Do We Love Ourselves More?
Photography Tales. Lessons in humility, hunger, patience and authenticity.
I miss the hunt for light.
Creativity in the mundane.
People and stories.
Moments.
Split seconds.
I yearn the quick selection of lenses.
Intimate, story telling,
close, wide.
Wide and close.
Viewpoint.
Technical thinking.
Natural surroundings
or a flash of light.
The differences.
Adrenaline.
Glory and exhaustion
at the end of a day.
It dawned on me as I age and look at everyday photography work, it’s become so much of the same for so long. I find that all I like is Getty and AP images, with a few amazing storytellers and portrait artists thrown in. With all due respect for the portrait and family photographer there is a certain aspect that is quality, serene and beautiful. It’s a market.
Artists are all in some type of market. Some just live to create.
The never-ending repetitiveness...even in the beauty, gets old.
We are living in an A.I. world with an ever evolving digitized view of unnatural images or apparent lack of technical ability or fortitude within the camera operator’s hands. There are hundreds of settings on the average camera, yet even the basic exposure triangle falls short and gets fixed on the computer or an app.
Imagine a world where you put a roll of film in the camera and expose it correctly because you HAVE to. Or you record music correctly. Because you HAVE to. No auto-expose or auto-tone available.
The photography industry has been growing temporary lovers of light, calling themselves professionals, almost immediately, with no real investment in the art itself nor deep desire to learn. Maybe that’s harsh but there is truth in light. One sells themselves short. To feel a passion for an art, you must dive deep into it, save your money, build a portfolio, and challenge yourself to run with your art. Switch a lens or setting on the fly and throw yourself into life.
Perhaps it’s because I entered the field at an older age that I had patience, awe and respect. The time and investment I took seriously.
I have been criticized by the young who see only one style within a style. The oversaturated, backlit or drained of natural color photographs dominated by young millennials, training Gen Z’s to do the same (although many of them are into film which is good). All beautiful, published images, but not one really standing out from the other. It’s a beautiful method of madness.
Years ago, I had a longtime nemesis. As soon as she found out about me she befriended me. In the early nineties, she began her career by buying props for kids shoots, not knowing anything technically about photography until after she hooked up with a little group of my photographer friends. I had no clue about her but she had worked hard to keep up and had created a really solid business, mostly doing weddings and portraits by the time I met her.
Eventually, while booking all kinds of jobs in the wedding and portrait genre’, she took some lessons from one of my solid assistants and a great friend. He taught her all she needed to know about the camera. Then she began to use my pool of assistants.
At first it was slow but eventually no matter how personal and creative I was with my clients I would begin to see, more and more, my ideas, locations, etc., “kinda” emulated. I’d think, “to copy is the highest form of flattery.” Then it began to drive me crazy. Her work fell short. It was like stealing an intimate talk I had had with my clients prior to their shoot, let alone booking my second shooters, who had a similar shooting style to me. I worked hard to find and even train them on jobs.
One time I had a sweet young client that was a huge book worm. My husband, actually rode his bike to a remote area to scout a tree for me. The young client and I had spoke about conceptual ideas. Not one to do much photoshop, I took all the graffiti’d red paint off of the tree in post process. We were thrilled with the outcome. It’s still on my website and holds so much meaning.
Somehow several months later, my nemesis found the tree and sat a girl in it with a book. It felt creepy and it was getting under my skin. My work was losing its meaning (in my mind) to this photographer’s lack of creativity. I had to cut ties.
In 2009 I hired someone to assist me on an important wedding in L.A.. It was for a client that eventually hired me to cover political junkets and opened up the door to editorial work. I had been praying about this type of work for years. A miracle, because this person just about closed that door.
It was a time when many had been trained in extreme Photoshop skills (pre-social media, like Instagram) and were desperate to promote themselves, without patience, training or respect for the camera or the craft. Blogs and Wordpress sites were growing as a job-by-job extension of website portfolios. Remember those?
It’s taken a long time to talk about some of my experiences in-depth. I feel it’s really important. Maybe it goes against protocol, but I’ve waited a long time and the truth is really important. In fact, one can only turn-the-cheek-the-other-way for so long. I never set out to ruin my hire’s impending career or seek some kind of revenge. I did everything I could to protect my client and moved on with my own career, never addressing the situation with anyone outside of my husband.
The world is actually small and everyone knew everyone back then.
I grew my little business according to my family life which was a priority. It never occurred to me that a photography career could be based on overstepping other photographer’s boundaries. I was trained to respect my mentors and had worked long and hard to carve out a small clientele.
The digital age, it seemed, was positively amazing, yet created a wide open field for extreme attention hunger and I felt like I was being swallowed up.
During the mid 2000’s, when digital photography was in full use and everyone brought digital cameras to sporting events, including pro-kits and big lenses, I was threatened by another professional cycling photographer to “get off the circuit.” He somehow got my email. It was crazy. I had only shot a few cycling jobs in two years. There I was, standing on the inside of the field and a threat to the old-time film shooters still trying to sell one image to an outlet. Instagram was nothing more than an iPhone picture sharing platform at the time. Then there were all the cameras in the stands. The only difference between me and them were the times we were living in. They no longer owned an elite portion of the sports world. Digital had flung open the door, but I was technical, had studied film and had a passion.
