Self Employed

[eddie]

I would caution you a bit on that one, that assumes he would enjoy making the images as much in that manner and I think only he can answer to that.

Specifically is that at the end of the day, what makes an image or print better than another is the emotive output of it, the impact of the image it self. As a person who uses both the digital and analog medium to arrive at final images, I most often have a greater appreciation and an entirely different connection with the darkroom based print. And for many of us, photography is like life, the journey is the life and the life you lived are the images you have made are the record.

The journey one takes to arrive at the image can make a big difference in what is contained in the image when all is said and done. Futhermore, I find a lot of the high end interior designers I either sell silver gel prints to or are commissioned by to create bodies of works for multi-million dollar homes like the fact they can upsell the story of how the prints were made, in a darkroom vs a button push in Lightroom.

To some customers the aspect of digital vs hand made in a darkroom will matter and a good photographer who thrives in that vein will know how to find those customers and vice versa.

jtk is such an acolyte of digital, often claiming some imaginary "superiority", that he fails to realize that the most important aspect of creating compelling images is in the creator's passion for the process. The joy of creating the image is what drives us all, whether digital or traditional. Rather than embrace that reality, he'd rather toss about smug, useless comments. I'd like to see his personal work which backs up his claims of superiority.

 

[kminov]

I happen to like analog images more, mostly for the visual depth and character that the small imperfections bring. To my eye, digital is flat. That said, I cannot imagine doing commercial work on film, the time constraints and the margin for error far outweigh any artistic considerations. There seems to be a time and place for both and there's really no need to value one more than the other.

 

[removed account4]

jtk is such an acolyte of digital, often claiming some imaginary "superiority", that he fails to realize that the most important aspect of creating compelling images is in the creator's passion for the process. The joy of creating the image is what drives us all, whether digital or traditional. Rather than embrace that reality, he'd rather toss about smug, useless comments. I'd like to see his personal work which backs up his claims of superiority.

i see what you are saying, and he did post some of his images, but to be honest its all just opinion. he also suggests that people who struggle in a extremely tight market are lazy, and that one can just stroll in off the street to ad agencies, publicists, architecture firms without appointments and just demand to see creative directors &c. and that dye transfer printing was done by every mom and pop portrait studio across america (and the process wasn't complicated or time consuming) but ... people who have done hustled photography in the last 20-30 years, know what he says might not be true everywhere. maybe in a small town where everyone knows eachother, and a small town where the local photographer DID dye transfers on a regular basis &c .. who knows .. cause it doesnt' matter. like everything on the internet its just opinion from random people who may or may not be who they claim they are.
couldn't agree with you more eddie, sure digital is great, sure film is great .. but these things don't matter if the person shooting don't care. and the markets they are working are over crowded with the old boy / old girl network where people only hire their pals from school &c, or the system is corrupt in other ways, none of these things matter cause you could be the best there is, but if no one hires you, you'll still be eating potatoes every night for dinner.

as with everything YMMV

 

[jtk]

jtk is such an acolyte of digital, often claiming some imaginary "superiority", that he fails to realize that the most important aspect of creating compelling images is in the creator's passion for the process. The joy of creating the image is what drives us all, whether digital or traditional. Rather than embrace that reality, he'd rather toss about smug, useless comments. I'd like to see his personal work which backs up his claims of superiority.

You failed to read the OT. Bitterness hinders joys.

The key OT concept is "self-employed"...employment = income. "Joy" in self-employment entails success.

I found it easy to create a good (joyful) studio photo business because I was inspired (Minor White friends) and wasn't lazy.

 

[jtk]

I do not think i have Ever Heard/Read that word before now.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flaneur

It's a wonderful word. In another era and a walkable city (like San Francisco or Paris or NYC) I think I'd be one.

 

[jtk]

i see what you are saying, and he did post some of his images, but to be honest its all just opinion. he also suggests that people who struggle in a extremely tight market are lazy, and that one can just stroll in off the street to ad agencies, publicists, architecture firms without appointments and just demand to see creative directors &c. and that dye transfer printing was done by every mom and pop portrait studio across america (and the process wasn't complicated or time consuming) but ... people who have done hustled photography in the last 20-30 years, know what he says might not be true everywhere. maybe in a small town where everyone knows eachother, and a small town where the local photographer DID dye transfers on a regular basis &c .. who knows .. cause it doesnt' matter. like everything on the internet its just opinion from random people who may or may not be who they claim they are.
couldn't agree with you more eddie, sure digital is great, sure film is great .. but these things don't matter if the person shooting don't care. and the markets they are working are over crowded with the old boy / old girl network where people only hire their pals from school &c, or the system is corrupt in other ways, none of these things matter cause you could be the best there is, but if no one hires you, you'll still be eating potatoes every night for dinner.

as with everything YMMV

Mr Jnanian/nantz, Using two names you've obsessively tracked my posts for several years, misrepresenting them. "Who knows" and "it doesn't matter" are weak alibis, nothing more. Zen attitude may seem similar but isn't alibi...and it involves truth.

