Here is an actual conversation I had this morning:
*Me*: You look nice today.
*Her*: No. These pants barely fit me any more.
…blink…
*Me*: Ok then, you look terrible today. Especially those pants.
August, 2006:
For Love or Money
David Hobby, photographer for the Baltimore Sun, writer of “strobist.com”:http://strobist.com/ and “small flash lighting GOD”:http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/06/developing-idea-part-2-compact.html, has written an article about “Photography’s Vanishing Middle Class”:http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/08/photographys-vanishing-middle-class.html that is well worth the read.
He notes that the Professional Photography market is in utter upheaval and makes this plea of his readers:
If you’re an amateur – learn all you can. Shoot for the love of shooting (“love” is the root of the word “amateur”) and have a lifetime full of enjoyment and great photos.
If you are a semi-pro, decide what side of the fence you want to be on. If that side is “professional”, then learn your craft. And charge a commensurate amount for your services. Otherwise, you are really kidding yourself about who you are and what you do.
While, I’m certainly not nearly as experienced or as well paid as he is, I couldn’t agree more. Photographers and artists who continue getting bumping the drug of being paid for their work (which I’ll admit is one hell of a ride) cheapen the market as a whole and bring down the collective value of the professional photographer.
The big dilemma for me, however, has to do with social tendencies, majority rule, and finding a place in a dirt cheap market. The royalty-free stock photography sites that David mentioned in his articles are certainly lowering both the quality and cost of stock photography by offering photographers a puny $0.20 per image sold. However, my question is, at this point, is there any way to stop it? With the more successful photographers making nearly $10,000 a month from various royalty-free stock photography sites, and the beginners jumping with excitement when they get paid $0.20 because a photograph of theirs was chosen, is there any likelihood that my not jumping on this bandwagon is going to cause it to stop? While I’m not even hoping for $10,000 a month in revenue from stock photography ventures, if it’s not my images that are being bought, it’ll be someone elses.
The same idea goes with my fine art prints and portrait services. While I’d like to place a high value on my work, my time, my craft, my equipment, and my experience, it’s a hell of a lot easier for me to sell 10 prints at $10 each than it is to sell one print at $100. And it’s a lot easier for me to stack up four $25 portrait sessions and try to make a few more bucks selling prints than it is for me to charge $100 and try to find just one.
That isn’t to say it doesn’t happen or that there aren’t people who find my work and my services worth my asking price. I’ve collected my $100 sitting fee and then sold $150 worth of prints in the past. I’ve sold an 8×10 for $100. It certainly happens. But, if I add up all the money I’ve made selling cheap, and all the money I’ve made selling right, cheap wins by a long shot.
It isn’t because I’m not good enough or because I don’t have the right equipment. It’s because I have a full-time day job that keeps me from being able to actively seek higher paying work and I lack the connections and network to help find it for me. At this point, I’m happy to have one more person in the world saying “I had my photograph taken by Daniel James and they look great”.
So I struggle with myself daily: do I do it for Love, or do I do it for the Money?
unprepared
I’m not at all prepared for the “upcoming exhibit”:http://revjim.net/2006/08/08/upcoming-exhibit-sat-sept-16th-7pm/. I need 3 photographs printed, matted, and framed, at the very least. I still haven’t finished “picking them out”:http://revjim.net/2006/08/09/image-selection-for-exhibit-and-kera-art-mug/ let alone going through the motions of getting them here.
I really wanted to have some promotional cards made (with a nice little coupon code on the back) to hand out at the exhibit, and get my website and photoblog up and fully functioning before then so that the increased exposure I get from an event like this doesn’t just fall through the cracks. I had even thought there’d be a remote chance that “Skins”:http://revjim.net/2006/03/24/skins-three-apples-on-curved-back/ might be ready to view by then.
As “I mentioned”:http://razormaid.livejournal.com/143827.html?thread=968147#t968147 to Erica earlier today, there are so many things I want to get done, but I’m just so bogged down with things that I feel I have to do that I can’t even consider anything else. Sometimes it gets to the point where I feel like it might just be easier to throw away everything I have — friends, connections, photographs, writing, journals, *everything* — and start all over again with a new name and absolutely no obligations to anyone anywhere.
