Advice for emerging photographers, part 2
Okay, so here we go, part 2 to this post I did some time ago.
Open parenthesis.
There is more than some apprehension on my part in writing and posting this. Not b/c I’m harboring a secret, far from it, but b/c I feel like it is pedantic and pretentious to act in accordance as though some sort of secret exists to being with (it does not). That’s not my intention, and I hate to risk it seeming so. No doubt, I’m betraying something of myself here, but whatever. With that, these are pieces of advice that were given to me at one time or another, or they’re things that I feel took me hard time to figure out. Also, they’re things I will say light heartedly at one moment and then dead seriously at the next, b/c there really are no rules, so embrace them and mock them with propitiousness. As the intellectual Ivan Karamazov said, “everything is allowed.”
Though, some diffidence is maybe not a terrible idea, so it’s also good to keep in mind that, as a Lit. professor used to say when a student would make a eager, ill thought out, and soon regretted comment, “there are no right answers in this field, but there are certainly wrong ones.”
Finally, I implore others to offer their feedback here, agree and disagree, and most of all add your bits of advice too.
Close parenthesis.
-If you want to shoot fashion, forget the photo editors; rather, get to know the fashion editors. In my experience, photo editors have remarkably little to do with the fashion work in magazines (sweeping generalization). Now, if you’re looking for portrait work or feature work, then get to know the photo editors.
-Don’t set your heart on fashion b/c you think it’s going to make you cool. It’s not. In fact, it might be the least glamorous of the genres b/c it’s so saturated and near cliche and self-parody. Plus, I believe there are many other areas of photography ripe to be reinvented. I look at anything from portrait to landscape to still life and think they’re areas wide open for a new poster child from our generation. But if you love clothes and the aesthetic of clothes, then by all means, jump in! Be sure that jump’s with alacrity on your part though or I’ll suggest it’ll be wasted.
-Along those same lines: some of the happiest and most successful photographers I know work in B-markets and are names you’ve never heard of. They have big studios, work all the time, make lots of money, and have really nice lives. As you get older you learn that survival and maybe even quality of life might be better to come before those tunnel visioned dreams of posterity or fame. Not that I heed this at all, but still: try to keep an eye on the big picture and be realistic.
-Study! This forum is a testament to my love of learning from what others have done before us.
-This one is kind of personal, but adopt it to your liking: take walks w/o a camera and find pictures. Often I find it makes it more natural to learn to see when the act of taking pictures is not even present. This will inform your work when you do have a camera in hand. It’s not a practice in Zen; it is a practice in developing an intelligence of envisioning a photograph before you pick up the camera.
-(Advanced advice) D-76 leads with the shadows, Rodinal with the mid-tones, HC-110 with the highlights.
-Do not be afraid of mistakes. They’re often the best thing that will happen to your work. But oddly at the same time, your mistakes better be damn fine b/c you can’t afford to get it wrong.
-You can’t control anything past the tip of your nose.
-Regardless, as the photographer, you are responsible for everything in the photograph. As far as you’re concerned, the blame stops at you.
-I’m despondent to admit that it is probably true that if you make prints that are both big and with a substantial amount of red, you’ll probably get a show and sell it out. (There was a wonderful list full of humor and truth on Alec Soth’s Blog by a professor of photography that humorously went over “to dos” and “not to dos” to be a successful fine art photographer, but Soth’s blog archive is currently down so I can’t link it…)
-There’s no substitute for raw talent and inspiration, but at some point it comes down to putting in the time. As Gaddis wrote in one of his novels, and I paraphrase, a young artist can get by on honesty, but an old artist must rely on skill. Wait…or was it Vollman who wrote that?
-Be prepared to discover that much of the biz is politics and who you’re friends with, and that there’s lots of independently wealthy, good looking, connected people that seem to have a serious upper hand. No point bellyaching about it; it’s the invariable games we humans play. But, at least in rags to riches ethos of this country, it doesn’t matter who you are as long as you make yourself valuable to others.
-The petty and ubiquitous statement that the other guy could shoot it so well b/c he/she had lots of assistants and a grip truck and a budget is, to put it simply, bullshit. Even if it’s true, and it probably isn’t, nobody cares or wants to hear about it.
