Ugh, my bad. I just accidentally clicked on LinkedIn, and the first post I saw was a photographer I know shamelessly self-promoting some horrid, shallow, vapid event they photographs every year for the 1%. Oh, I feel tainted, stained, violated. I’m SO good about avoiding this stuff, but drop your guard for one second and the call of the shameless will consume me, you, us. Thankfully, I’m equally good at detoxing from these encounters, and I’m here to share with you how best to cleanse yourself. (And LinkedIn is WAY more tame than the rest of the shameless outlets.)
You can either sit in lotus for an extended time, preferably in a cave.
Tibet would be good, or maybe Tora Bora. Or, you could get the hose down like Karen Silkwood. This is messy, requires a crew, and although I’ve never chosen this route myself, I would imagine it’s quite painful.(If you don’t know the story of Karen Silkwood, you must look her up. Another badass cut down too early under mysterious circumstances.) Finally, you can just have a quick look at what Raw Society is doing. Does Raw Society promote themselves? Of course. Do you get the thinly veiled creep factor beloved by the masses? No, my friend, you most certainly do not.
I have personal experience. Many. Some of which I can’t talk about and will never admit on this site. But others I can share. Like my week-long, in person class with Christelle and Jorge from Raw Society.(There are other talented folks working there as well.) I had done short, online classes with Raw Society during C19, but this was our first time gathering as a group, and I have to say, I was impressed. I liked them before the class, but after getting to know them, I like them even more. This is my attempt at avoiding sounding like a gushing fanboy, but you have to remember my history.
I’ve been around photography full time since 1989, and this is being generous. I could have said 1987 and fully been within my rights. Promotion has always been part of the game, but never had it been the entire game until social media overtook the intelligence of the entire world. (Did you hear what the former CEO of Google said about social last month? Hint: It’s not pretty.) Now we have full-time promoters, and they are mostly successful. If the folks doing the hiring don’t know any better, well, that old squeaky wheel story is right on the money.
When I spoke with Christelle and Jorge, there was never an iceberg moment. Many photographers are like icebergs, you only see the 10% of their ego that sticks out of the water. Eventually, you meet the other 90% and immediately begin booking flights to Tora Bora. But not with these two. In fact, what I realized immediately was that both Christelle and Jorge are the “quiet lifers.” In short, those who make real work. Those who know what it takes to make consistently good reportage-style imagery in varying cultures around the world, and to do so quietly, speaking when they have something to say. And just to be fair, Jorge is quiet. Christelle is Christelle. She can do anything and she does mean accents too.
But let me explain this a bit further. As our workshop unfolded, Christelle and Jorge were planning an upcoming exhibition. As part of the show, they were laying out a book. I was stunned by how good the work was. Again, I knew them. I had seen their work already, but when comprised, honed, crafted, and refined, it took on entirely new measure. This experience made me feel like those early days in the photojournalism program at UT Austin. Back when I had hope and drive and full commitment to the misguided career path I had chosen for myself. There is a flavor here. A flavor that exists nowhere else, and they have it. They live it.
I have a total of seven emails in my inbox.
Seven. That’s it. Two are from an online art course I signed up for in 2019 but have yet to take. One is from a friend’s clothing brand. I’m hoping to get a discount, let’s be honest. Another is an email reminding me to book my travel to Miami for Adobe Max. Another is from a friend linking me with the CEO of another clothing brand. And another email reminding me of my duties as a judge for Critical Mass. And there too is an email from Christelle with a link for joining their community. I get plenty of other emails, believe me, but I keep my inbox culled to the cream of the crop. Yes, it’s a strange crop, but whatever.
The reason her email is still there is because it has meaning. Their community is something I would benefit from. That email has been there for four months. Four months. Waiting for me to get my shit together and click that link. I haven’t due to a variety of factors. Pain being one. My neck and back are in serious trouble. My Blurb life. My lack of focused photography time. I could go on and on. But there’s more. First, here is another film about Raw Society showing a bit about their workshop program.
But let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The film at the top of this post is brought to us by Capture One. If you don’t know Capture One just know it’s the best color science out there when it comes to processing and preparing images. (Software geek trigger warning…..NOW.) How do I know this? Let me tell you a story. I used to be represented by Masterfile. This was the last hold out agency that refused to sell to Corbis or Getty. They were world renowned for being the agency with the strictest submission guidelines. In fact, it took four months before I had my first successful submission. Never before had I looked at my images in that detail. My friends with other agencies were submitting pictures with banding, aberration, fringing and far more. Not with Masterfile. Finally, in a moment of frustration, my editor said “You MUST use Capture One.” Me being me, I said “What’s that?”