If I can manage to stop “wasting my time on the impossible”:http://revjim.net/2006/08/23/menial-tasks/, that’ll make a big difference in the amount of time I have to do what I have to do so I can get to what I want to do.
If you’re of the praying, finger-crossing, chanting, meditating, energy-sending, or star wishing types, I could really use some focus, confidence, clear-thought and determination over the next few weeks. And encouragement — written, verbal, physical or otherwise — is always helpful.
menial tasks
There’s something about simple, menial tasks that require less than 10 minutes of my time that causes me to put them off at all costs, often times wasting much more time in an effort to determine a new and better way to perform this menial task automatically or more effectively.
A good example of this is with my (coming real soon now) photoblog. I’ve got all the important things squared away with one exception: I need a place to put the images I intend to display in the photoblog. There are lots of options, of course. The simplest option is to resize the images and create thumbnails by hand, upload them to a standard directory on my server, and link to them directly from the photoblog posts. A more complicated option is to use photo gallery software to host the images, handle the resizes and create web albums along the way.
I spent the better part of my “free time” from two full days researching the troubles and issues I was having with various pieces of software that might help me achieve this goal. In that time, I could have hand created resized versions and thumbnails for almost every photograph I’ve ever posted in a public medium.
The same thing happened with the book. I put off building it because I desperately wanted an automated process to build each and every page so that I could simply spend my time tweaking this and that from the automatically generated pages. In the end, I finally found a not-quite-perfect piece of software and paid for it. Then I struggled with it for weeks before finally getting it to do what I wanted and then sent the book off to the printers only to waste money on a proof that looked terrible. In the end, I decided to build the book by hand and did so with less than 2 hours of work.
There are always 3 (and sometimes 4) options every time I’m presented with a problem. Here there are in order of preference:
# The first option (which isn’t always available) is to find something that someone else has built that does exactly what I want the way that I want it and use it. This is rare and quite amazing when it happens.
# The second option involves spending time searching for something that someone else has built that does almost what I want in almost the way that I want it and then spending some of my own time customizing it to suit my needs and hoping that doesn’t take longer than expected.
# The third option is to build something myself to handle the problem I wish to accomplish.
# Finally, I can always just do it the old fashioned way.
I will always, of course, seek option 1. At some point, however, the search for a preexisting “perfect” solution has to end. Sure, there may still be something out there, but I can’t spend forever looking for it. Eventually, I’ll move on to option 2 looking at all of the solutions I considered for option 1 in a different light. When none of those pan out and I’ve come to the point where my search feels exhausted I often consider option 3 briefly. More often than not, however, option 3 will appear too daunting and I’ll skip directly to option 4. And then, of course, I simply use option 4.
The problem inherent in all of this is knowing when to move down to the next option and when to just go for option 4. This marks two projects in a row where I wasted more time looking for options 1, 2, and 3 than it would take me to complete option 4 many times over.
So, in an effort to help myself see the value of not attempting to streamline and mechanize every small task that I need to accomplish, I’m going to select 5 menial tasks to accomplish each day that I’ve been putting off because I just didn’t feel like doing it. Hopefully, in putting my nose to the grindstone and simply *doing* these things with no consideration for “better ways” or what I could be doing instead, I’ll regain an appreciation for simply doing tasks without trying to whittle them down to nothing.
Today’s tasks are:
* Complete, envelope, and stamp both rebates for recent LCD monitor purchases.
* Soak yellow jacket nests with wasp spray so that tomorrow they can be knocked down.
* Put away the mangled mass of wires on my desk in the office.
* Clean out my truck from my West Texas Trip.
* Deposit commision check from last month’s Photo Sales.
Since we’ve got plans this evening and this is my first attempt, I won’t be too angry with myself if I skip one of those 5.
an open letter to Gallery and Flickr
Dear “Gallery”:http://gallery.sf.net/ –
I’ve given you a lot of chances. I’ve put up with your silly behavior. I’ve even ignored some of your more irritating flaws. But, I cannot — *CANNOT* — tolerate you changing the URLs to my images making all images I’ve ever linked to before now become broken. The first and second time this happened, I thought it might be my fault. But now I know it’s you and I can’t tolerate it.
