Pixiq

What is so darned amazing that we give thanks every day for the photo profession? Some days you’ve got to hate it! Easy to get into, way hard to become proficient. Intimidating learning curve. Investment heavy in equipment, backups and accessories. Every minute there’s more competition. I’ve heard a claim that 10,000 or so people in our home state of Colorado say they shoot weddings. Prices for portrait and event services so low you make minimum wage. Many former clients no longer hire you, because they can take “good enough” snaps for themselves.

But think again about why you went pro, or are planning to. I give thanks every day that I can be my own boss. What if we had to get real jobs? Making photographs we get that old fashioned satisfaction that never goes out of style: you can make something start to finish with your own hands, and be responsible for it all along the process, turning in any direction you want. You can make a difference by bringing pleasure and invaluable memories to every client.

Then there is the undeniable rush of artistic creation that is better than any drug. It’s no wonder photographers are psychologically classed with fighter pilots, race car drivers and sharp shooters. My particular delight is that photography is always new, always renewable, with each assignment, each new story to be told. Ours is perhaps the oldest profession of man, that of the storyteller, the troubadour, the poet, the keeper of history of families and tribes, of science and art, of the meaning of the heavens. Photographers tell their stories with light. Karl and I call ourselves Foto-Griots, the name of the clan storytellers from the French West African tradition.

Photography to us is a game, a treasure hunt, a balancing act with excitement, tension, delight and sharing of the fugitive image that can tell a whole story at a glance. I’ve never yet left a job that the client didn’t say they couldn’t wait to see the pictures. How rewarding is that?

But wait, there’s more! Image making defies definition and categorization, and that’s a good thing. Is Photography art or a skilled job? Imaginative or technical? There’s room for the catalog shooter, the newspaper photojournalist, the baby photographer, the landscape artist, the advertising madman, the retoucher, documentarian, architect, gliclée printer, book maker, compositor and on and on. And now we’re all morphing into videographers as well.

If you love images you can’t get enough of styles from Ansel Adams to Robert Adams, enjoy looking at everybody’s baby snaps and travel slide shows. How can you not be thankful for the crazy photo gene in your body? There’s so much to try, so many lateral moves within the profession/avocation.  No room or time to burn out or get bored. Image makers never retire; there’s just too much to explore. No single lifetime can ever exhaust the possibilities.

So what about money? Yes it’s as hard as ever to put right and left brain together to make financial success in any art. But so what? Buy real estate, invest or work at some other task if you must - but follow your passion. You’ll never be sorry you did.

Please write and share your special passion in photography!