Finally, note the print angle in this film. Both the Raw Society Magazine and a print exhibition, born from a table full of small prints used to edit and sequence the show. This is what photography is about. This is what separates those with the flavor and the tasteless masses bent on the love of bots and strangers. Make no mistake, this is a promotional film. We all make them in one way or another, but at the heart of this film lives the images. Testimony of time spent in pursuit of elusive moments.
Comments 23
Christelle and Jorge strike me as the perfect example of the kind of photographers you’ve been advocating for some time, as opposed to the algorithm and likes junkies. They print their work, are clearly focused on quality, and they produce books. Pretty cool.
Author
You are correct. They have formed something larger than themselves, with Raw Society. And they have formed a super solid workshop and mentoring program, complete with in the field training. And their work is good. When I saw the images in the book I was so pleasantly surprised. I had seen their work before but only in small increments. This was a full take on several years of work, and I was impressed. And they are just cool people.
The scarf that I use in the video is fake! 🙂 Thank you very much Dan for your kind words and insights, hopefully your back pain will be fixed soon so we can go on another adventure! (P.S. The scarf was really fake it was July)
Author
It looks fake. All of it. But hey, I lived in LA for years. I love fake!
This was a pleasure to read. The links included added to it greatly. While my photographic interests do not lie in documentary and/or street photography, I appreciate seeing it when it is done well. While visiting the Raw Society site, I saw and read your post, To Be or Not to Be. Excellent writing there and solid advice. Take the time. Do the work. Seek real feedback. I think those of us who got to grow up and become adults pre-internet are very lucky. I also think the internet is such a delight because one can learn whatever they want. It is very much a slippery slope. My personality type is one that wants to know all the things. Very easy for me to lose too much time because there are so many things I am curious about. I have to stay vigilant. Practice discernment. Find good teachers because god knows, everybody and their mother has some sort of online class these days. While I’ve never taken a proper class from you, I do appreciate what I have learned from you.
ps: Super curious about that online art class you haven’t delved into yet. What were you wanting to learn that inspired signing up for it?
Author
It’s an online watercolor sketch class. Still here. Untapped. And discernment is key. This is why I like paper books. A book is confrontational. No way to get distracted by another tab or a chime or some sort. Same reason I like paper and pen for journal. Go sit and write. Leave the phone behind.
Since you broached the subject by posting the video what are your takes on Capture One v. Lightroom?
I foolishly let my LR subscription lapse and now am down the “this or that” rabbit hole on what system to commit to. I miss the days you could by a DVD install the software and choose not to upgrade unless or until a cool new feature came along or your computer died. Now everything requires a subscription and you really have to buy into the software for the long run.
Author
It’s the best science for sure, but LR is part of the suite, so if you are spending all day in Adobe, as many folks are, there is something to be said for the integration. And frankly, most people, myself included, only take advantage of a small percentage of what these programs can do.
I watched the Rw Society video you reference, “Street and Travel Photography Full Online Course”. One of the best video I’ve ever seen. Thanks for letting us discover Jorge and Christelle.
Author
That’s a good one.
The photos are outstanding.
Once upon a time I loved Lightroom, and then I didn’t. Lightroom’s catalog system was spawned by copying iView multimedia, a system that I had based my entire practice on until Microsoft bought it, and then destroyed it in the way that Microsoft has proven itself so adept at. But I still had Lightroom as a DAM, so I could live with that, It made all sorts of promises about batch processing color correction that I just never saw, but with it’s iView bones was still a fantastic DAM. And then, after promising me that I owned Lightroom forever, Adobe decided “forever” meant 10 years or so and effectively took the product that I owned away and said I could have it’s functionality back for $10/month, but even then crippled that version and made me put many of my assets in the “cloud”, and hid various aspects of what constituted “ownership” in the EULA. I was once an Adobe lover, and at that point I became an Adobe despiser and vanquished all Adobe product from my life*.
Not long after I gave Capture One a try. I was delighted to see the bones of iView Multimedia included as a DAM — Capture One had purchased it from Microsoft. And Capture One offered me a standalone, purchasable version of the product. Sure, it was $279 (vs Adobe’s old $99), but I could live with that as long as I actually owned it, and it didn’t rely on the cloud to function. Plus it had a Fuji specific version that promised improved color science. It was legit, though at that time my practice was winding down so it mattered less. But I was still so happy to have a perpetual license for my catalog – something that might last longer than me. I guess I’m just too quick to trust.