The old guard also became monsters. Many were men. They dominated sports, fashion and concert photography and things were changing fast.
One of the reasons I’m talking about all of this now is because I opened up my Facebook last week to see another photographer, former client, friend and extremely successful backdrop creator, complain about how ruthless the photography industry is. My first thought was this. It’s always been ruthless. Growing technology has always changed the way we work. She had set herself apart by creating original backdrops for her studio photography work and also sold many. Sadly, her work is constantly copied and stolen by you name it... fellow photographers, Amazon sellers, other backdrop creators, China (bigtime), etc.
Rather than buy her product, they steal it.
“Stealing art” for your art is the antithesis of art.
Back to my wedding in 2009. This was right at the point where although I was working as a legit, insured, tax paying photographer, had a website, etc., I felt more comfortable finally calling myself a photographer.
In a nutshell, I had an eager assistant, hired last minute via phone and small online portfolio. Figured, why not give her a chance to learn? Turned out that she had no technical camera skills, was struggling on the job, and had a terrible, exhaustive attitude toward me. Her blatant eye-rolling aside, it was as if she was the boss and I was her assistant. I’ve had few jobs that felt like I was hanging on for dear life in the e.r. of creativity, moving forward on the battlefield. We have a lot to remember on a wedding day which is why I didn’t do more than a handful a year. I also wanted to remain creative and not on repeat. I’ll never forget needing to use the restroom when we finally sat down for dinner. It was rare to get a fancy dinner. We set our equipment down at a table with two videographers. I came back to be informed by my boss that all that was left was a chicken plate. I politely laughed, while my assistant was chuckling with the videographers, and said “that’s great, was there something else?” She replied, “yes, steak, snooze you lose.” Stunned, it was everything I could do to be the person I always was. Attentive and kind to my clients, with a natural excitement for their day. I loved going home at the end of the day knowing I gave it all I had and then questioning myself if I had done enough. It was some kind of strange confident torture. On that day I was raging inside.
Within a few days, before I had a chance to post on my blog, there were over-photoshopped images of my clients posted on her blog as “her clients.” She also told a personal story of how the couple met that was never to be shared. The bride was telling me while getting dressed. I was completely blown away and felt violated for my client. I picked up the phone and told her she needed to take it down and it wasn’t right. Never a strong boss-type, I was gentle with her for the most part, and I guess I grew a lion.
Not long after, she became managing editor for SLR Lounge. I think they named her Queen of Everything and it was surreal.
I remember, at the time, how some amazing pros made assistants sign contracts and many refused to hire or mentor anyone that lived within a 50 mile radius of their area. The digital field had become a killing field that left many, especially the established studios, angry. Someone in history was always helping someone in the future. That’s how it goes. The digital world was explosive. Many a studio closed. The industry was growing at a rapid speed and it became a Hollywood of sorts. Now photographers were stars and we didn’t have Instagram yet! Competition was a new word in the field.
This type of thing was actually making it’s way into the church too! With instant media evolving everything was blending together. It was about stardom/self vs. focus on original intent. Even Jesus seemed secondary to fancy preachers and loud, laser-driven worship music. Where was the passion and the message inside of all that?
Thankfully, I was exposed to something that was shockingly inauthentic and this here lies my point. We are always passing the torch yet passing it to anyone that didn’t love the art, more than themselves, didn’t seem right.
I was looking at Blind Magazine this morning and some incredible work by Swedish photographer Lars Tunbjork. I love his quote, “The great thing about being an artist, a writer, a musician, is that you leave something behind.”
When I taught photography for 7 years I would say, “don’t look left or right, as in your peers, look back at the greats and look forward.”
“Make what inspires you ..yours. Like a favorite rock song evolving into your own bluegrass sound, with your own chords, resonating your true voice. Not rocket science. There is room to learn, grow and spin off of great art, still finding your own eye and your own voice.
Maybe it’s not about creativity and art. Maybe we need to ask the question, “do we love ourselves more than we love the work?” or.. what sells?
I get it. I’d rather do any job, with a great attitude, to make money.. than work passionately at something I love for fame or money.
I had just over 20 years. I wasn’t great or amazing. I simply loved it. I pray what I leave behind is timeless and doesn’t tell my story. It tells theirs.
“It’s so hard to expose your whole heart with what you love, no matter what it is. Often times you feel like it’s the biggest risk you can take to have confidence in yourself and show people what you love and hope they understand and love it too.” - me
We live in the world. Stay focused on Light...
Was always amazed & awed at your photography. I remember a particular wedding photo you had of a couple on the dance floor that made me realize just how good you were at stopping time & making people really feel that moment. You never did average shots & brought to life the vibe in an angle or light that really showed how you cared about your art & special craft. As they say, "you have the eye" & always had the passion to go with it! ❤
Your Dad would have loved reading this and discussing it with you. You both shared the same passion for photography and had to deal with the evolution of the digital world after all you had studied and learned before.