Star Treatment (Nov 2013)

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Another shot from my recent studio session (Nov 2013) with a model.

(BTW, this can only be called “art” if it’s some sort of cultural statement and not–God forbid–a “literal” pinup or portrait. So–G’dammit–I’m making a cultural statement.)

Star Treatment (Nov 2013)

Star Treatment (Nov 2013)

Click image to see it against a dark background..



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Free For the Picking

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When I lived in California, you sometimes saw orange, olive, and/or avocado trees with fruit falling off of them and no one (apparently) harvesting the bounty. So you’d take a few home and have a free snack. This ubiquitous supply made it somewhat difficult to rationalize spending money on these things at the grocery store or the farmer’s market. Sometimes the free fruit wasn’t perfect, but the price ($0.00) lowered your standards a bit and you still had a wholly satisfactory experience.

I get the sense that people think of photography in a similar way. Nowadays, almost everyone has a digital camera or a an electronic device that happens to include a digital camera (e.g., a cell phone camera). Scenes or objects that photographers photograph in public places (indoors or outdoors) are also available to others with cameras. The thinking goes something like: “Why would I buy a print from a professional photographer of a scene I could just take for myself with my own camera for free?”. “Sure, maybe it’s not the same quality as the professional’s, but hey, it’s FREE!”.

I think this happens all the time at events like weddings too, where wedding guests take their own photos and then don’t feel the need to buy prints from the hired wedding photographer…even if they can see that the professional’s images are quite a bit nicer. They’ll live with their lower quality representation (at least they’ve got something!) to save the money.

I know there are photographers and photography organizations out there that think professional photographers and photography groups should be doing more marketing and PR work to disabuse the public from thinking that the work of professional photographers isn’t so much better that it’s worth buying prints from them even if one has a camera and can take one’s own photos.

My inclination is to accept the public’s behavior as it is–because I have no interest in spending time or money trying to change their behavior or values–and figure out what works (in terms of selling photography prints and/or services) taking the current state of the public’s attitudes as a given.

Some of the options available to photographers:

  1. Photographing things/scenes that the public can’t easily photograph themselves (aerial photography is one example of this; constructed scenes is another example–especially when they’re quite elaborate or done with famous subjects who aren’t easily accessible)
  2. Making and exhibiting large, high-quality prints that wouldn’t be possible with the images from smaller, cheaper cameras
  3. Photos that most people don’t have the nerve to take (e.g., Bruce Gilden quickly goes up to complete strangers in the street and takes flash photos; most people I know wince at the very thought of it)
  4. In terms of photography as a service: offering reliable and consistently high-quality photographic work (this works particularly well for repeat/ongoing clients; getting the client in the first place means having a long record of consistently high-quality work–done for other clients–to show)

I think that one of the biggest dangers facing art photographers trying to sell prints is if the general public no longer distinguishes between photos they can and cannot make for themselves, or–similarly–if the devaluation of photos (e.g., one thinks one can take with one’s cell phone) “spills” over into devaluing *all* photos–regardless of whether special equipment, expertise or an elaborate construction is required to produce the photo.

In any case, if any of you photographers out there have any other ideas about what professional photographers can do to have a chance at making a living doing photography in a “sea” of amateur photographers, please feel free to comment below!



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Night in My Photography Studio

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I do most of my art photography “on location”. My main use of backdrops and studio-type lighting is for seated portraits.

A few months ago, a fairly experienced and established model contacted me about doing a shoot. She was in town temporarily going to school and would be leaving mid-November. I told her I would like a do a shoot with her, but I needed a shooting plan.

Well, the end of October comes and I’m still trying to secure a location for the shoot I had in mind! In short, the location arrangement fell through and time was running out.

So I decided to do the shoot in a makeshift studio at my home. I even set up a little “set” to use for the first part of the session.

I found myself very anxiety-ridden about it because the only “art” photography I’ve done with a studio setup was near the beginning of my photography career…and those were pretty rough (e.g., I had to use a fair amount of Photoshop to “clean them up” and get rid of things like distracting light stand legs, etc.).

We did the session at night in a mostly unheated space (I had a small space heater going) that was probably in the lower 50s fahrenheit. It was dark outside, so the only light available was whatever I supplied.

The compactness of the space and trying to frame shots that didn’t pull in extraneous elements surrounding my studio setup made things difficult and annoying, but I think we still pulled out some good stuff.

I’ll be posting some of it over the next few weeks. Here’s one that doesn’t even try to hide one of the studio lights I was using (I actually like the look of studio lighting and often include it in some of my shots..maybe because it’s a unique element that’s not often available when I’m photographing; of course I could crop it out if I really wanted to…:p).

Studio_Nov_2013

Studio_Nov_2013

Click image to see against dark background..



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Creative Activity as its Own Reward

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Perhaps the most important quality, the one that is most consistently present in all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake.

— Read more of Matthew Schuler’s blog post titled: “Why Creative People Sometimes Make No Sense“.



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The Message from Juried Exhibitions

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About 1-3 times a year (on average), I submit photos to juried photography exhibitions. Although I’ve broken through on occasion, my record of success is pretty dismal (at least to me). Especially when you have to pay entry fees, the experience is definitely a downer…just rejection (with the underlying message that “your work isn’t as good as the work from the 40-50 photographers we selected”) and a loss of money that could have been spent on something useful, like groceries.

Perhaps the worst part is seeing work selected that you wouldn’t even consider successful–i.e., you wouldn’t even consider submitting some of the ones that end up “winning”.

