amby
12-28-2008, 08:34 PM
The following writing is written by Mr.CHUCK DELANE
Author's homepage: http://business.baylor.edu/Charles_Delaney/home.htm
PHOTOGRAPHY IS DIFFERENT:
It can be
a way to make money, but there’s also a lot of fun and adventure to be
had, a lot of opportunities to express yourself and your unique point of
view, and the chance to change what you do as you go along. Why do
one thing all your life? If you want to do that, it’s fine, but even if you
train to become, say, a medical photographer, and then work in hospitals
for your entire work life, that’s no reason you cannot involve yourself
with all sorts of other photographic endeavors at night, on weekends,
and on vacation.
That’s the beauty of photography—the vocational goals are hazy,
and the training in photography technique and technology doesn’t need
to be that extensive in most fields. You can be a medical photographer
during the workweek and pursue fine art or animal photography on the
weekend. Try being a lawyer during the week and a brain surgeon on
weekends—it won’t work. The requirements, and limits, of many fields
are set in stone.
To that end, we should view photography more as a lifestyle than as a career.
This book will cover different types of photography, and investigate the
skills and temperament required for each, but there’s no sense of either/or.
You can be a medical photographer and a wedding photographer. You can
be a photojournalist and a child photographer. It’s up to you.
And the changes in the past decade set in motion by the arrival of
digital technology have caused the field of photography to explode.
THE NATURE OF PHOTOGRAPHY:
we love photography. we make images almost every day, and we respect the power,
science, art, and magic of the medium. we once took a Christmas-greeting
portrait on Polaroid film for a young man who was in prison. It took us
three minutes at most. Six weeks later the prisoner told us that he had sent
it to his deathly ill grandmother who hadn’t seen him in the ten years he’d
been in prison. Shortly after the photo arrived, she died. Among her last
requests was to be buried with the portrait we made of her grandson.
To me, that’s powerful. we make images. we show people things. we capture
their emotions and expressions, their memories, their past, the things they
love. Sometimes we try to express our emotions in our photographs. Maybe
one of our photos will help change something in the world for the better.
And, people pay us to do this!
Another key part of what we love about photography is that it is so
democratic and accessible. The equipment isn’t that expensive, and you
don’t need that much equipment anyway. There are lots of ways to get the
training you need, and there’s opportunity for you regardless of sex, race,
or physical ability.
we know photographers who work from wheelchairs. There are photographers
who are legally blind.we always have students in our
course who are recovering from serious illness or injuries and who turned
to photography as a second career, or as a way to reconstruct their lives.
Photography can help you grow. And, we know from experience, it can help
you heal.
And people looking at your photos won’t necessarily know if you’re
black or white, female or male, or whether you used a Canon or a Nikon.
we recall a television interview with the late Danny Kaye, a performer
with many talents. In talking about his interests, he made a very simple,
but profound statement: “If you can find the form of self-expression that’s
best for you, then you’ve got it made.”
A CAREER TO THE END:
There’s one other great aspect of photography. There’s no need to retire.
Opera singers, supermodels, athletes—even the sharks and traders on Wall
Street—all have a prime, and when they can’t take the rigors or hit the
high notes, or when the “new” (and younger) face replaces the supermodel
Careers in Photography 5
who may be “over the hill” in her mid-twenties, it’s time to move on. Not
long ago I bumped into a professional musician—a horn player—who I
hadn’t seen in some time. He told me he had gotten too old—he’d put
down his horn, never to play again. I couldn’t understand. “Why did you
do that, John?” I asked.
“Chuck, you don’t get it. Photography’s not a performing art. Music
is. Once your chops are gone, it’s time to stop,” John explained.
Sadly, I guess John was right about music and the performing arts.
Not so with photography. You can take great photos balanced on a cane
or sitting in a wheelchair. It will never desert you. How many of us are
lucky enough to find a lifelong friend?
For me, that’s photography. My guess is that it’s photography for you
too. Now that you’ve found your method of expression, the trick is to
move forward and stay optimistic. Perhaps, as you grow, you may find
photography is not for you, or that there’s something more enticing.
Then the trick is to move on to that better something. This is not
unheard of in creative professions. The great artist Marcel Duchamp, for
example, gave up making art altogether and turned his passion to chess
in his later years. The wonderful French photographer Jacques Lartigue
turned to painting in mid-life. Not long ago I read the obituary of Myron
“Scottie” Scott, who started out as a news photographer for an Ohio
paper and happened to take a few feature photographs of some kids who
had made a toy car out of a soapbox and a set of buggy wheels. He went
on to become the founder and guiding light of the Soapbox Derby. Swing
through life one vine at a time.
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM PHOTOGRAPHY?
