Artist or business or both

[topazsol]

I have a friend who is a photographer and she is so inspiring and artistic, creative, I really look up to her. But she sees her photography as a medium for her art. She is a painter and a sculpter, plays music, screenwriter, among other things. All her shoots are for the sake of art, not business. She gets inspired by a certain topic and then creates the scene with her friends who are models. Her most recent work is a theme about women's connection to water. She uses tanks and lakes, waterfalls, and indoor pools. Her last shoot had a woman throwing fire in a large river. I feel so much more drawn to looking at it like that than a business, it takes the pressure off. She makes money by doing galleries and selling her prints at them.

I have many ideas I want to try to shoot but so many that is overwhelming sometimes... I wonder if I should work on photography from a strictly artistic veiw before I delve into actually having a business. Is that how you started? Can an artistic vision be a business?

 

[KmH]

I started a full time photography business as a way to generate sufficient income to support my hobby.

 

[PlanetStarbucks]

I think you just asked a very complicated question. One that is sure to inspire many viewpoints.

There are those who feel that all creativity is only pure and worthy if it comes pouring out of the soul in a completely unadulterated fashion. That their art can only exist without the corrupting influence of money and other people's opinions. These are the purists, and your friend sounds like one of these. We all should admire their achievements, particularly the successful ones. But for every one of those successful purists, there are probably a hundred failures. That's because only a tiny handful of people have the raw talent and willpower to be a pure artist. Think about how few and far between the truly amazing pure artists are.

The reality is that most won't be successful based on artistic drive alone. We all have to do something to pay the bills, and it probably won't be art that does it. But on the bright side, running a business or even being part of a business doesn't mean that what you create is any less valuable. Perhaps the motivations are different, but the end results can still be the same.

 

[rexbobcat]

I think you just asked a very complicated question. One that is sure to inspire many viewpoints.

There are those who feel that all creativity is only pure and worthy if it comes pouring out of the soul in a completely unadulterated fashion. That their art can only exist without the corrupting influence of money and other people's opinions. These are the purists, and your friend sounds like one of these. We all should admire their achievements, particularly the successful ones. But for every one of those successful purists, there are probably a hundred failures. That's because only a tiny handful of people have the raw talent and willpower to be a pure artist. Think about how few and far between the truly amazing pure artists are.

The reality is that most won't be successful based on artistic drive alone. We all have to do something to pay the bills, and it probably won't be art that does it. But on the bright side, running a business or even being part of a business doesn't mean that what you create is any less valuable. Perhaps the motivations are different, but the end results can still be the same.

Even successful artists have to market themselves in some way to survive. I don't believe there's any way to live as an artist without incorporating some form of business tactics into it. People have a lot more leisure time ad a whole than they did even 50 years ago, so there are SOOOOO many people creating art now.

I don't think any modern artist is successful just based on artistic ability alone.

 

[The_Traveler]

Why is economic success the desired end point?

 

[o hey tyler]

Why is economic success the desired end point?

Because a lot of people enjoy making money?

 

[rexbobcat]

Why is economic success the desired end point?

Because that's what the OP seems to e referring to. Otherwise, he wouldn't have stated that their friend makes money from galleries and prints.

You can be a successful artist and a financial failure (Van Gogh for example), but that's not what the OP is talking about.