-Be patient. Like any business, and certainly like any competitive business, it takes a long time to get your footing. Don’t let the insta-rising-star stories of McGinley and etcetera confuse expectations. I know talented guys who have been sweating for a decade and are still just getting by.
-There is no secret club or secret world in NYC or London or ____.  Sure, there’s bars that most people can’t get into and that are good to be known at, but for the most part you can call art buyers at any major agency or photo editors at any major magazine and make an appointment and they’ll meet with you and see your work. If you’re not in NYC or London or _____, then spending money on a plane ticket and doing this twice a year is, imo, a way better investment than getting that new camera. Then again, Meatyard kind of proved years ago it doesn’t matter where you’re at, just what you do.
-Do not be afraid to begin something great.
The list, of course, goes on, ad infinitum. But at some point it becomes less about photography and more about the crags and gullies only your therapist is qualified to be digging around in.
So I’m ending here.
School’s out.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell 2002.
Full of wisdom. Persistence, patience, hard work and honesty will get you far.
Ask yourself how badly do you want to get to the top (of whatever field you are working through). An analogy I like to use is that of being a politician. The local city councilperson probably doesn’t have to go through the grueling work of promoting, fund raising, or personal sacrifice as a Presidential candidate. Even then, there’s gonna be the Barack Obamas who are young, less experienced, yet fast moving, and there are the John McCains, who put in their whole lives to get to the same exact point on the road of success.
For myself, I often struggle with how much success I dream about versus how much work I really put in.
Once again, thanks a lot for sharing your wisdom. And thanks for being honest/frank enough to tell us, “Don’t set your heart on fashion b/c you think it’s going to make you cool. It’s not. […]”
You reenforced some of the advice that I’ve heard other photographers share before, but you also shared a lot of things that I’ve never really realized before. If you ever decide to stop shooting, you’d have a great career as a teacher someday.
Mr. T, thanks for sharing your stuff, too. I’ll add some of the other advice that I take to heart (below).
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“Do what you do best, and do it to the best of your ability.” – David R. Hawkins
“Make better pictures.” – Tim Tadder
“I think there’s one thing that Cartier-Bresson, that Irving Penn, that Diane Arbus all have that I share is a complete obsession with work — with work and work everyday. If you do work every single day, the work hopefully gets better. And at the end of your life, you have a body of work, or at the end of a month you have a body of work.” – Richard Avedon
“I would tell my assistant, ‘Don’t walk out of my studio and straight into yours.’ Take the money you’ve earned and travel. It can be in your head, or abroad, it doesn’t matter. Find something that captures your imagination and fall in love with it creatively. You need to be free and experiment and not pay any regard to what people expect you to do. Working in full view of an expectant group is tricky. Get yourself to a point where you have a body of work — and it may happen accidently, that doesn’t matter. For years people said my pictures were no good, that everyone looked miserable in them but I didn’t care. You have to trust your own taste, trust your instincts.” – David Sims
“Be a good businessman as well as a good photographer. You have to be cut-throat and incredibly determined to do well in this business. It’s a very creative business but it’s also an industry. You have to learn all the mechanics that go with it such as people skills, dealing with clients, managing your team, deciding which images you want to show the world. That’s where lots of young photographers **** up. They don’t know or develop their style before they start showing their work.” – Neil Stewart
Brandon, that David Sims quote is excellent. Very very true, and a hefty bit of credibility coming from him b/c I’m sure he’s seen dozens of bright eyed up and coming assistants fall by the wayside. Thanks.
This post couldn’t have found me on a better day. As solid advice and a bit of motivation.
Thanks for the advice and wonderful pictures. One note: Ivan Karamazov is not a sensualist, he is an intellectual. The quote is actually, “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” Ivan’s older brother Dmitri is the sensualist.
Herb, good catch there, corrected. I do still believe the quote is “everything is allowed,” not “permitted,” but it may have been said both ways in the book. It is big. Regardless, you’re right about Ivan being the intellectual. The sensualist I was thinking mistakenly of was, of course, Fyodor, their father. Anyway.