:
Knowing what areas of photography are of interest to you isn’t always that
easy. One problem is that the world of photographic specialties and professional
practitioners is very segmented, particularly as you move into a
given field. There isn’t a lot of crossover. For the most part, those in
fashion know of their predecessors and peers, and a lot of art directors, editors,
and taste makers in their world. But the fashion photographer may
know very little about the current and past history of photojournalists or
portraitists.
Photography is like that block of marble. It offers everything you
could possibly desire. Sometimes it may be easier to determine what you
don’t want, and then make your way toward the areas that are left.
THE NEGATIVE STUFF:
We’re all susceptible to negative feelings, but until those emotions are
examined and either eradicated or put in their place, the good stuff is hard
to access in a sustained, trustworthy way. And those despairing gremlins
do have a way of popping up again and again, for all of us.
That’s important to remember. There may be a few enlightened souls
who have put the dark stuff behind them forever, conclusively, and with no
hitches. But for most of us, those negative feelings are like houseflies—you
never get rid of every single one of them, you just keep them under control.
A lot of our emotions come out as anger when dealing with customers
and suppliers. As you’ll see, there are a few situations where you
can go ahead and blow your top, and other times when you have to take
it easy. There are times to talk, and times when the trick is to stay silent.
Occasionally, as you go along, you may find yourself thrown to the
ground. Maybe you can pull this book out and reread a few sections and
get up, brush yourself off, get back in the game, and get even with those
who threw you.
FIGHTING THE “IF ONLYS” :
Photography is an elusive undertaking. As a form of self-expression it can
fool lots of people. That’s because it is easy to become good, to take technically
well-done photographs, to get a sharp, well-exposed image of
something on film.
But it’s a lot harder to become really good and, for the gifted, even
harder to become great. It’s hard to get other people to take your photography
seriously. Business and finances may interfere. There are lots of
rejections along the way. Any of these factors can lead to distracted,
depressed thinking—a lot of “if onlys”:
Careers in Photography 7
• If only I had better equipment
• If only I had her contacts
• If only I had his sales technique
• If only I had gone to that school
• If only I could be published in that magazine
• And—one of the worst—If only I hadn’t screwed up that job
You can fritter away an entire lifetime pining about the “if onlys,” but
these seductive thoughts must be avoided. It’s not that hard once you see
them for what they are, but it’s also one of the reasons that, if you’re not
careful, photography can make you crazy.
Author's homepage: http://business.baylor.edu/Charles_Delaney/home.htm
PHOTOGRAPHY IS DIFFERENT:
It can be
a way to make money, but there’s also a lot of fun and adventure to be
had, a lot of opportunities to express yourself and your unique point of
view, and the chance to change what you do as you go along. Why do
one thing all your life? If you want to do that, it’s fine, but even if you
train to become, say, a medical photographer, and then work in hospitals
for your entire work life, that’s no reason you cannot involve yourself
with all sorts of other photographic endeavors at night, on weekends,
and on vacation.
That’s the beauty of photography—the vocational goals are hazy,
and the training in photography technique and technology doesn’t need
to be that extensive in most fields. You can be a medical photographer
during the workweek and pursue fine art or animal photography on the
weekend. Try being a lawyer during the week and a brain surgeon on
weekends—it won’t work. The requirements, and limits, of many fields
are set in stone.
To that end, we should view photography more as a lifestyle than as a career.
This book will cover different types of photography, and investigate the
skills and temperament required for each, but there’s no sense of either/or.
You can be a medical photographer and a wedding photographer. You can
be a photojournalist and a child photographer. It’s up to you.
And the changes in the past decade set in motion by the arrival of
digital technology have caused the field of photography to explode.
THE NATURE OF PHOTOGRAPHY:
we love photography. we make images almost every day, and we respect the power,
science, art, and magic of the medium. we once took a Christmas-greeting
portrait on Polaroid film for a young man who was in prison. It took us
three minutes at most. Six weeks later the prisoner told us that he had sent
it to his deathly ill grandmother who hadn’t seen him in the ten years he’d
been in prison. Shortly after the photo arrived, she died. Among her last
requests was to be buried with the portrait we made of her grandson.
To me, that’s powerful. we make images. we show people things. we capture
their emotions and expressions, their memories, their past, the things they
love. Sometimes we try to express our emotions in our photographs. Maybe
one of our photos will help change something in the world for the better.
And, people pay us to do this!
Another key part of what we love about photography is that it is so
democratic and accessible. The equipment isn’t that expensive, and you
don’t need that much equipment anyway. There are lots of ways to get the
training you need, and there’s opportunity for you regardless of sex, race,
or physical ability.
we know photographers who work from wheelchairs. There are photographers
who are legally blind.we always have students in our
course who are recovering from serious illness or injuries and who turned
to photography as a second career, or as a way to reconstruct their lives.
