Postcards from the Creative Journey

Which Came First?

The Johnson Cottage, Cary, North Carolina

The book or the exhibit? (I’ll bet you thought I was going with the old “chicken or egg” riddle, didn’t you?) Are the photographs on the wall the work of art, or are they pages from a book hanging on the wall? Does the book exist as a souvenir of the exhibit, or is the exhibit a grand marketing event to promote sales of the book? Or do both exhibit and book exist because the internet version of the art was so compelling people wanted to be able to hold in their hands the images they viewed on their mobile device or their computer? We produce work in interesting times, don’t we? (Woo hoo - an entire paragraph without a single declarative sentence!)

The ability to produce work and distribute the same images in many different formats seems to be a fairly modern thing. Paintings have always been paintings. With the advent of printing, we could see reproductions of paintings. They were books, but it was clear the original work of art was the painting. With photography, printing, the internet and other forms of electronic publishing, we have a choice of what is our primary means of distributing our art. Deciding on the primary means of distribution is a major decision for today’s photographer.

Schmoozing...

The Beach at Bandon, Oregon

I have not mastered the art of self-promotion. I would rather spend the time creating artwork than schmoozing and self-promoting.

Successful artists spend (what I think) an inordinate amount of time on self-promotion because they are self-employed. Most artists really don’t want to admit they are small business owners selling the realization of their artistic vision. Small business owners have to sell all the time. It’s an effort that never stops. Be seen, be known and make sure everyone knows you and what you can do for them. It is capitalism at its most basic and glorious level. The individual has to survive by constantly selling their particular artistic vision and talent. Schmoozing is an important part of running a successful business.

As a dedicated amateur artist, I have a “day job” and spend most of my time “workin’ for The Man.” I pursue my artistic avocation in whatever time is not spent working or getting on with the other parts of my life. The question is how do I fill the time allocated to my photographic projects? Do I schmooze with the denizens of the art scene or do I complete my photographic projects? I choose to spend my time creating more art and not spend a lot of time on self-promotion.

Knowing When To Quit

 

At Adam Jahiel's Guest House, 2006

I’ll bet that somewhere back in these almost five years of blog posts I have posted the most important thing to remember about a photographic project. If I have, it’s still worth repeating again. The most important thing you do when starting a photographic project is to figure out when it is complete. While that sounds really silly at first, but, if you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there? Without a clearly defined end point your project will just meander around and probably will never be finished. With a clearly described end point you know exactly what you have to do get there and what the completed project will look like. That leads you down a path from beginning to end.

When I do a project, I will complete a web folio, create a print portfolio (with an introduction to the work) and create documents to print exhibition sized prints. I think that’s pretty good ending point. But I do know photographers who will go further. They will write a press release for the exhibit, select publicity images and do a mock-up of a post card announcement. One does not need to go that far, but the point is to clearly define what is required to complete a project. Define the end of your project well enough so that you recognize it when you get there.

Like now. 

That’s Not a Digital Print

Platinum Print from "The Fairview School: Imagination and Memories"

At the end of a presentation on photography, I was sharing some of my projects with fellow photographers. One of them picked up a platinum print and asked what type of software I used to get the border around the picture. That question kind of set me back, but I answered the border was made by hand when I coated the paper.

That exchange got me to thinking that we are now sharing the photographic world with an ever growing number of photographers that have no experience with anything other than digital capture and output. It is as if the first one hundred and fifty years of photographic processes no longer exist. Our photographic world is so far down the digital output path that wet darkroom prints (and especially alternative process prints) are not even recognized by most photographers.