Creative: New York Day Four

It was a chance encounter. “I’m in front of your building, please alert the media,” I texted. “Meet me in the lobby,” came the reply. A short walk, a coffee, a short walk back. “So, what’s happening out there?” I asked. What followed was a masterclass in photography, art, industry status, and creative thinking. We were left with many unanswered “Whys”. Photographers. Always playing catch-up and always playing by the tattered rulebook from 1975. There were, however, a few takeaways.

This is a good time to remind you we were talking about the industry side of photography, not the online side.

First, stop posting. For the LOVE OF GOD, stop posting to Instagram. Nobody can produce that volume and keep the bar high. Nobody. All this does is water down your entire existence. If you are addicted and must scratch that itch, wait until your day is over, curate, package, and then release, but this is only if you are a hopeless case and need to feed that monkey. If you can’t take a look around and see the damage that platform has done to your world, well, you probably aren’t functioning at a sustainable level anyway.

Two, stop doing what everyone else is doing. Massive levels of conformity, not only on the work side but the ideological side. The best photographers now aren’t just photographers. They are creatives/artists/multimedia/collaborators who are IDEA people, not photographers. They morph from project to project and can wear many different hats, but the basis for their success is that they free think enough to form original ideas. If that idea requires a camera, great. If not, great. They weld, write, paint, glue, or collaborate with others who do. And they do advertising, commerical, personal, art, and anything else that strikes their fancy. Sadly, there are but a few of these folks but the few are killing it.

Three, you must adapt both your thinking and your application to fit the industry you are attempting to conquer. If that industry needs a² + b² = c² and you deliver a² + d + d + d = c² you are not even in the conversation because your formula does not give them the figures they need. Your integration with the business model DOES NOT WORK. This applies to gallery strategy, museum acquisition, and book design/sales.

Four, there are no current, modern, young photographers replacing the masters at least when it comes to the industry side. This is reflected in print sales, and sometimes in other ways. There is a HUGE gap beween the value of vintage and the value of contemporary. And the next generation isn’t integrated and they might not ever be, but this is not entirely their fault. The playing field has changed. The art world has changed as has the collector world. Gen Z and Millenials don’t collect. (Whatever the last two generations are called, I get confused.)

We did talk about successes and a few folks who we both admire. There are some incredible happenings in the industry world, but this world requires an education and that scares a lot of people away, and it scares them over to the online world where they see pseudo-successes and think, “Well, I’ll just do that, it’s much easier and no one is going to call me out for now knowing some basic thing.”

Onliners can build a following, create a book and sell through their stack. They are happy, their audience is happy, but there isn’t anyone validating that work or book. Often times, the audience doesn’t know much about photography, and it doesn’t matter, they just want to support the photographer. It’s an interesting model and one that keeps a lot of people fired up about photography. The problem is when you know where the work lives on the scale of good. Many of these books are artist-driven not story-driven, and are considered “cause books” because the purchasing of the book is more about supporting the artist’s cause than for the work itself which will, in most cases, live out it’s entire existence in that same online space without jumping over to the industry side.

There are many people who want to engage with the traditional models of the industry. Galleries, musuems, collections, collectors, and this is where things get challenging. You have to KNOW certain things. You have to KNOW history, context, protocol, business strategy, and much more. You see a ton of ageism here, running in both directions. Industry legends making it difficult on up and comers, and up and comers claiming the industry is just a bunch of uptight old people. Both philosophies are flawed.

The industry is like any other, built for increasing revenue and appreciative value. Photographs as objects. Think stocks, paintings, gold. A commodity to be traded based on real-world and perceived market values. Legends can make it difficult on younger folks because it took them decades to get where they are, and if you don’t understand the basic business model you simply haven’t done your homework. Why should they do it for you? On the flipside, there are younger photographers making outstanding work who might have done everything right but never got the chance to get a foot in the door. So, can’t blanket statement the entire lot.

For some reason, struggle is kryptonite for folks in the online world. Rejection is because of someone eles’s bias, never because their work isn’t good. The legends of this business struggled more than most can imagine. They didn’t have the Internet, galleries, photo collectors, print-on-demand, autofocus, mini-labs, knit hats and ironic t-shirts, social media celebrity, or a culture and society that cared about their feelings. They bumped and banged and bludgeoned their way through. Capa was a fake persona for shit’s sake. The ultimate embodiment of fake it till you make it.

As our conversation wound down, we both landed on the same “important thing.” Make YOUR work. Stop doing what the masses are doing and take the time to find YOU. Find your work. It’s the only thing of real value you will have, and essential if you want a career and not a hot year or two. Slow your pace and THINK. Take your time. Practice. Experiment. Fail. Keep learning and study outside of your world. Be better, be more and broaden your perspective on the world, not just photography. At the heart of this is story and ideas, but you need to learn to tell your own and find your own.

Two days ago I shot a sizable event here in NYC. There were at least a dozen photographers with the same camera/flash setup. Why? I think you know why. But there there was another photographer with a backpack full of “odd” things. He was shooting too, and his work looked different. And it wasn’t because his equipment was different. It was because his mind was different. His photography, or vision, wasn’t based on something that someone else had already done and made popular online. His vision lived only in his mind and his equipment was what allowed him to realize that look.

I find these conversations interesting, stimulating and challenging to walk away from because I often have more questions than answers. I’m off to the side. Just doing my thing as quiety as possible. There are new challenges coming my way, self-imposed of course, but that’s what keeps me interested. I see those few I mentioned above and think “What can I learn from THESE people?” People who make me feel like I haven’t started yet. I don’t belong in either world, which is why I think I’m a decent observer of them both. Both sides are crazy. Straight up. Certifiable. But that’s as it should be.