So I’m looking for a replacement for you.
Love,
Jim
Some people have suggested “Flickr”:http://flickr.com/.
Dear Flickr –
I’d like to use you as my image gallery but, unfortunately, your Terms of Use and Community Guidelines makes this a bad choice. The Yahoo — and therefore your — “Terms of Use”:http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ state that, despite the fact that I give you $24.99 per year for a “Pro” account, I must agree “to not use the Service to [...] upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable”. Unfortunately, I cannot ensure that the material I post will not be “obscene” or “otherwise objectionable”. Some people just don’t like flowers and sunsets.
Furthermore, your “Community Guidelines”:http://flickr.com/guidelines.gne state that my account could be blocked or terminated unless I “Link back to Flickr when [I] post [my] photos elsewhere”, that I not “Upload photos that include frontal nudity, genitalia and/or intimate moments between consenting partners in public areas of Flickr” , and that I not “Use Flickr for Commercial Purposes”. These terms are unacceptable.
Even if these things weren’t an issue, you don’t enable me to create private galleries nor does it allow me customization of look and feel. You also has a tendency to stop working. Doing so means my images stop working and I can’t afford to have that happen.
Sorry.
Love,
Jim
So, Flickr’s out of the question and there are few remaining options. I’m open to suggestions. I’d prefer a personally hosted solution so I can be responsible for its upkeep and longevity.
Any suggestions?
volunteers wanted: take 2
A good friend who only checks her email periodically let me know a few days after I mentioned my “search for volunteers”:http://revjim.net/2006/08/17/lighting-on-location/ that my request may have seemed a bit clinical.
She’s right. It did.
I tried to answer every question I could, weed out all of the “just a little bit interested” people up front, and give a clear indication of the intent while still not laying out every detail and setting the session in stone before it even starts. In doing so, I gave a very cold feeling. So, let’s try this again.
I’m trying to perfect a new technique for on-location lighting as well as branch off into a new genre of photography. Since practice makes perfect, I’m looking for subjects. There will be no cost to you and you’ll receive several web sized images from the shoot as well as the opportunity to buy prints of the images at a highly discounted rate.
Mostly, I’m interested in you, my friends and acquaintances. I’m also interested in your significant other, your mom, your dog, your best friend, your 2 year old child and anyone else close to you.
Aside from your willingness to make some amazing photographs, I need a location. I know you’ve all got something worth pointing a camera at, I just need to hear about it. That old barn or shed behind the house, that ratty old couch you can’t seem to part with, and the hood of your hot ’67 Chevy are all great locations. An antique bathtub, your neighborhood laundromat, your favorite park bench, and your collection of snow-globes from around the world would also work wonderfully. Really, anything that is either interesting to look at, or interesting to you will most likely work. I’d rather get too many suggestions than not enough so let me know and we’ll talk it over.
Once we get the location pinned down, we’ll throw in outfits and props and make something outstanding. Not only is it a lot of fun, giving you a chance to let loose, be silly, and dig deep into yourself, but you’ll get some really cool images to send to loved ones and keep for yourself to look at many years down the road and remember that aspect of your life.
So… what are you waiting for?
volunteers wanted: lighting on location
I’ve got more pictures than I can count to edit (well over 2000), a book to finish (which I’m sending in again tonight), a project to produce (Skins anyone?), a website to launch (Arranging Light), an Exhibit to prepare for, some advertising material to produce, a whole host of business tasks to attend to (expense tracking, mileage recording, advertising to send out, checks to cash, etc), and a nice pile of personal things to accomplish (social events, laundry, cleaning, unpacking my bags, spoiling my wife, etc), a new MySpace to create and promote, some code to write to help keep my online existence up to date, and a million other things that I’ve forgotten or simply don’t have the time to enumerate.
Given all of that, I’m not quite sure why I’m eager to take on more work, but, I am.
I really want to dig deeper into making well lit environmental portraits and art outside of the studio using portable lighting techniques. So, that’s right, you guessed it, I’m looking for volunteers. If you or someone you know would like your portrait made, or if you’d like to be a part of art that I create, or if you’d just like to volunteer your body as clay for me to mold, I want to hear from you.
