On Being A Professional Photogapher...Tell us your story, please...

I started in the newspaper biz at 13, working a summer in the back shop of the small town weekly: folding inserts and sweeping the floor. But hanging around that print shop did it's damage. The sound and smell of the presses and linotype; handling the newspapers. Printer's Ink. Caught up in the romance, in the old fashioned way.

I was writing little things not long afterward.
The photography came naturally.
The paper was the conduit,
and I got to meet some heroes during the high school years.
Lots of 'old hands' helped me along.

And my little town ( not far from Schwab's ) had some remarkable newspaper guys at the time. It was just a natural thing.

By the time I was ready to head out into The World,
the camera was had become My Way.

During college, I carried a Filmo under the car seat for spot TV news ( before video, kids ).

Did little jobs on weekends that paid college bills,
and did photolab work in the school biophysics lab,
shot theatre and nightclub stuff;
interviewed old soldiers,miners,and ranch hands - guys out of my hemingway / hammett soaked imagination.

Met more real shooters.

One thing led to another.
One night I was holed up in the office of a small town daily,
riding out a Rocky Mountain blizzard, when the teletype went off.

It sounded like WW3, but it was worse.

Life magazine announced it's final issue.

There would be no brass ring. :confused:

It's all been dip and dunk ever since.

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Early Riser said:

Bill, I agree that luck is a factor, but it seems that those who are dedicated and put long and hard effort into their work seem to attract more luck than those who do not.

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I also believe in making you own "luck".

But that being said, I also believe "life" is about learning lessons, and for whatever reasons, somethings just are not "meant to be".


Michael

Back in my days in L.A., my mom was an artist, lots of great paintings and drawings. She had a studio out back, and one day decided to take a photo class at UCLA. She built a darkroom in a closet of the studio. Guess who used it more than her!! That was in highschool. Luckily, my parents were very supportive, and despite putting 3,000 miles between me and them, they agreed to art school in NYC.

After school, and floundering around a few odd jobs, I landed in DC, and found a position with a small photo agency that represented a number of National Geographic photographers. Great to plow through the outtakes, and I learned just how those big stories are organized! Sold reproduction rights to all sorts of folks for all sorts of uses. One client, U.S.News eventually had an opening for a photo researcher, and managed to land it! Got promoted a few times, and was a photo editor there for over seven years. Fun job... bossing photographers and sending them all over the place!

Got married, moved to New England for hubby's job, and had a temporary stint at Yankee magazine when the photo editor took a leave of absence. When that job ended, I decided to take a year off. I felt that I'd had enough of magazine work, but was unsure about what to do next, when I got pregnant.

So... decision was made! Did the mom thing, and started to photograph again with the same intensity I had in highschool, and college. Focussed the lens on my kids, and started to think that my original plan of being a photographer may yet come to fruition.

Built the darkroom, and have worked part-time for the past two years doing children's portraits. With my younger one off to kindergarten this fall, I'm hoping to create a more full time job for myself. Actually doing a little marketing this fall!

So, as Les said... I'm having a go at it.

df cardwell said:

There would be no brass ring. :confused:

It's all been dip and dunk ever since.

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Great one Don! I gotta say that those newspaper days were some of the best. Nothing like newspeople. I even married one! My wife spills more words in a week at her daily than I've written in a lifetime I think. Sadly not the business it once was though.

Early Riser said:

I agree that luck is a factor, but it seems that those who are dedicated and put long and hard effort into their work seem to attract more luck than those who do not.

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I can't agree more Brian, but lighting has struck more than a few times and I don't want to tweak the nose on the gods of humility. I've seen it all crash down a few times too.

I enjoyed hearing of your path as well. (funny as my first solo was at a place called "eye-Browse"... ugh) Those were cool days in the PD, weren't they? All the things you described were a big factor in giving-up NY. I could see if I took that path that I would never get where I wanted to be. It was a BIG decision to leave it behind and come back to the Midwest, but I had no desire to keep all those overhead balls in the air. Fortunately I have never regretted the choice! Just paying your studio space must have been a monthy stress! I remember the prices were going through the roof in those days in the photo district. We moved from 23rd at that time down to 1st between 10th and 11th. Photographers were going to Little Italy, the alphabets and Brooklyn in numbers as I remember. It was a great time in New York though. I remember anticipating all the new Haring drawings in the Subways each morning, before I even knew who he was. I could go on... the place was so alive. I have grand memories of those times. What a place.