Within 2 years that initial $279 that I had i invested /i in a lifetime version (I expected minor paid updates as OS’s changed, but no required upgrade path required. Their words) was in fact worthless as I would now require another $300 upgrade as the old one just wouldn’t work. Or I could subscribe Adobe-style, and my entire archive would again be effectively “owned” by a technology company that is incapable of telling the truth.
I still have all my photos in RAW form. But all of the thousands of hours I’ve put into the keepers are basically useless unless I TRUST that I won’t be lied to. I wish I could turn them all into physical negatives now. At least I could leave that to someone so they might see the light of day after I’m gone
*I should have done this a few years earlier when they killed Freehand after promising they wouldn’t. Adobe is now the dictionary definition for bald-faced liars.
Author
I’m not sure there is a tech company that works in truth. There aren’t many boundaries on them. Subscription is the way of the world. There are numerous other companies going from time purchase to sub model. For their own survival. The upside, look at the tech you are getting.
Yes, the tech is there. But just “having” photos is no longer a possibilty. Unless you have physical negs.
I am a multi-media artist and I like to work on one thing at a time. This means that a good amount of time might pass between heavy camera usage and not so the subscription model just doesn’t work for me. Namely because I hate the subscription model and it pisses me off to pay for something I don’t use. And I have my own system for organizing my photos. I found ON1 and while it has a lot of AI features that I don’t need, one can easily ignore those and simply use what they want in a simpler fashion. It is robust enough for everything I might want to do with a photo and more. DxO is another I considered. Both offer very nice DAM options if you want them and are available without a subscription. I also have Affinity Photo, another subscription free option, that will do everything Photoshop does. I rarely use it as ON1 does just about everything but it’s nice to have for when needs arise. Hope this helps.
Author
Hmm, will check out On1. Sounds nice.
Author
Why not copy them to drives?
I’ve never heard of ON1 and will look into it. At this point of my life I’m no longer a “working” photographer, but have some long-term “maybe” projects. I can make a photo today and post process it in Serif Photo (a great program, now owned by Canva.) But I don’t have a useable DAM for all my photos going back 20 years, and have found that most choke on large archives. But I’ll give this a try and see if it will work. I keep hoping that Serif/Canva will come out with a competitor DAM that’s as robust as their other products.
I’m with you Ellen, in that my needs are sporadic now. But they weren’t always, and I still have a 10TB archive of culled images that I’d love to be able to build something with, if even for nostalgia’s sake. It’s not even a money thing really, I just hate wasting time creating a relational DB of keywords around this archive, work that I did, that it turns out I’m only renting when I did all the work.
Dan’s not wrong about the subscription model….there’s few things we truly own anymore. When the manufacturer no longer has an economic interest in supporting it, they drop it like a hot potato. Even mundane things like computer mice. Good ones cost $150 and start to go bad after 2 years. Which means we are in fact renting them for $6.25/month. This is our whole life. The sadder part of it all is it all ends up in the plastic and e-waste stream.
“we’ve done our part. we brought our own bags” – Marc Maron
Author
And then…we…die.
I have a friend (you know them, Dan) that time capsuled a single Mac in their office (never updated it, no network or internet connection) so that they could continue to use a single piece of software that they had their entire invoicing system on. They kept using it for almost 10 years until recently. They were/are the only people I know that had a fully functioning Mac IIsi (https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_ii/specs/mac_iisi.html), complete with Apple CRT. I was actually jealous of them because it was software that I had always loved too.
It’s our internet connections that keeps us in the constant upgrade path and keeps us paying for features we don’t want and product we don’t own. But it’s the way things are now. I looked at my usage over the last few months, and I haven’t used ANY “applications” in the old sense. Everything is either fully an internet app, or at the very least internet enabled. I now think my most powerful app that doesn’t require the internet (but it’s better with it) is Apple Notepad.
I guess I just have to suck it up and move on. Fight inertia.
Author
I admire the dedication. Best archivist I know uses Filemaker….still.
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Filemaker was an awesome program, and for many of us it’s the most we really needed. Keywording photos is really a lot like Filemaker — a “flat” database. Most have moved on to “relational” databases, but again, if you don’t need that, why bother? My brother used to be a Filemaker developer and would often bring companies in the reverse direction — companies that had been sold super complicated relational DB’s to Filemaker because it was ENOUGH, and staff didn’t have to be constantly trained on it. This also keys into Ellen’s points (you said it too) — all those features don’t matter if you don’t need them.
Author
Archiving, or database construction, is still the white elephant in the room. Most photographers, and I mean most, have ZERO long-term plan.