Scr3w the idea of taking pictures for profit

[Braineack]

Why do so many people hate money? We just celebrated the producer's holiday.

 

[photoguy99]

There are two ways in to photography as a profession. One is to learn how to create a certain kind of commodity photograph and then hanging out your shingle to do that. Now you're doing senior sessions or portraits or weddings or something and generating marketable photos that look a lot like all the rest. It's the nature, nay, the definition of commodity.

There's nothing wrong with that. Throughout modern history most people have made an honorable living manufacturing commodity objects.

The other way is to follow your muse. Screw money I'm making art that I love. Or trying to, anyways. Sometimes, not very often, that too turns into a living in one way or another.

Of course those are two ends of a spectrum.

Writing doesn't really have the first one. What it does have is plenty of people who claim to be the second one who are in fact trying madly to be the first one. There's no established system for grinding out commodity writing. At least not a widespread one. Wanna bee writers often seem to think there ought to be, since they lack the ability, or the passion, or the persistence, to do anything but grind out commodity text. And so they do that' and try to sell it as art.

 

[Gary A.]

I somewhat agree, but also think there is an apples/oranges aspect to this. I can write a book with a pen. I need thousands of dollars worth of gear to produce fine photographs.

I disagree ... especially for art. You can shoot film for $1000's less and after a scan, you're in the same place as if you shot digital.

 

[Gary A.]

I was interviewing Danielle Steel, and she hated writing her romance novels. She said anybody can write them, the publisher gives you a formula, an outline and you just fill in/out the formula. She said she was doing the romance thing in order to have the money to write what she wants.

I think what Ursula K Le Guin said is somewhat of an elitist statement. Yes, it would be great to be able to write only what you want ... but it is also nice to have three squares a day.

 

[rexbobcat]

Why do so many people hate money? We just celebrated the producers holiday.

Because the thought of it gives me ulcers.

 

[AlanKlein]

Her basic premise is elitist and wrong, because who's going to decide what work reaches the level of art and what doesn't. Her? Furthermore, if you're producing art that no one is buying, how does that advance art? No one knows about it. It's locked up in the cellar with the artist who dies alone with it.

Actually, the fact is that even if you take her at what she's saying, more art is being produced than ever before. There are more writers and photographers who do not sell their work producing art in their mind's eye. It's never sold. So more art is being produce than ever. We can argue about whether it's good or bad art, but that's a different thread.

 

[runnah]

There are two ways in to photography as a profession. One is to learn how to create a certain kind of commodity photograph and then hanging out your shingle to do that. Now you're doing senior sessions or portraits or weddings or something and generating marketable photos that look a lot like all the rest. It's the nature, nay, the definition of commodity.

There's nothing wrong with that. Throughout modern history most people have made an honorable living manufacturing commodity objects.

The other way is to follow your muse. Screw money I'm making art that I love. Or trying to, anyways. Sometimes, not very often, that too turns into a living in one way or another.

Of course those are two ends of a spectrum.

Writing doesn't really have the first one. What it does have is plenty of people who claim to be the second one who are in fact trying madly to be the first one. There's no established system for grinding out commodity writing. At least not a widespread one. Wanna bee writers often seem to think there ought to be, since they lack the ability, or the passion, or the persistence, to do anything but grind out commodity text. And so they do that' and try to sell it as art.

Are you kidding? Stephen King would disagree. Plus all the other non fiction writers who make good money writing technical, scientific and medical articles. Not to mention those writers who are journalists.

 

[Ysarex]

"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings."

Divine right kings ruled via subjugation -- much easier to successfully resist, and they were human.

Rule via assimilation ups the ante substantially.

 

[Fred Berg]

I somewhat agree, but also think there is an apples/oranges aspect to this. I can write a book with a pen. I need thousands of dollars worth of gear to produce fine photographs.

I can imagine having funds to spend on expensive gear might help produce fine photographs, however, not being in such a financial position I am unable to put this to the test. I don't know whether or not any of my photos could be called fine, but my gear cost me considerably less than one thousand euros in total. Money isn't everything.

 

[The_Traveler]

Not only that it's that people seem to think the only way to validate their purchase they have to make money. I've spent thousands on fishing gear and I don't feel the need to make money, I jus enjoy it.

Totally perfectly right.
Leaving aside those persons who pursue photography as a business (which must be soul crushing), I think the trick is not to need validation.
And that's a difficult place to get to - and just as difficult to stay.
For several years I thought I was a failure because I didn't produce sell-able pictures.
Once I accepted that was not my direction, I still cared a lot about the compliments and acceptance by others.
The last couple of years, I have cared much more about my own satisfaction and not too much about what others say.
I've tried to accept that photography and life isn't a competition or at least it shouldn't be.

 

[JTPhotography]

For the record, I am not a full time professional, I don't try very hard to make money with my photos, and I do so mostly because I am a gear junkie. I have a good job so I am lucky in that I can pretty much have all the gear I want. I shoot what I like, when I want, and I want to keep it that way. I feel for the people who try to make a full time living at as an artist of any kind, and certainly would never fault them for abandoning their values to increase profits.

I'm just saying that, all things being equal, photography is a much more expensive hobby than writing. And if you're doing it out of love and not profit, then yes, it is a hobby.

 

[Gary A.]

I disagree with "all you need is a pen and paper" to write a book. That's like saying all you need is a cardboard box, a pinhole and a sheet of film to take a picture. I think that no publisher will accept a hand written book, just like no art seller would accept a photo printed on copy paper, from an unknown artist.

 

[photoguy99]

As I've said repeatedly, you can publish on amazon for zero cost. You need to be able to generate a Word document.

You can probably write your book at the local public library using Google Documents. Literally zero cost. All you need is time.

Will anyone buy your book? Depends. Survey says 'probably not'.

 

[photoguy99]

Good point about tech writing, runnah. I think an argument could be made that it's fundamentally different from what LeGuin's talking about.

More like an x-ray tech than a photographer, to stretch an analogy. Still, it's definitely commodity writing. Words by the yard, my words are ideally indistinguishable from your words.

 

[sashbar]

I still can not get to grips with how inclusively the word "art" is being used in English.