What I’m doing is not original by any means, quite the rather; the saying goes that everyone in NYC is a photographer, which turns out to be not much of a hyperbole at all, b/c everyone is a photographer in NYC…along with their roommates. I’ve gotten a little further than some, and not nearly as far as others as far as succeeding here is concerned – well, actually, success here in general is a pretty narrowly defined mark that looks something like this: $. Well I never seem to have any of that ($), making me in fact pitifully and tremendously unsuccessful, but in regards to not having a day job and being able to call myself a photographer w/o being full of shit, in these regards, I’ve had my little victories. The point of this…oh, yes, the point is to offer a little bit of perspective on the process of trying to make it in NYC as a photographer. Make it, make it, so to speak I guess. It’s a simple goal, making it, populated with simple devices, taking pictures, printing pictures, etc. The problem is that, it’s just not easy to do well in practice. This is fine, b/c as my dentist said a long while back when I garbled at him that making it here is one of the hardest things I’ve attempted so far, he offered softly and with great lucidity, “anything worth doing is.” Well, said, I thought, I’m going to use that.

The idea here is, that there are a few things I’ve learned and much I’ve unlearned, and I’m not talking about how to take pictures or make art or anything like that, one is on there own amid those deserts, but I’m speaking more about basic advice. Or let me say it like this, if I ran into a younger I, someone about to partake in the adventure of moving here to shoot and work, what could I offer them. People told me anything from “become inspired” to “make lots of money.” Boring. The only really useful one was, “have lots of fun.” So sitting here this afternoon, I came up with my small list, which is as follows:

-attrition: it takes time, hard time, and chances are you’ll have to do ample amounts of it before you take even a small step.

-a sense of humor: the chances are you aren’t going to make it to the top, only a few people do out of many, and even then, it’s only pictures.

-ideas: good photographers are a dime a dozen, good ideas are not (ideas is interchangeable with style or vision).

-connections: as the old adage goes…

-work ethic: shoot as much as you can, and work your ass off. Exhaust yourself.

-direction: at least in an A market, don’t come to dabble or figure things out, come knowing what you want.

Gosh, there’s more, but I’d say that’s plenty for the time being, and frankly the rest are more vague, opinionated, and artsy fartsy. And I fear what I have already needs more than a grain of salt…
This isn’t intended to sound curmudgeonly, or discouraging, the opposite actually. I write it with a harrowed grin and a hearty pat on the back, as I’d encourage anyone daydreaming of jumping into the deep end to do it without reserve.

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell 2006

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell 2006