Bill

billschwab said:

I remember anticipating all the new Herring drawings in the Subways each morning, before I even knew who he was. I could go on... the place was so alive. I have grand memories of those times. What a place.

Bill

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I think that was "Haring" in the subway. Herring you can get at Zabar's.

David A. Goldfarb said:

I think that was "Haring" in the subway. Herring you can get at Zabar's.

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LOL!!!! Thanks David! Must have fish on my mind.

Bill

I'm starving, don't mention Zabar's.


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markbb said:

I'm aware that there are some lucky people who always enjoy their work, some of them are even pro photographers, but sadly for most us it's now just a Job.

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It may be just a JOB, but I still love it...it reminds me of an intern we had at work several years ago. The student just did not *get it*. They kept whining about "when do I get to do something fun?". Unreal--it's a job, get used to it, kid (like I'm some old-timer myself, ha!).

One thing that happened to me recently, has been a pleasant surprise. One part of my job is to produce prints for museum exhibits around our state, through our system. I usually have to work with a mix of old copy negs, original negatives and newer copy negs. The old stuff, runs the gamut of being produced as far back as 100 yrs ago. These are pretty hit & miss. Some are great, some are okay, and some are horrible. I always try to make them look the best as I can, as reasonably possible. I feel like I've actually become a better printer, from having to make so many prints from lousy negatives.

My favorite negatives to work with, are the originals that come out of the newspaper and commercial studio archives. I particularly like the 4x5 negs from the 30s-50s, and the smaller formats of the 60s. It's like a time machine almost--I have printed Civil Rights sit-ins, protests, even some pretty awful things like cross burnings, and all sorts of ugly stuff. But it's just amazing to work with the originals.

When it comes to copy work--some people take a different approach and just crank stuff out. I always tried (try) to make the best copy negs I can, and that lead me to approach it like the zone system almost--and I got into filtering, cross polarization, and using batch development to tweak the contrast & extract detail out of these old images--I got into ortho copy films and all sorts of arcane stuff now in the scheme of things...

I started documenting (reformatting) a photo collection back in the late 90s for a book project. Years passed, and the project came & went and the negs sat largely unused in a file. There were hundreds of them, btw.Then last year, the museum planned a small exhibit around these photos and we quietly put it together at the beginning of this year. It was a pretty humble beginning for the exhibit, and we thought they were neat photos, that had been used off & on for 50 yrs or so in textbooks and the like, but they're relatively obscure photos. I really didn't expect the level of interest from the outside though--some of the people I work with, did--they felt very strongly about the images, whereas I had been copying them for years, and it had gotten to the point, where I really wanted to move on to another project. I did the printing though, and painstakingly toned each print (16x20s) and we assembled this exhibit.

It opened a month or two ago, and the public support for it, has been just astounding--surprising to me almost. I have had photographers in town, tell me how great the prints look and how they can't believe that we managed to get such detail out of the originals. To me--my work is usually in the background, and nobody really cares about what goes on in exhibit production really. This has been a real compliment for me, personally, because I know that copywork is often derided. I think this is why it comes as a surprise to many people, that you can make a good print off a copy neg--because a lot of people don't take the time & effort in the first place.


So---it's like I was trying to explain to our intern (who we almost failed by the way, and the school that sent him, didn't send another intern for about 5 years also). It may be *boring* to you--but it's important in the scheme of things, especially in an institution as old as these, where whatever you produce will live on past your life even. I want people to see my negatives, whether originals or copies--50, 75 yrs from now and look forward to working with them, from the point of view of CRAFT. Not be something that you have to work to make a so-so print out of.

so, yes--it's a job. sometimes it's boring. sometimes you have to just do it. But I try to approach it as a craft and take pride in it. Sometimes, when you least expect it (as in this exhibit I mention), people notice.

since I'm talkin' work--my opinions only/not my employers.

Bill you may consider luck a factor in your success, but we all know it was talent and hard work. ( And whose talent and hard work you'll never disclose!!!

I do miss those early days of my career and the life of the photo district. It was pretty glamourous in some ways. As a photographer I got invited to all the hotspots, I guess the assumption was that photographers always brought models with them. Also photographers had a certain status back then which seems to be missing nowadays. It really was a hayday.

Maintaining the studio was extremely stressful, having paid studio rents approaching $10k a month with clients that required that you lay out huge sums of money and then wait 90 days or more to get paid. And I'm not talking small businesses making you wait that long, I'm talking banks, credit card companies etc. It seemed that the companies most insistent that people pay them promptly always tended to be those that paid the slowest. Have you noticed that? I guess it was good training for dealing with galleries!!