Photography can help you grow. And, we know from experience, it can help
you heal.
And people looking at your photos won’t necessarily know if you’re
black or white, female or male, or whether you used a Canon or a Nikon.
we recall a television interview with the late Danny Kaye, a performer
with many talents. In talking about his interests, he made a very simple,
but profound statement: “If you can find the form of self-expression that’s
best for you, then you’ve got it made.”
A CAREER TO THE END:
There’s one other great aspect of photography. There’s no need to retire.
Opera singers, supermodels, athletes—even the sharks and traders on Wall
Street—all have a prime, and when they can’t take the rigors or hit the
high notes, or when the “new” (and younger) face replaces the supermodel
Careers in Photography 5
who may be “over the hill” in her mid-twenties, it’s time to move on. Not
long ago I bumped into a professional musician—a horn player—who I
hadn’t seen in some time. He told me he had gotten too old—he’d put
down his horn, never to play again. I couldn’t understand. “Why did you
do that, John?” I asked.
“Chuck, you don’t get it. Photography’s not a performing art. Music
is. Once your chops are gone, it’s time to stop,” John explained.
Sadly, I guess John was right about music and the performing arts.
Not so with photography. You can take great photos balanced on a cane
or sitting in a wheelchair. It will never desert you. How many of us are
lucky enough to find a lifelong friend?
For me, that’s photography. My guess is that it’s photography for you
too. Now that you’ve found your method of expression, the trick is to
move forward and stay optimistic. Perhaps, as you grow, you may find
photography is not for you, or that there’s something more enticing.
Then the trick is to move on to that better something. This is not
unheard of in creative professions. The great artist Marcel Duchamp, for
example, gave up making art altogether and turned his passion to chess
in his later years. The wonderful French photographer Jacques Lartigue
turned to painting in mid-life. Not long ago I read the obituary of Myron
“Scottie” Scott, who started out as a news photographer for an Ohio
paper and happened to take a few feature photographs of some kids who
had made a toy car out of a soapbox and a set of buggy wheels. He went
on to become the founder and guiding light of the Soapbox Derby. Swing
through life one vine at a time.
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM PHOTOGRAPHY?
:
Knowing what areas of photography are of interest to you isn’t always that
easy. One problem is that the world of photographic specialties and professional
practitioners is very segmented, particularly as you move into a
given field. There isn’t a lot of crossover. For the most part, those in
fashion know of their predecessors and peers, and a lot of art directors, editors,
and taste makers in their world. But the fashion photographer may
know very little about the current and past history of photojournalists or
portraitists.
Photography is like that block of marble. It offers everything you
could possibly desire. Sometimes it may be easier to determine what you
don’t want, and then make your way toward the areas that are left.
THE NEGATIVE STUFF:
We’re all susceptible to negative feelings, but until those emotions are
examined and either eradicated or put in their place, the good stuff is hard
to access in a sustained, trustworthy way. And those despairing gremlins
do have a way of popping up again and again, for all of us.
That’s important to remember. There may be a few enlightened souls
who have put the dark stuff behind them forever, conclusively, and with no
hitches. But for most of us, those negative feelings are like houseflies—you
never get rid of every single one of them, you just keep them under control.
A lot of our emotions come out as anger when dealing with customers
and suppliers. As you’ll see, there are a few situations where you
can go ahead and blow your top, and other times when you have to take
it easy. There are times to talk, and times when the trick is to stay silent.
Occasionally, as you go along, you may find yourself thrown to the
ground. Maybe you can pull this book out and reread a few sections and
get up, brush yourself off, get back in the game, and get even with those
who threw you.
FIGHTING THE “IF ONLYS” :
Photography is an elusive undertaking. As a form of self-expression it can
fool lots of people. That’s because it is easy to become good, to take technically
well-done photographs, to get a sharp, well-exposed image of
something on film.
But it’s a lot harder to become really good and, for the gifted, even
harder to become great. It’s hard to get other people to take your photography
seriously. Business and finances may interfere. There are lots of
rejections along the way. Any of these factors can lead to distracted,
depressed thinking—a lot of “if onlys”:
Careers in Photography 7
• If only I had better equipment
• If only I had her contacts
• If only I had his sales technique
• If only I had gone to that school
• If only I could be published in that magazine
• And—one of the worst—If only I hadn’t screwed up that job
You can fritter away an entire lifetime pining about the “if onlys,” but
these seductive thoughts must be avoided. It’s not that hard once you see
them for what they are, but it’s also one of the reasons that, if you’re not
careful, photography can make you crazy.