I only ask for four things from my potential subjects:
* You will provide or assist in acquiring props, clothing, costumes, and makeup.
* You will provide, acquire, or suggest a location (preferably indoors considering the heat) that is interesting, adds something to the photograph and is something that you (or a character you would like to portray) care about.
* You are flexible, creative, and willing to work together to make an idea happen.
The final item is the most important and deserves to be separated from the others.
* You are punctual.
As my time is very limited and I take this work very seriously, I would ask that you respect the time and effort that I put into this as well. I find that people are more apt to be serious with something and follow through with that commitment when they have something to lose. Therefore, I will charge a $25 sitting fee for anyone who wishes to schedule an appointment. If you wish to work together without an appointment and you can keep a very flexible schedule then we can work together on a “day-of” basis in which I will contact you on a day that I find myself without a schedule and we’ll make arrangements to meet that day having previously planned out and prepared for the shoot. If you absolutely cannot afford $25 and you need to make an appointment, let me know that and we’ll try to work something out.
The longer you wait the less available I’m likely to be, and I won’t be willing to do this for peanuts forever. So, email me today (daniel AT djamesphoto DOT com) and we’ll work it out and make something beautiful together.
alone
There are a few down sides to coming home after 5 days of travelling alone and deciding to relax and not leave the house for the next 24 hours.
First of all, not only had I been very alone for 5 days, but I opted to be alone for another day after that. Silly.
Secondly, since I cleared the house of food before I left, there’s not much to eat. So, combined with yesterday’s terrible lunch in Barnett, TX, and last night’s dinner of popcorn, I had a feast of more popcorn for breakfast this morning, and that’s it. I could go to the grocery store in order to buy something for dinner, but, there’s a lot of stuff we need and I hate wasting a trip, so, first I’d have to make a list, then drive there, then do all the shopping, then drive all the way back, then put all the stuff away. By the time I’m done, it’ll be at least 2 hours and I’d still have to make dinner. So, the only sensible option is to eat out (again) and then do grocery shopping either later tonight or tomorrow morning. The only problem is, eating out means eating out alone again and, for me, the only way to make being alone feel even more lonely is to be alone in a place where people rarely go alone.
But, hungry I am, and eat I must, and out there, food there is. I don’t know why I’m writing like Yoda.
Sweet Tequila Blues
I’ve always felt a deep connection to music but never realized how easily music can recal memories for me until now. It wasn’t long ago that I fell in love with “Since U Been Gone”:http://revjim.net/2005/03/11/random-thoughts/, a truly terrible song that I absolutely love. I can hear that song now and feel the immense freedom and daunting uncertainty that I felt then.
I heard “Sweet Tequila Blues” by Carrie Rodriguez and Chip Taylor for the first time just this past week and I’ve got it on repeat now. Even though I can still feel “Wanderlust”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderlust pumping in my veins, this song brings that feeling to the very surface of my being. I’m just grateful that it’s actually a *good* song this time.
I keep lookin for it, I hope I never find it.
If I get close to it just put me on a train.
And get me back to Austin, oh damn, I miss that town.
Got them sweet tequila blues comin’ down.
You can hear a sample of the song from thier “Let’s Leave This Town”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?link_code=ur2&tag=revjimnet-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&location=%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2FB00006HICJ%3Fv%3Dglance%26n%3D5174 at Amazon.
Exploring Home
At some point during my West Texas excursion I realized that, while the culture is entirely different as is the landscape, there are plenty of small towns surrounding the Dallas / Fort Worth area begging to be explored and photographed. While an excursion is certainly fun, it a shame that there’s so much nearby that I haven’t seen. I’ve decided that, while more excursions are now a necessity, in the time that I’m home I’m going to explore DFW just like I would another other town.
So, tonight I’m going to start by exploring one of the smaller, nearby towns, and there are plenty of them: Prosper, Celina, Aubrey, Pilot Point, and Tioga, just to name a few. If you’re interested in coming along, let me know. The food may not be good, the weather may not be great, and the people may not be talkative, but, I promise a good time or your money back.