Excellent point, Chuck!
Now that the arc of my “career” as a landscape photographer marketing pretty
pictures to tourists has come to an end, I can draw a few conclusions.
My efforts were more successful than I had expected, but never achieved the
level I thought they were capable of. This is because I entered the fray pretty
much ignorant of reality, and harbored unrealistic expectations. Even in my two
best years of selling pretty pictures to tourists, I did not earn a living
wage. I earned enough to provide a few things that would otherwise have been
forgone, and to buy a couple of wheelbarrow loads of equipment—starting with a
confiscated OM-2N, and working my way through a Fuji GSW690iii, a couple of
4x5s, an Olympus E-1, a Nikon D3 and a Nikon D800. Oh, and the Fuji X-100s that
remains, now the totality of my kit. <g>
But . . . and this is a huge BUT . . .
I live in one of the most popular vacation areas of the country. Every year we
are flooded by the populations of New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire, with more than a smattering
of Canadian and other international visitors, and an awfully lot of people from
the far flung corners of the US. The particular area where I live has its share
of tourists, but the bread-and-butter is summer people, and people who rent
cabins, cottages and camps for one-two-three or more weeks a year. These were
the people who bought my photos. They were looking specifically for images of
this area. Familiar landmarks drew them, and drew their wallets out of their
pockets.
When I tried to step outside the bounds of my particular area—in essence the
Pemaquid peninsula—I did not fare so well. I spent much time in Acadia National
Park and obtained more than a few striking images there. With a few exceptions,
they did not sell well—hardly at all—in my local venues. And, even though my
focus was images tourists would like on their walls, occasionally I wandered
into the more esoteric dimensions that define, oh, the term “fine art” comes to
mind. Again with a few exceptions, these images fell flat. They simply didn’t
sell.
In order to raise my game to a level where the fine art stuff would have found
its market, I would have to have gone full-immersion, which would have included
spending inordinate amounts of time, energy and money schlepping my work from
gallery to gallery to gallery to big-name, big-name and big-name. It is/was a
game I decided was not worth the playing. I like my life. I love my wife and my
children (and Herself, the little Persian jumping pistachio) and the time I
have to sit and ponder, to read and study whatever comes to mind and grabs my
attention. Okay, a lot of that is detective fiction, but I take refuge in the
fact that detective fiction is where all the really cool people hang out when
they’re not engaged in whatever it is really cool people engage in. (I don’t
mean pop-culture celebrities. I mean cool people of discerning taste and
intellect and most importantly, humor—one reason I never will part with my “I
Agree With AG” t-shirt.)
For all intents and purposes, it is impossible to achieve real success in the
arts these days unless you are willing to sacrifice your life. A writing
teacher at the University of Miami, which whom I had a stimulating conversation
New Year’s Eve, brought to my attention a quote by Yeats: “The intellect of man
is forced to choose/Perfection of the life, or of the work.” Many chose to try
for the work, and the vast majority fall short. Life isn’t that much easier,
but it is achievable if you’re willing to make a rather small sacrifice of ego.
I think it was Buckminster Fuller who once said that fame, fortune, prizes,
awards, accolades and adulation were “booby prizes.” The real achievement, he
said, was a good life. Or, to borrow from the song by eden abhez, “The greatest
thing you’ll ever learn/Is just to love and be loved in return.”
I also learned something else: Enjoy the process. Don’t worry so much about the
product. One aspect of my production sold well, for the reasons outlined above.
Others did not. But I still enjoyed, and intend to continue to enjoy the
process. That’s where the magic is. The product is just an artifact.
Sorry for the meander . . .
--Bob Whitmire
Certified Neanderthal
PS: the OM List Language Constabulary is cordially invited to assess my use of
tenses in the above and advise me where I have fallen short. <g>
On Jan 11, 2015, at 9:25 AM, Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Your photography is fine. Finding what's marketable to the masses (of iPhone
> photographers) is a different question. :-)
>
> Chuck Norcutt
>
>
> On 1/11/2015 3:52 AM, bj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> I have also become disillusioned with the "success" or otherwise of my
>> photography.
--
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