 

[Mark Minard]

Stuff like that used to bother me when I was young and idealistic but it no longer does now that I am older, practical and, some say, cynical.
Life is short. At some point, I decided to stop the relentless pursuit of wealth, and more importantly, stop drinking the poison of my own anger and frustration.
As long as I have enough to do what I want to do, not do the crap that I don't want to do, to eat, and travel and have coffee in the morning, and share a bottle of good wine with a friend now and then, I'm good.
As king David (or is it Solomon?) recommends in Ecclesiastes, the best that we can do is to eat and drink and be happy for all of our days.
Live a full life and enjoy it while you can....nothing good comes from being upset about shit that you have no control over and that, ultimately does not matter.

Thank you for this. Sincerely.

 

[Mark Minard]

I do not think i have Ever Heard/Read that word before now.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flaneur

No kidding! That's some hardcore effin' vocabulary right there; not easy to stump me but there you go.. well done jtk! And thanks for the link, you saved me the trouble of typing it into google LOL.

 

[removed account4]

... you've obsessively tracked my posts for several years, misrepresenting them. "Who knows" and "it doesn't matter" are weak alibis, nothing more. Zen attitude may seem similar but isn't alibi...and it involves truth.

naah haven't obsessively tracked or misrepresented anything, and i don't practice zen.
i don't claim to know more than i do, so, who knows and it really doesn't matter and Your Mileage May Vary ( YMMV ) .. seem more fitting.
cause i don't know, and more than likely none of it really matters.
keep posting thought provoking stuff, its more interesting than whether rodinal is the best developer EVER or if one needs to use stop bath
happy photographing in 2020!

 

[jtk]

naah haven't obsessively tracked or misrepresented anything, and i don't practice zen.
i don't claim to know more than i do, so, who knows and it really doesn't matter and Your Mileage May Vary ( YMMV ) .. seem more fitting.
cause i don't know, and more than likely none of it really matters.
keep posting thought provoking stuff, its more interesting than whether rodinal is the best developer EVER or if one needs to use stop bath
happy photographing in 2020!

Happiness to you too! I've started the year off with a couple of 70s/80s Kodachrome projects to digitize with the 30mp rig I built in December ...waiting for one more piece tomorrow to perfect. After that tech marathon i need to work up the gumption (old man term) to do something journalistic...which would be new thang for me.

 

[warden]

I feel that some good photographers I know moved to the video production.

Many important products today require a good video, and a good Pro shows more a difference with a well shot video that's also well edited.

For the portariture, many customers have lost the reference to judge a good job. Today people is used to "nose jobs" in the selfies, and as people themselve make the selfies they conclude that a big nose is nice

So the thing is hard for pro photographers...

This makes sense. Even people with limited visual vocabulary can spot a shaky or amateurish video, but it's harder for them to spot an amateurish still image.

 

[removed account4]

Happiness to you too! I've started the year off with a couple of 70s/80s Kodachrome projects to digitize with the 30mp rig I built in December ...waiting for one more piece tomorrow to perfect. After that tech marathon i need to work up the gumption (old man term) to do something journalistic...which would be new thang for me.

< looking for the like button ! >
excellent !
its never easy to leave our comfort zone and push our limits ( both tech wise and making photographs wise )!
not sure if it is a NYR ( new year resolution) but its a great one

 

[jtk]

The piece I needed arrived last week, a unique Omega neg carrier, enabling me to digitize about 500 old Kodachromes using a 30mp Samsung/Pentax-macro. rig. Nearly as high resolution as Nikonscan of several same slides, but if course don't suffer Nikonscan/Kodachromes color problem. Big fun! Nice enough to make me miss Kodachrome. I did a lot of that cc1970 using Sickles/Zeiss camera and EKs excellent E4 dupe film. Time flies...important to have fun and avoid cynics.

 

[removed account4]

important to have fun and avoid cynics

you can say that again; too many turkeys to get people down !!

 

[Deleted member 88956]

Back when I worked in a camera store, we had a customer who loved to shoot "nature". One day he brought in a slide of a Mountain Goat, standing on a pinnacle of rock, illuminated by the setting sun. It was beautiful. We all told him that he should send the picture to National Geographic and they would probably pay him for it. I never forgot his answer. No, I will never "sell" any of my pictures because if I did, from then on, I would think about whether I could possible sell any picture that I took, ruining a good hobby. Something to think about........Regards!

Any hobby is fun with added bonus of not having to do it when other things in life take priorities. Once that hobby becomes basis of making a living, it changes everything, eventually (or instantly) turning into an unnecessary necessity.

