Wooden Slats in the Paris Metro.

 

 I photographed this image one evening, after rush hour, in the Paris Metro, under Le Place de L'Étoile back in 1986. I was using a Leica M3, loaded with Tri-X film and sporting a 50mm Summicron lens. It sums up how I feel about work these days. I think I'm sliding into a gradual retirement from standard commercial photography. I'd like to do more commissioned portraits and fine art work. I won't pass up money thrown at me in exuberant abundance but I'm tired of chasing it and I think we have enough. I'll never give up being a photographer.

sometime in the early part of last year I just flat gave up marketing my services to the usual clients. No more mailers. No email blasts. No cocktail parties. No lame Ad Club happy hours. I didn't plan it all out and I didn't really discuss it with anyone but B. I didn't actually need much feedback. My feeling was (and is) that the business of photography had changed so profoundly; at least the way I had always practiced it, that it was no longer "what I signed up for." And it seemed further and further from something fun and challenging and more like a relationship gone sour where one is just going through the motions solely from decades of momentum. 

Even though my advertising pushes disappeared I still was (and am) regularly asked to bid on projects. But once the spark goes out one tends to finally bid jobs for the full amount they should be at. And clients are loathe to pay what the work is really worth. At least that's my perception. 

I could retool and find a new commercial purpose but I'm not particularly interested in ramping up a business again and doing all the hard work of establishing it only to decide, a few years from now, that I'm going to shut it all down anyway. 

The work I really want to do now is more or less like the work just above. Wandering through life with fun cameras and snapping whatever resonates with me in the moment. 

This blog, VSL, started out as a series of posts about the business of selling photographs. The commercial aspects of doing the work. The marketing and the selling. The 'nuts and bolts' of how we produced jobs. Things will change here as I run out of client anecdotes and pratfalls to discuss. I'll be much more self directed in my work and I hope to be discussing how to find one's passion in projects, how to do art, how to show art, and how to embrace the joy of playing with fun cameras and lenses too. 

A number of years ago I wrote a book for Amherst Media called, "The Commercial Photographers Handbook." It was a general guide to the business of photography and it was used by several big college programs as a text book. It was a success in the marketplace and we sold enough of the books to take the rough edges of the Great Recession of 2008-2010 down a notch or two. Enough in royalties to keep my hands off the retirement accounts and still make the mortgage payments and stuff. It was an effective antidote to panic.....as were the other four non-fiction books.

The one thing the book never got around to discussing was "How to Quit." or "How to Wind Down a Profitable Business." There is a secret, I think: Leave in the black. Under your own steam. When you realize that you and the current market are no longer a good match. 

I'm looking forward to fewer scheduling obligations for clients (who love to cancel at the last moment anyway) and more focus on swim practice, time at the gym and time playing with cameras and the resulting images. 

My passport renewal is being expedited. My Global Entry Trusted Passenger card is renewed. Fall 2023 will be the start of a busy travel schedule. (We don't go vacation much in the Summer because that's when everyone else goes. Fall and Spring are our favorite times). 

Just thought I'd let my readers know my direction for now. NOT stopping the blog. It's too much fun.