What is your End Game?

[c.cloudwalker]

How things change with a little time

I've signed the first set of papers for the sale of my studio which should be final by the end of March if everything goes as planned. The reason I quit the business some years back is still here plus some **** in my personal life recently led me to this and a desire to really, really simplify my life. I still intend to do art as a side thing but I'm going in a totally different direction.

 

[manaheim]

Manaheim, don't you have a show going on right now?

Yessir. Emerson Hospital in Concord, MA.

 

[manaheim]

Why, you just need that perfect skyline picture, surely!

Ha. That shows you don't know me as well as you may think. . I intend no malice in this statement... It's just interesting to see your perception of my "body of work".

Btw you made a comment about style earlier. Me, personally, I'd be very wary of "style". For at least some people I see "having a style" as hauntingly similar to "being in a rut".

 

[manaheim]

I have reached my photographic goal; if I see a picture I want to take, I pretty much have the skills to take it.
Of course my interests have narrowed considerably if not completely. I take only street pictures seriously, anything else is just a snapshot AFAIK.

I have spent soooooo much time looking at pictures critically (on 3 different sites and several different clubs) that I've evolved my own ideas on composition and my goal now is to get these down and illustrated. I've been working on an outline and am just about ready to start writing.

I would be very interested to read that if it were made available, Lew.

 

[pgriz]

@ bitter: It's a tool with many uses. I use it for work, play, family records, exploration. Along the way, hopefully acquire more skill and knowledge, lose some bad habits and ignorance. There is no end-goal for me, as it is another tool to help me get something done or achieve something. At work, we use it to prepare our quotes (I run a contracting firm), document our progress, and showcase our results. For that purpose, we use mainly P&S, while I bring my DSLR equipment along when I do site visits. For play, it's a method to capture what I see and am intrigued by. In the extended family, I'm the photographer of record. That means that I take lots of pics, and at the end of each family session (Thanksgiving, Christmas, weddings, birthdays, etc.), prepare a CD of images (one per family group), cleaned up and ready for print. Over the years, the quality of the images has improved markedly. And so it goes...

 

[fsquare]

I've been working in the graphic arts field for 12 years and now leading a team of designers. Thing is, it is not my passion. I am actually thinking of going back to school and taking an intensive 2 year commercial photography program in the evenings. I am going to keep my day job since I do have a wife and child but plan to get my diploma. 4 nights a week, 3.5 hours a night from 6:30PM to 10PM. I don't live close to the school, parking is expensive and public transit stops running to my area at 9:15PM. I can't grasp how this will even be possible but my wife is behind me. They don't just let anyone in...they actually take a look at your portfolio, there is an interview and only 28 students are selected. There is only a very small registration fee to pay. That's it but they are selective.

What i really want to do is open my own studio. I know how to run a business seeing as I ran my own for 10 years but i don't feel comfortable starting out without some sort of accredited education. I actually wouldn't even mind working for one of the better studios here in the city to start and then move onto my own once i grasp the ins and outs. I'm in no rush.

If taking the intensive 2 year program isn't doable because of family obligations do you guys think it is a waste to take individual courses? This same school offers 30 hour courses one night a week. Two that i found interesting were Fashion Photography and Creative Composition. They also offer 9 hour workshops like Portraiture Composition and Travel Photography.

 

[nmoody]

Take better pictures? (travel/family/events) - This seems to apply most to me out of all the options. Since I am just starting out, I don't have any lofty expectations other than to become proficient with my camera and photography. I probably will turn into a "jack of all trades master of nothing" kind of person but who really knows how I will evolve. I don't ever plan on taking pictures for money, it's my hobby activity to satisfy artistic needs.

 

[ph0enix]

No specific goals here other than to improve my skills. I'm not looking to make a career out of photography. I need a way to blow of some steam and photography is that outlet (or one of them). I don't have any formal art training. Maybe that's why I'm struggling with composition a lot more than the technical aspects. I'm an IT geek as well as manaheim and a few others.

 

[NickA]

No specific goals here other than to improve my skills. I'm not looking to make a career out of photography. I need a way to blow of some steam and photography is that outlet (or one of them). I don't have any formal art training. Maybe that's why I'm struggling with composition a lot more than the technical aspects. I'm an IT geek as well as manaheim and a few others.

Add me to the list of IT geeks. I think you see a lot of IT people get into photography because it's another gadget, and this gadget had accessories to go along with it. And if you are a programmer or web site creator like myself, there is an art to the way you compose and write your code. Or the way you design a web site.

