...you don't send out invoices along with your photographs...
When I started this blog I think I made it incredibly clear that it was intended to be about my life as a commercial photographer. A person who spends 100% of their work time engaged in making, selling or marketing photographs for commercial/business use. The one exception, which has died off almost completely, was the work I also did for editorial outlets which were almost exclusively magazines.
If I bought a piece of gear it was generally because I thought the new acquisition would help me make better images which would, down the road, help me get better clients and even better projects. If I posted an image as an example of some blog topic (about the business) it was not because I thought the image was "great art" but because it demonstrated something about the trend or technique covered in a particular blog post.
This weekend Michael Johnston posted a great comment (made into a post) from a reader credited as JH. I recommend it for everyone on both sides of the
"I do this for fun/hobby" and
"I do this for a living" divide because it explains so much to me about the feedback I sometimes get here that baffles or torments me.
Here's the link.
But back to today's screed.
A constant theme from photographers who aren't engaged in the business of making photos for clients is that "Kirk changes camera systems more often than XXX changes his underwear...." The idea that JH puts forward; that some of us are not process driven but are instead project driven comes into play. Readers who have the benefit of working a subject to death seem happy to use the same gear ad infinitum because the gear is actually part of their long term process and changing gear would change the process and that's disruptive.
On the other hand I see shorter, faster engagements as projects. I tie cameras and camera systems to projects. If similar projects come up I use the same gear. If projects diverge and something new presents itself on the horizon I try to find the gear that works best for the new project. While for a hobbyist an expensive camera purchase is a sunk cost that has no financial return and is doomed only to depreciate, a small business can depreciate or deduct a new camera purchase from the company's profits in the schedule C, make money with the camera in the moment, and then trade the camera off or sell it when the need (or desire) for it fades. It's not a black and white, all or nothing equation.
Were I to get a string of assignments photographing serious portraits for a prosperous company, over time, I might be able to justify the buying of a medium format camera and appropriate lenses because they might give me just exactly the look I want. Or they might provide the placebo effect of knowing I was bringing the most serious gear to the project. But after the glow of the project dimmed and my horror at repeating myself re-emerged I might get tangled up with another project that called for a documentary black and white style of photographing that required different gear. But always the gear is tied to projects.
I read with some amazement when someone writes that they've been using the same camera and lens since 2007 or 1995. I can't imagine that for myself. I'm equally at odds with the idea that someone who is incredibly serious about photography might have only the one camera and no back up camera. But that's the bleed over from my perspective as a working photographer. If today's shooting camera gets caught in a wood chipper (and the strap doesn't pull me in as well...) I still need to finish today's job and be ready for tomorrow's job. And that means having more than one camera --- there somewhat as a safety blanket; just in case, but also as a rational redundancy, like the fact that passenger jets all have at least two engines....
There are some comments at which I just laugh out loud and then move on from. My least favorite is when I describe a financial arrangement and a well meaning person with absolutely no photo business sense suggests: "Just charge them double!!!" or "If the demand XXX you should demand XXXX!!!" as though the client has no say in the matter and no recourse other than to choose me and keep me in business. In nearly every business (with the exception of monopolies) all projects and encounters are based on compromise and negotiation. The idea that I can charge $10,000 for a headshot instead of $800 because the client inconvenienced me is just unimaginable.
I have too thin a skin but I always get ruffled when someone looks at a photo I've posted as an example on the blog and then proceeds to critique said photo as if I had contended that it was the finest manifestation of fine art photography and deserved to be in a museum. Nearly always the photos are only intended to accompany a talking point. Or the images are added to a post as a bit of a visual resting spot to an otherwise droll and poorly thought through essay. But I never intend for an image that is compressed and rendered at 3200 pixels to be thought of as an example of high art. Same for subject matter.
One thing I have to mention is that many photographers who comment here seem to have long term projects they are working on. I wish. I have a vague understanding that I should concentrate more and more on the portraits I like and should figure out something to do with them but I must be the least disciplined worker of all when it comes to making anything into a long term project. I bounce in and out of a number of genres because photography weaves through my everyday life and isn't set aside as a "special treat" or something I carve out of the time I have to spend working at a "real" job or the time I "must" spend on endless family vacations, family gatherings, family obligations (yes, married couples should spend at least one vacation a year away from each other --- solitude can be wonderful). No. I bring a camera with me everywhere and I'm unfiltered about photographing just about everything. From a beautiful face to a smiling lawyer to a well lit (natural light) cup of coffee. If I concentrated on only one kind of photography I'm pretty sure I could make a more successful go of it than I have. But I'm equally sure I'd be bored to tears.
Many people also have a huge reverence for all the photo work that was done in the past. Like large format landscape stuff from the last century. Like street photography from the 1970's, 1980's and onward. While I too find Robert Frank's work and William Klein's work and Richard Avedon's work the foundation for nearly everything I like to look at now it's not my job to halt all my own forward progress is a misguided worship of the work they did 50 or 70 years ago. It's like being a political scientist and only studying the Eisenhower administration --- over and over again. Or claiming that the 13 inch black and white TV from GE, circa 1965, is the highest achievement of electrical engineering aimed at television.
We can give an appreciative nod to those giants who came before us but it's absolute folly to let our admiration for their pioneering paralyze us in the present.
While this flies in the face of popular discussion there is more to a life in photography than just the finished work. The prints. The digital files. To my mind the whole engagement with photography has to be fun, challenging, raucous and social. The work of the work is the process I bond with instead of the process of doing the work. By that I mean the overarching universe of living photographically is much more valuable to me than clamping my bulldog teeth on to one subject/project and working it to death, over and over again like an indestructible bone.
For whatever reason I'm perceiving that photography as I've practiced it, as a business, for so long is slowly vanishing. So are the needs of the clients for what I do. So are the engagements and the flow of money. One would think that this is where panic should set in. Or bitterness at the changing nature and the changing fortunes of photography as a business for the baby boomer generation. I'm sorry. I don't feel like whining. If we did our careers correctly it's too late at 67 years old to depend on the next headshot to pay the bills. Planning should have started happening with these days in mind decades ago. Now I guess it's really time to worry less about the next work project and start having more fun shooting stochastically. Chaotically. Or with just a sense of exuberance. But that's what we should be doing because as much as we might enjoy having structure I've always found that it was the stepping away from structure that made all of this so much fun.
not fine art.
not fine art.
not fine art.
not fine art.