The toughest thing was realizing the 'pals' you made doing good work for
turned my bill over to the accounting department, whose sole reason for existence was to pay as slowly as possible to let the company make another 1/2 percent.

Collecting has always been a bitch: I never got into the business to knock heads
with 'suits'.

EVERY school should teach the reality of The Fine Print.

It has nothing to do with making pictures.

And join ASMP.

Early Riser said:

It seemed that the companies most insistent that people pay them promptly always tended to be those that paid the slowest. Have you noticed that?

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Say no more! I took it personally for a lot of years.

Early Riser said:

I guess it was good training for dealing with galleries!!

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You got that right!!!!!! It never ceases to amaze me how we seem to always be the last paid!

I see from Don's post that he too is well familiar with the "business" of being a photographer.

Bill

billschwab said:

Say no more! I took it personally for a lot of years.
You got that right!!!!!! It never ceases to amaze me how we seem to always be the last paid!

I see from Don's post that he too is well familiar with the "business" of being a photographer.

Bill

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And when you are a 9-5 employee, making a regular paycheck, your employer acts like they own you; calls in the middle of the night, weekends, two weeks vacation, if you are lucky (most likely a few days off, here and there).

I earn a paycheck as a photometric tech. I guess that counts. All this LF stuff is relax mode for me though.

Let's say you've got a missile that you want to have land at spot X and it's traveling about 960 ft. per second. You'd really like to know how fast it was really going, what the angle was in flight and what if any difference the angle of the unit was compared to the angle of flight and spin rate if there is one. You'd also like to know within a thousandth of a second when it hit the ground. I can build you a camera array that will get you all that info.

I picked up my Nikon FG about 1985 or so because I wanted to make some pretty pictures of my Postwar Lionel train layout. I didn't have a clue. So I had to buy some books and learn how to use my Nikon. That led of course to better lenses and better Nikon's. (Not that much better, an FE was all I ever needed). Soon I got more interested in the cameras than the trains and yet another expensive bad habit was born.

By the time I came to work out here on the test range in 1994 I was doing 4X5 work. I came out here as an electrician but got to be very good friends with the guy in the photo shop who was also into 4X5. To make a very long story short, when they offered him a very nice early retirement package we conspired to move me into this photometric job from the electrical work. I spent a year getting up to speed on the high speed movie cameras but most of the building blocks I needed were already in place. Of all the old timers that retired, the photometric job was the most seamless transition they experienced out here.

So while I make my pay as a pro photog the LF stuff that I chatter about here at the forum is still just hobby. I plan to keep it that way. I try to make the hobby pay it's way by horsetrading on Ebay and that frees me up to just give the pretty pictures away.

roteague said:

And when you are a 9-5 employee, making a regular paycheck, your employer acts like they own you; calls in the middle of the night, weekends, two weeks vacation, if you are lucky (most likely a few days off, here and there).

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Robert, for the first 15 years of my career I was working far more hours than 9-5, working 6-7 days a week and at the beckon call of my clients. At a certain point that all changed and my life became much easier, but there's very little security when you have your own business, all of the pressure is on you with few if any people to help shoulder the load. Granted I would never want to be a full time employee of some company, but for those who currently work 9-5 and dream of having their own business, believe me when I say that you'll be working twice as hard in your own shop. When you have your own business, you are never far from it.

jimgalli said:

Let's say you've got a missile...

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Man... I always wondered what you did for a day job Jim. I can imagine it must be pretty fascinating.

Bill

roteague said:

And when you are a 9-5 employee, making a regular paycheck, your employer acts like they own you; calls in the middle of the night, weekends, two weeks vacation, if you are lucky (most likely a few days off, here and there).

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As a 9 to 5 er, You're not asked to finance your employer's business,
free-lancers are. When you understand that, you can prepare YOUR
business accordingly. You don't own, you rent: rentals are the clients
responsibility. And so on.

In my case, and the reason I mentioned it, is that I drifted from being an employee ( in the days it was a respectable thing to be ) to being an 'entrepreneur'.... which is a big word for 'fresh bait'. I wasn't prepared and suffered until I caught on. The world changes, be ready. Learn the rules, play by 'em.

That's all.

billschwab said:

Man... I always wondered what you did for a day job Jim. I can imagine it must be pretty fascinating.