The latter leaves you with a sense of powerlessness, like you can’t trust your own artistic sense. It makes you wonder if you should be posting all of your photos at a photo sharing site like Flickr, and only submit to photo contests the photos that get the most “favs”.

But this takes the basis for the evaluation of your photographs out of your own hands and puts it into the hands of a bunch of (mostly) strangers; it’s effectively “crowd-evaluation”.

I believe an important part of an artist’s growth is making their own decisions about their artistic successes and failures. If you base the evaluation of your work on crowd response (e.g., Facebook “likes”), you’ve lost. You’re stuck being a crowd-pleaser instead of seeking and experiencing authentic artistic growth.

True art is communication. Much of what passes as art is just visual gimmickry. Visual gimmickry can be very popular, but it doesn’t really communicate anything..at least not anything of much substance. Also, certain kinds of photos become fads and then all the photos you see are copies with slight variations; these often do well in juried exhibitions and contests…and drives me absolutely bonkers.

Ultimately, juried exhibitions are just another source of feedback, not so different from the crowd of viewers seeing your work at Flickr, etc.  We assume jurors are better judges of work than the many users and contributors to photo sharing websites, but in terms of what?

Many photography contests are judged by photographers who have experienced at least some “success” as judged by the fine art photography world. But what is someone who has experienced success going to judge as “good”? Work that looks like theirs? Work that is very different from theirs? Work that they just happen to like? Work that doesn’t in any way compete with the work they do? It’s unclear to me.

However, if I’m not letting Flickr tell me which of my work is best (because I don’t want to give Flickr or any photo-sharing website) that sort of power or “say” in the artistic work I pursue, is it any different letting jurors of photo contests/exhibits tell me if or which of my work is actually any good?

Here are two problems I have with the latter:

1) My ultimate “customer” (say, if I want to make money with art) is the collector, not other photographers or people who run contests or competitive exhibits.

2) “Artistic success” is doing work that is meaningful to you and which may find an audience willing to buy it. Trying to generate or emulate work that appeals to people involved in contests (whose true motives are typically unclear) doesn’t mean you’re doing meaningful work or that any of your work will actually sell. You may get some “advertising” out of it–which is usually not a bad thing–but even that is pretty short-lived.

In the end, the message you take from being accepted or rejected by a juried exhibition is up to you. The underlying meaning is often assumed to be “your work is good” or “your work is not good”. However, I don’t have that much confidence in the process to believe either verdict, even when the verdict has been in my favor.

I’d like to finish with a gallery of images I’ve submitted recently (from two different submissions) which fit the themes of the calls for entry, but were (as they must be) my interpretation/s of what fit best.

These are images I have taken that I really like; the jurors for the calls for entry obviously didn’t like them so much…or thought them “bad fits” to the exhibition themes for which they were acting as jurors. (Themes are typically pretty abstract, but I suspect jurors come up with specific working interpretations that may or may not ever be communicated to anyone else.)

Fortunately, the Internet makes it possible to see & hear art that goes beyond the constricted exposure offered by long established and self-proclaimed gatekeepers.



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Mackinac Island (August 2013)

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Mackinac Island (Aug 2013)

Mackinac Island (Aug 2013)

Click image to see it larger..



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Current Deadpan Fine Art Photography

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This is a photo I snapped while on vacation last August (2013) in Michigan.

Boyne Falls, Michigan (Aug 2013)

Boyne Falls, Michigan (Aug 2013)

(click image to see it larger..)

It struck me (while looking through my images from the trip) that this one fits–particularly well–a current deadpan aesthetic in fine art photography. Not much is going on (there can’t be much going on) and the colors go well together but can’t be too saturated (the red here is probably a tiny bit too strong), and there’s a fair amount of “balance” to the layout or composition.

In short, the image needs to be fairly “boring” so as to (presumably) engage the higher, more sensitive areas of the cerebral cortex without engaging too much sensory perception or emotional response which could hinder lofty cognitive processing.

I’m not totally “down” on such images (I take them myself sometimes), but I’m getting a little sick of them and find them kind of gutless.

I don’t think that staying away from any strong sensory or emotional response is the solution to getting people (viewers) to experience the sublime or (at least) something elevated above everyday experience.

To me this type of art photography is like a nice soothing break one takes between engagements with really interesting art photography…:p.

 

 



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Collegetown Break (November 2013)

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Collegetown Break (Nov 2013)

Collegetown Break (Nov 2013)

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Ithaca Incidental (June 2013)

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Often when I’m doing a photo shoot–especially outdoors–I will see something interesting and snap a photo before I even have time to mentally process it. Here’s an example from last June..

Ithaca Incidental (June 2013)

Ithaca Incidental (June 2013)

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Photography as Emulation versus Creative Exploration

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Sometimes you miss something because it’s too obvious.

Maybe most photographers think that emulating past photography is what ‘doing photography’ is

Not everyone cares about innovation or thinks that producing works or performances like those in the past is a bad thing. In fact, if they can approximate the work of their heroes/idols, they consider that a damn good accomplishment.

There’s nothing inherently bad about such a goal; it can be lucrative. In fact, some artists have actually done better than their predecessors (commercially and/or in terms of fame) by basically copying and extending somewhat work that influenced them and which they liked.

It’s not what I want to do however.

I want to discover something different using photography as one of my tools; I don’t even care if it ends up being a combination of photography with something else (e.g., words, drawings, audio, animation, whatever). Seeking out something new to me is what drives my creative endeavors.

Emulation isn’t evil or bad and, in fact, I find myself doing it on occasion and actually having fun with it. It can be a good touchstone and launching point.

Whether you want to go any further into uncharted territory is an individual “thang” and probably just depends on your personality…:-).



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