There are four working photographers in my neighborhood. And if you throw in professional writers, actors, and other creative industries, the number of working creative professionals grows even more. For those of you thinking you must look to history, big cities, or to the far reaches to find professional photographers, you don’t. Santa Fe is a city of 70,000 people located in the second poorest state in America. Voted the worst place to be a child. The highest rate of teen pregnancy. Serious, historical corruption issues. The birthplace of the Drug War.
We have our issues and we have our photographers.
I’m going to forego naming the photographers in my neighborhood. Instead, I’ll start with a town twenty two miles away. Population 177. This guy lives there. And so does this guy. A world-class architectural photographer who has completed projects all over the world, and a documentary photographer with numerous books to his name. And there are more in this town. Population 177.
But let’s move on to Santa Fe. Again, a town of 70,000 rife with challenges, but loaded with incredible photographers. I’m going to keep this simple and just label them as photographer one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. And this photographer was and is a legend who recently passed away. We also have people like this. And galleries like this and this. And a bookstore like this. Is Santa Fe atypical? Yes. But there are plenty of other cities around the world that share the same type of reality.
I find that many young photographers, and those prone to spending copious time on YouTube, fail to look around their own region. YouTube photographers, for the most part, are not working photographers. Working photographers, for the most part, don’t do YouTube because they are working or attempting to find work. I keep being asked to provide lists of photographer names to these folks who spend their time online, and this post is my reply. Before you ask me, look around. Look in your country, county, city, neighborhood. Heck, some of you are going to find someone on your street!
You can’t search YouTube for these people. Brace yourself. You are going to have to use Google and you are going to have to visit websites. Oh, the dread of it. The lazy, spoiled masses who claim this as injustice with either have to man up or quit crying. Those who claim they find it too much work to stray from the YouTube feed. (Pathetic. No other way of describing this.) It might take a bit more effort, but the reward is much better photography. These are photographers who look through the viewfinder. Not three day people but three months or three years. In some cases, three decades. I just judged a contest that saw contributions from a photographer who photographed the same family for thirty years, and another who photographed the same region for forty five years.
The Internet is one of the most profound inventions of all time. It brings us everything and nothing. Every obscure fact, yet it does nothing to introduce you to your neighbor. It divides us, educates us, derails us in many ways, and has birthed multiple generations of lazy people who think that life is found @yourcomputer. Even asking for a list strikes me as somewhat odd. I recently took a more serious look at cybersecurity. I know a few folks here and there who work in this field. It never crossed my mind to ask for a list of resources. I felt like I need to do my homework first, start my studies, gain a basic understanding and then perhaps I’ll inquire about their thoughts.
Again, I’m not saying your city is the same as Santa Fe, but I would guess there are more resources in your area than you might imagine. I’m about to write a post about patience, and I think this sentiment applies here as well. Take your time. Ask around, look around, and see what might be living next door. Don’t forget about creative agencies, photo agencies and other creative industry outlets that connect to professional photography.
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Keep meaning to leave comments but then that pesky four letter word – work – gets in the way! Great points about looking local. But I’m going to be lazy and refer back to a recent post involving Magcloud. In that post you mentioned thermal prints. Love thermal prints, but it’s tough to decide on one. I see all sorts of reliability concerns. Not looking for a gear review from Milnor! But if you’re happy with your thermal printer, can you share the brand?
Found this and ordered the “bang for the buck”. https://products.bestreviews.com/best-thermal-photo-printers?cid=650308330&aid=1258942143016815&eid=&tid=kwd-78684248545299:loc-4109&ul=83906&mt=e&n=o&d=c&dm=&dt&sn&adid=&k=thermal%20photo%20printers&p=&pc=&ap=&acid=36&msclkid=8cda5bf385e7150b3aae3cfa0947a7b3&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Prospecting%20-%20Portable%20Photo%20Printers%20-%20Bing&utm_term=thermal%20photo%20printers&utm_content=Thermal%20Photo%20Printers
If you’re looking for bigger size prints, there’s a lot of a5 portable thermal printers on Amazon. Phomemo(i think) is a great brand. Dan actually commented and told me his thermal printer name, he said it was quite old and tried looking for the model but no luck. There’s plenty of others to choose from just do some research and compare. Hope that helps.
Author
I would never suggest mine, and I don’t know anything about anything else. Looks like Chuck has some solid info!
Thanks Chuck!
And the Phomemo came today and works fine for the purpose intended, to add images to my 4.75×7.5 Field Notes notebook.
Well that was quite the links tour of cool photographers, galleries, etc. And since I live near Las Vegas, I’ll bet there are some amazing folks here.
Author
There are. Right there waiting for you.
Been three decades since I lived in Santa Fe and still feels like my creative home. Herb Ritts another great photographer who had a home in Santa Fe who I had pleasure of working for.
Author
Yep. An old friend was the caretaker on that property which is stunning.
When I first had serious thoughts about pursuing an visual arts career, the mantra was to be successful in visual arts, music, acting or fashion one had to be in NY or LA (for the US), and put in ten hard years working, net working and getting your work out there. This was 1996 for me.
Has the internet rendered the NY and LA component a lot less valid?
Thank you for the links. Lots of good stuff.
Author
Yes, those places are dead men walking. The overhead is way too high. No need to be there anymore. Most of my friends who live there are miserable. LA for sure. NY less so, but still got an email from someone this week saying they were priced out and moving.
Danielsan, a nice collection of perspective…Funny, no one here, has showed up in my “recommended” feed on YouTube.
Author
Yes, funny how that doesn’t happen. Two worlds, as you know, two worlds.
Fabulous community. Hence why a workshop on creating a website would be wonderful.
Author
Good point. Websites, marketing, books….perhaps.