Bill

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It is a cool job and I consider myself very lucky. Today I'm working on a Bridgeport mill making a new camera table for a digital conversion.

roteague said:

And when you are a 9-5 employee, making a regular paycheck, your employer acts like they own you; calls in the middle of the night, weekends, two weeks vacation, if you are lucky (most likely a few days off, here and there).

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Are you speaking from experience? I though the Iron curtain went down 15 years ago, nowadays employers can't get away with such crap?

Early Riser said:

Robert, for the first 15 years of my career I was working far more hours than 9-5, working 6-7 days a week and at the beckon call of my clients. At a certain point that all changed and my life became much easier, but there's very little security when you have your own business, all of the pressure is on you with few if any people to help shoulder the load. Granted I would never want to be a full time employee of some company, but for those who currently work 9-5 and dream of having their own business, believe me when I say that you'll be working twice as hard in your own shop. When you have your own business, you are never far from it.

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I understand, what you do isn't easy. I was just making a point being an employee, and trading security for control. When you work for yourself, you do give up a measure of control as well, especially when you are first starting out.

markbb said:

Are you speaking from experience? I though the Iron curtain went down 15 years ago, nowadays employers can't get away with such crap?

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They do in the US. Most Americans only get 2 weeks vacation (holiday) per year (I get one), not the 5 or 6 weeks Europeans get. 40 hours may be the law, but a lot of the people I work with do at least 10 hours a week, unpaid.

markbb said:

Are you speaking from experience? I though the Iron curtain went down 15 years ago, nowadays employers can't get away with such crap?

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I think you will find that the people who are employed in "The City" work considerably longer hours than the average factory bloke. With a blackberry your never far from the office no matter where on the planet you are at!

My wife manages staff in NY, London, HK and Tokyo. They conduct regular global conference calls which means at the same time some folks are home either before or after "workday" and others are "in the office".

We who work for paychecks are not all time clock stampers.

markbb said:

Are you speaking from experience? I though the Iron curtain went down 15 years ago, nowadays employers can't get away with such crap?

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Insert rueful laughter here

But I think we're drifting a little.

roteague said:

They do in the US. Most Americans only get 2 weeks vacation (holiday) per year (I get one), not the 5 or 6 weeks Europeans get. 40 hours may be the law, but a lot of the people I work with do at least 10 hours a week, unpaid.

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Boy back when I was working for an employer, I worked quite a bit more hours than I got paid for! Now that we run our own business's, I can at least say I am always getting paid, even it is only about 5 cents and hour!

LOL

Dave

my wife is a freelancer actually--and has been in business for a little more than ten years now, and is a very good business person. I'm just not that good--I'm the type of person who makes a good employee. I was never good at dealing with the business end, which is probably why my freelance career has been so spotty.

I realize now--that this was what made me a good newspaper type photographer, and then later on how I wound up being this museum staffer--when I never set out to do that formally. I just gravitated to working for someone else....I guess it's the security in the end.

But my wife always says that if the phone isn't ringing, you're not working...she has no days off. no sick leave. It's hard as hell to get out of town and take some time off, because work is always there. But it's good to be busy...

Me--otoh--I'm always busy, but it's on a schedule. There's a lifetime of work--and then there are these exhibits and patron work that keep us going as well. But my time is accounted for. I accrue annual leave, sick leave, comp time etc. If I have to work OT, I get time and a half (comp). If I work a holiday, I get paid extra and get another day off.

I didn't get a raise for a couple of years, because the gov't was out of money more or less. what I got instead was vacation time, that I could carry indefinitely. I now have a couple of months of vacation leave, and I have months of sick leave. All that I can cash in towards retirement someday.

I'm also vested. I get a percentage of my salary every year as a bonus. So, I have become a company photographer. The trade offs are what probably a lot of people here would see as maybe being something that would be like "working for the Man". But, everything is supplied. When I travel--I get vehicles, I get a little card & a key with access to gas pumps all over the place. I get food & lodging. I don't have to worry about insurance--no liabilility inusrance or equipment, or worker's comp issues etc. I have pretty good health benefits, and I'll have a pension as well. These are all the sorts of business things that will eat you alive in the freelance world, or the small business world.

like I said--I consider myself to be lucky, and I do like my job as well. I know that some people would feel boxed in this way though, but I'm also of a mindset where I personally feel like downsizing my life. I don't need fancy cars, a big house or anything. All that is a trap, imho. I made this tradeoff a long time ago, and I just figure if I can make out my time, retire--then I can do what I want to do. I'll be about in my early 50s when I can retire. That's when I'll plan my second career as a museum curator and move into the higher pay grades (snark). I'll be like the old timers at the newspaper lab and the archives lab--the guys who put in 30+ yrs of service and regaled me with stories of shooting football games on one sheet of film with the speed graphics. Or who traveled across the state to shoot an inauguration with one holder for 8x10 film. They were all company guys as well--and they put in 30-35 years of service and saw a whole change of the industry as well. I don't have a problem with that--I admire them for it.

my opinions only, as always

Oh Lucky Man

You asked for it.

