Are you an artist?

I'm trying to really consider where people are with their artistic knowledge and why. How much do we really know or apply when it comes to actually making images? How many of us really know and understand our gear? How many of us really understand lighting, or have even experemented with lighting? How many of us really understand the digital workflow process that goes from the CR2 file to the finished "work of art" product? How many of us really understand this artistic process we call "photography"?

How much of our life is filled with "creative photography" and how much is filled with "running a business"?

I think that's a key.

It's like we're all creative professionals, but we spend so little time actually creating.
We're wrapped up in marketing and meetings and bookings and album orders, and packages and figuring out which "I'll solve all your problems because I've got it all figured out myself" products to buy at WPPI, and checking your google ranking and..... - and we forget that we're artists.

And then we burn out.

And it's no longer an art form you love, but rather - a job. If I wanted a 'job', I'd be working in an office someplace right now, and so would you.

Is photography an art form, or a job to you?


I think many of us are trying to create a business that generates money as a result of clicking the button on a digital camera. Which means the business of running a business is first and foremost. The end product and the process itself is minimalized. We become little photo production lines - "how quickly can I slap out images that people are still willing to pay for?" Because quick equals profit. And anytime you can raise production and profit with minimal investment of your own - you've created a wonderful little business - but you've just cut both your hands off as an artist.

I wonder, if instead of totally wrapping ourselves up in the business of making a few more dollars and saving a few extra minutes, we started clicking the camera shutter not as a necessary step in running the money machine, but rather as the first step in the creating of a wonderful image.

What if, we opened our editing software to complete an image we began in camera. What if we actually experemented a bit and see what happens. That's how Edison discovered the light remember - by experementing. Others were too busy making money to care or consider what could happen with a bit of trail and error. What if we opened our software up and said "hey, what does this do?" instead of "where is that one action...." or reaching straight for presets.

What if we carefully considered and selected the lighting where we shoot our subjects instead of just sticking them any random place? What if we took a subject out and moved them around an area and just focused on how the light hits them. Just for the fun of it. Just as an excersise to become a better photographer.

What if we actually had some say in how our final images turned out? What if we got to inject a bit of our own mood and influence into our work - you know, like the other artists used to before us. What if completing this really nice set of images today was more important than the stack of paperwork calling your name?



I get thinking this way because I see SO much talk about the specifics of the business, but not so much about the art. I see people looking for sources of quick effects and actions, rather than looking for the source of knowledge that will allow them to create the effects themselves from scratch. Then the actions can be time savers in one's own creative process, rather than the crutch used to skate through post production.

We want to learn how to go as quickly as possible from "picking up the camera" to "going on to collect a check from the next customer". And we wonder why we burn out, are uninspired, and are having a hard time standing out amoung our growing pack of competitors.

I see people so worried about how their logo sells them, but not so worried about how thier images sell them. We're in a business of recording feeling and emotions in fleeting once in a lifetime moments - yet we put so little feeling into the actual creation of the images. There are quicker ways to slap on a quick effect, and the client doesn't know the difference anyway, so no harm done, or is there?

There are artists throughout history who have created great wonderful works, and there are artists that profited huge sums of money from their work. But it's interesting - they're usually not the same artists. It's like the minute the profit margin becomes first and foremost, the art itself is doomed.

Just a thought. Responses welcome.

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