albums and camera gadgets like his popular LightSphere products came to be. While reading the book, I felt almost as though we were having a few drinks and chatting about stories from his life. You don’t need to be a professional photographer or play one on TV to be entertained and learn a lot from the content in this book. I believe that anyone who is building a business or who wants one person’s perspective about how to be successful should seriously consider reading it.
For more information about the book, visit the publisher’s site: benbellabooks.com.
The book is also available here
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Response to Comments on My Recent Open Letter on File Naming
After writing an article for Photofocus.com (which you can find here), I started receiving comments about it on some forums, via Twitter and directly via e-mail. The comments were overwhelmingly positive (it seems many people share my wishes for such an option), but a few people doubted that camera manufacturers would make the option that I outlined available to their customers. One of the reasons cited was that my approach required the use of more than 8 characters prior to the 3 letter extension (CR2, JPG, NEF, etc.), which I learned is currently a part of the EXIF specification.
The text below is from the EXIF Ver. 2.3 (updated April 2010) Â (The full PDF can be found here):
5.7.1 File Naming Stipulation: The file name and characters used for file names are not specified, other than to stipulate the use of ASCII alphanumerics. (File names in Japanese or other character sets are not to be used.) File names shall be 8 characters or fewer, not including the extension. (Long file names are not to be used.) The file extension is “.WAV” (to match the WAVE Form Audio File extension) regardless of the audio data format type.
For those into this stuff, the Wikipedia entry on this topic is very interesting.
After taking all this info in, I put my thinking cap on, and much like in the TV Game Show Name That Tune, I tried to “Name that File in 8 Characters or Less!”
What I came up with is a specific approach for unique, date-based naming within an 8 character limit. Here’s an overview: I recommend designating numbers from 0-9, and then letters from A-Z for years beginning in 2010; then numbers from 1-9 and letters from A-C for the months; then numbers from 1-9 and letters from A-V for days; then a single unique letter or number at the end of the first 4 characters so that multiple cameras can be given a unique letter or number (in this case, the unique letter is A, and this should be able to be edited by the user):
Below is an overview of the years, months and days with their corresponding characters:
YEAR
2010 =0
2011 =1
2012 =2
2013 =3
2014 =4
2015 =5
2016 =6
2017 =7
2018 =8
2019 =9
2020 =A
MONTH
JAN =1
FEB =2
MAR =3
APR =4
MAY =5
JUN =6
JUL =7
AUG =8
SEP =9
OCT =A
NOV =B
DEC =C
DAY OF THE MONTH
1 =1
2 =2
3 =3
4 =4
5 =5
6 =6
7 =7
8 =8
9 =9
10 =A
11 =B
12 =C
13 =D
14 =E
15 =F
16 =G
17 =H
18 =I
19 =J
20 =K
21 =L
22 =M
23 =N
24 =O
25 =P
26 =Q
27 =R
28 =S
29 =T
30 =U
31 =V
Below are three examples of how files might be named if three photos were shot in succession on these three days:
09DA0001.JPG = Name of the first photo after formatting a card, shot on 9/13/2010;
09EA0002.JPG = Next photo, shot on 9/14/2010; and
424A0003.JPG = Third photo, shot on 2/4/2114
Advantages, issues and suggestions to camera manufacturers related to this system:
1. Apart from using 8 characters instead of 13-15, everything else in the original article applies with regard to the advantages of this system.
2. I chose the numbers you see above for the months, years and dates because they are easy to understand (at least until you reach a letter!). 424A0003.JPG is a good example-once you know the system, it’s easy to see that 4=2014, 2=Feb and 4=the 4th day of the month.
3. When we get to 2046, we will be out of letters for the first character used in this system. My guess is that the EXIF standard will allow more than 8 characters by then.
Special thanks to Andrew Sharpe for his comments about my article on Photofocus.com that led to this article.
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My Recent Open Letter Article on File Naming Available on Photofocus.com
After dealing with this issue for years, I recently wrote an article on the topic of in-camera file naming in the form of an Open Letter for the site Photofocus.com . You can find the article here:
https://photofocus.com/2010/09/13/an-open-letter-to-digital-camera-manufacturers-regarding-camera-file-naming/
or
https://tinyurl.com/32hklb4
If you are interested in this topic and have a chance to read the article, it would be great to get your comments on it. Also, feel free to share the links above, and to retweet the article, please use the retweet button at the bottom of the article on Photofocus.com.