Late 1950's:
Wander into the William Jeannes library in Plymouth Meeting Pa. and discover
paperback books illustrated by Richard Powers. The librarian tells me all about him and his art. My brain completely shifts to the right side. I can no longer able to add 2+2. If it is not visual I'm not interested. As a pre teen and a teen this caused a lot of problems that I and all my alleged mentors never recognized.

1969:
See an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art by AA and Jerry Uellsman.
I am transfixed by Moonrise. My feet are stuck to the ground. Why don't my photos look like this?

August 1971:
Saturday night in a bar in Bryn Mawr Pa. I start talking to the guy next to me and eventually get around to telling him that I will be going to Brooks Institute in February of '72. He looks startled and tells me, as he is getting progressively more and more sloshed, that he graduated from Brooks and was something of a big wheel there. Of course I don't believe him and as a challenge I tell him to call Brooks and tell them I want to start school before February. HA HA.

August 1971, monday two days later
I'm at work at Vernon Graphics in Norristown Pa. I'm the b&w printer. My job was to print 10x10 aerial negs. I printed the entire state of Colorade photographed from 32,000 ft. My wife calls and says that Brooks called and wants me to start school on friday. That guy in the bar was for real. To go or not to go? We went . I was in school the following monday. I recently bought one of those inspirational postcards. The message was,"isn't it funny that ,WHAT THE HELL, is usually your best choice"? Story of my life.

1971-1974
Santa Barbara, California, Brooks Institute.
This town was, simply the garden of Eden. There is no more beautiful place on earth. I know. I've looked. Brooks, on the other hand , was a trial. It was a great school, I suppose, with a great reputation but completely wrong for me. I was already 24 year old and I had to graduate from somewhere. I made it through and graduated in '74. My by now very pregnant wife by my side. Our departure from Santa Barbara was memorable. Up the coast for about 200 miles when the engine in my VW van siezed and blew up. A week in Los Banos California seemed like a month.

1974-1979
Couldn't find a job in Philly and was becoming desperate. I asked my father to get me into the apprentice program in his union. The loyal brotherhood of Boilermakers and Pipefitters. I would have apprenticed as a welder. His decision was crucial to my and our life. He turned me down. Just daid, "No".
Working on high steel is a noble job but I'm eternally grateful that in his wisdom he did say no. So I found work in a brick plant. A refractory, and made bricks by day and at night I worked in a lab making color prints and Cibachromes. I got laid off there and kicked around Philly for the next four years doing weddings, working in camera stores etc. I was always making photographs for myself no matter what my paying job was.

1979-1991
I've always wante to teach so I sent out 300 resumes to schools around the country. Was I ever naive. I sent resumes to Yale, RISD etc. One of these resumes found its way tho the Photojournalism department at Indiana Univ. John Althauser read it and promptly threw it in the wastebasket. Then he reconsidered and asked his wife if they taught photography at the campus of Ivy Tech State College in Columbus In. She said they did and would give them the resume. I know all this because she eventually became my boss. There was an opening there and inexplicably, I got the job. I spent 12 years there teaching every facet of photography you could imagine. I even taught dye transfer printing. The value of this time was that I was able to teach myself more photography then I could ever learn in a school. I was eventually accepted int the MFA program at IU and spent four years teaching and going to graduate school. My main opus at IU became a documentary study of my heritage in the coal nining region of Eastern Pa. It's a remarkable landscape that I ended up spending about 10 years in. I just roamed the mountains and made photographs.

1991-present
The politics in the Junior College system just blew up and I wanted out. I felt trapped but had resigned myself to staying there. My wife, not me, found a posting for a teaching position in Texas and insisted that I apply. I was very reluctant. Our son was in high school, my wife's career was on the rise, yet she insisted. My wife is a Zen master who can see the future. I've seen many examples of this in our life together. I applied, got the position and have been in Texas ever since teaching Fine Art photography.
Life is funny. Nothing is causeless. You are never really in charge.
Thanks for listening.
Jack B aka Severian-Autarch of Urth