I do not like the “Fake it till you make it” mentality that permeates the creative world. Would you accept that mentality from your doctor, lawyer, pilot, or plumber? Certainly not, and yet in photography it has become the norm. When I approach photographers about getting trained I am mostly met with defensiveness, anger, shock, or excuses about how it isn’t possible. More energy is spent learning how to avoid training than required for the training itself. I’ve had people who spend an hour and a half a day on YouTube and an hour and a half a day on Instagram tell me with a straight face they don’t have the time or resources for formal training.
Bullshit.
I’m about to give twenty rolls of TRI-X to a young Santa Fe photographer who is making the time to learn. Basic, basic stuff here. Photo 101 at the local community college. Not a lot of time. Not a lot of expense. Local schools, online classes, and workshops–both in person and online–are abundant. All the time you waste on other things is money lost toward learning your craft from someone who actually knows what they are doing.
Next up, saying “No.” This is a critical part of the learning process, and if you don’t want to self-sabotage your own industry, saying “No,” is essential. I say “No,” far more than I say “Yes,” especially when it comes to being asked to complete jobs I am not properly trained for. Things like filmmaking. I have no business taking jobs that require me to produce polished, finished, high-level films. I get asked to do these things and I politely say “No.” One day, perhaps, if I work, train, and learn, I will be prepared to say “Yes,” but until then I have a responsibility to say “No.” Again, I don’t want excuses for why you say “Yes,” because ultimately, in what I’ve learned since this mentality was first introduced and accepted on a wide basis, is that most of what you will tell me will fall under the excuse category and the “I don’t need formal training,” category. I’ve been hearing this for years now and it just doesn’t hold water.
Comments 6
Simply love this piece of work! Well done!
Author
Thank yuou!
He has been taking photos for 13 years. I’ve known for three years what photos I want to take and how. And I rarely agree to do it for someone, sometimes it’s friends who ask me for something, but most of the time I do it for myself. I am always afraid that my work is not good enough for a potential client. On the one hand, I would like to do it professionally, but on the other, I am too afraid. My wife, who doesn’t beat around the bush, says I take good photos, I try to trust her
Author
When it comes from someone else, much more of a job, job. Happy wife = happy life.
I thought I was a damned good printer until the day I went pro by joining the photo unit of the engineering company with which I was an engineering apprentice. Six years later, yeah, I was a damned good printer, and when I hung out my own shingle, the skills I’d learned in that darkroom stood me in good stead churning out batches of thirty-or-so identical black/white fashion prints in a dish. The blessing was that being an in-house service unit to the engineers, cost didn’t come into it: you worked on a print until you got it right, and once you knew the neg, you printed however many copies they needed. (That was almost exclusively printed on Kodak SW Glossy. For myself, for pleasure, I loved DW instead.) A fabulous place in which to learn.
I also ended up being the colour printer, which was nice, as I had a darkroom to myself when somebody need colour prints, and nobody had much to do with me regarding what I did in there. It also got me quite a bit of overtime… When I went out on my own, most of the colour that I did was transparencies. Whenever colour prints were needed, my heart sank into my boots. A colour line, for me, would have been unsustainable, so I had to farm that out. Almost never would those prints make me happy: I could see that just one more test would have cracked it, but those labs refused, muttering things about “commercially acceptable”, to which the only answer would have been having that impossible line of my own. Thank God for Kodachrome.
It was a great time to be alive, the sixties to the mid-eighties. We were all so naïve, thinking it was for ever.
Folks starting out as pros today: I guess they must be incredibly rich to be able to buy all the digital stuff that seems de rigueur these days if you want to go places, reminding me of the old one about if you want to make a small fortune in photography, start with a big one or, on the other hand perhaps the opposite end of the commercial spectrum still exists, and they can run it on a shoestring. The latter makes me think of John Ruskin and what he had to say about cheapskates. Maybe music is a safer career bet. 😉
Author
Yes, anytime you feel like things are okay, just remind yourself “These ARE the good old days!”