I started to like photography a long time ago when I was in high school thanks to my favorite 11th grade English teacher and school photographer, Mr. Colby. My brother taught me how to develop film in our make shift darkroom (aka, the bathroom).

My end goal is to enjoy photography and have fun with it, and learn how to consistently take good pictures (or rather, take good pictures consistently). I really like sports and nature photography, and would like to focus mostly on that. I like being a consultant and working for myself in the IT world, so I don't think I'd even make a career out of photography. I think that would take the fun out of it for me, so for now I'm content just learning as much as I can and enjoying what I do.

 

[Compaq]

Why, you just need that perfect skyline picture, surely!

Ha. That shows you don't know me as well as you may think. . I intend no malice in this statement... It's just interesting to see your perception of my "body of work".

Btw you made a comment about style earlier. Me, personally, I'd be very wary of "style". For at least some people I see "having a style" as hauntingly similar to "being in a rut".

hehe, it may be that I don't know you at all. I just think about night shots when I think of you

And about style: what I mean is that when I'm confident in the compositions I make, whether it's landscape or street candids, I believe I've developed a style. When I don't feel like I need "validation" that this is indeed usable, but feel confident in disregarding other's opinions that I, on an artistic level, disagree with - then I've found a style.. It's a bit hard to explain, but I hope you got it. I'm pretty sure my "style" will be greatly affected by this community, and it may be I don't "stand out" from the crowd, but at least I'm confident in my own "work"... when that happens, that is

 

[jwbryson1]

And uh....when you say partner......does that mean....you know....you're.....you know.....

Same question here....

 

[greybeard]

I am a confirmed amateur photographer and have no desire to go professional.

 

[enzodm]

Portrait Photographer? (Business/Second Income/Hobby)
Art Photographer?
Scrapbooking?
Take better pictures? (travel/family/events)

Actually, I want not to make money with photography. I need that some of my time is not related to practical survival. I built (and I still like) dynamic airplane models with the same spirit, and I run up to half marathons with the same idea. Photography is something more intimate than modeling or running. For the same reason I loose time playing with old lenses - manual focus means many pictures should be trashed, but I like the lens as object .
I like portraits (I also attended a short course of a local photographer) but I'm little bit shy so I do not ask friends to pose. Sooner or later I hope to produce a set of consistently themed pictures, perhaps on the abstract side, that all together may be considered artistic. I'm not in a hurry; in the meantime I just like to be able to bring home better than usual pictures that document my work trips, my vacations, and friends meetings.

I have a scientific education (computer science) and now I'm on the other side of the desk.
Although not educated in visual arts, I enjoy other artistic fields - I'm a strong reader, and I also I have also some expertise in poetry, including publication of three plaquettes. In one of them I was able to join my main area -science- with poetry, with more or less appreciated results.
Rhetorical tools are partially shared in poetry and photography, and also a sort of instantaneous representation of a story -movies and novels share the opposite, even if the medium is the same.
Another common point is the amount of people telling that there are no rules, that poetry is just pure expression of soul, and blah blah blah.

The proposition for this year is to post no more here but in the appropriate galleries of TPF. THing that many should do, to reduce load here .

 

[sm4him]

And uh....when you say partner......does that mean....you know....you're.....you know.....

Same question here....

Wow, Bitter, you sure are popular!

For future posters, I'm just gonna try to help out a little here. Not that Bitter *needs* me to interject and "defend" him; I suspect he finds the whole thing amusing...BUT--this thread is 11 pages long, and several years old. In ALL that time, Bitter hasn't directly answered this question. That silence alone tells *me* what the answer is:

N.O.Y.B. Noneya. It is Not. Your. Business. I mean really, just because he used the word "partner?" I've heard partner used by homosexuals to refer to their mate, by heterosexuals to refer to their mate, in both unmarried AND married instances.

Unless you are hoping for a date, it just really doesn't matter.

 

[thinkricky]

Currently I am a parts manager for 3 dealerships and have my hands full. This is more of a hobby for me. I have clients who like my art and buy it from me. I am definitely weak at portraits of people but learning. Steadily I am earning few hundred a month is how much I would safely range it nothing crazy. Photography is a way I can make people happy with my work and I can pay for my upcoming equipment. The future is endless. I doubt I'll have my own business, but I'd like to consider myself a professional in the future years.