It is one thing to have a job one likes, another to have life dependent on what once was plain fun. Never mind the untethered creativity of a hobby strangled by "creativity" needed to please commerce.

 

[jtk]

Any hobby is fun with added bonus of not having to do it when other things in life take priorities. Once that hobby becomes basis of making a living, it changes everything, eventually (or instantly) turning into an unnecessary necessity.

It is one thing to have a job one likes, another to have life dependent on what once was plain fun. Never mind the untethered creativity of a hobby strangled by "creativity" needed to please commerce.

Somehow I doubt people like Capa and Penn...and Ansel Adams and Frank for that matter, felt their "creativity was stifled" by photographing for their incomes. I've heard that line occasionally from envious people, however.

 

[removed account4]

Cheryl is great, and I know at least one other "Mom with Camera" who is also great.

lady down the road from me is absolutely fantastic, i just wish she'd ask 10x more for the CD when she delivers her work !

 

[mark]

It is from where I take shots !

Just I've visited your location and mine is better, come here!!

We have more californians having fun:



In fact the man who discovered San Francisco Bay (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_de_Portolá) had his home in the same street I'm living, there is a connection.

I love videos like that. Thanks for posting.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

part of theproblem is that companies are more brazen than they used to be.
sure back in the day a company would hire someone to do work and after it was done
stiff the photographer or after they had the images in hand not hire them to do the other jobs promised.but
with image platforms with millions of images and where the bar is lowered now so close to the ground
the human noodle can't limbo under it ... people see stuff on the web and if they can get away with
not paying much for it they will. someone here on this website a handful of years ago was contacted by
some big company ( mcD's ? Coca? IDK ) to use his/her image in one of their campaigns and they would pay him/her like
100 bucks for it. he/she was happy to be noticed and took the $$ and saved the company like 15-grand.
i was contacted a while ago too ..

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/huuuuge-opportunity.162067/

I'm contacted a fair amount for photographs I've taken, however, it's usually because they want to use it for free and are asking permission before just taking it. I do a fair amount of stock and urban photography. You'd be amazed at how often you'd be contacted because somebody wants to use a picture of a business you took for some editorial piece that they're writing. Usually they're just trying to find out if you're going to be OK with them using it with a credit and nothing else, or if you're going to demand payment for use, though often times, especially for product photography, they'll just take it and not say anything. For example, a lot of product photos for various films available for sale on Amazon were actually taken by me, but they've been re-used and recycled for new listings on different platforms by other sellers so often that I can't even keep track, and going after them and demanding payment isn't worth the money I'd get back, so in that case, I consider it to be a public service. It's actually kind of jarring to be browsing along and seeing one of your own product photos pop up in a google ad, or pop up in some online listing.

I've cut down how many product photos I take as a result simply because it's time and effort that I'm never really going to get paid for. If I'm commissioned to do some product photos that's one thing, but that market has been shrinking for a long time with the advent of "Joe, the young guy in the mailroom with a nice camera" who can take them (sort of) for the company.

The same goes for wedding photography. There's still a market for high end stuff, but middle and budget tiers have been getting eaten alive with "we'll just have all our friends take photos with their cell phones instead of pay you". Especially with the younger crowd. The older crowd still wants official photos, but younger ones, not so much. More correctly, they do, but don't want to pay what it really costs to do it at a professional level.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

Somehow I doubt people like Capa and Penn...and Ansel Adams and Frank for that matter, felt their "creativity was stifled" by photographing for their incomes. I've heard that line occasionally from envious people, however.

How do you know I envy any one of them? Got some evidence besides cheap arrogance of your own? You are accusing me of that so you have to have a proof no? Or is this just a platform for personal attacks now?

If you don"t have any, I suggest you retrackt it. Have a great day.

 

[jtk]

How do you know I envy any one of them? Got some evidence besides cheap arrogance of your own? You are accusing me of that so you have to have a proof no? Or is this just a platform for personal attacks now?

If you don"t have any, I suggest you retrackt it. Have a great day.

Your name wasn't mentioned. If you have something to say that others might find reasonable, say it.

 

[jtk]

The piece I needed arrived last week, a unique Omega neg carrier, enabling me to digitize about 500 old Kodachromes using a 30mp Samsung/Pentax-macro. rig. Nearly as high resolution as Nikonscan of several same slides, but if course don't suffer Nikonscan/Kodachromes color problem. Big fun! Nice enough to make me miss Kodachrome. I did a lot of that cc1970 using Sickles/Zeiss camera and EKs excellent E4 dupe film. Time flies...important to have fun and avoid cynics.

 

[jtk]

No kidding! That's some hardcore effin' vocabulary right there; not easy to stump me but there you go.. well done jtk! And thanks for the link, you saved me the trouble of typing it into google LOL.

A little education goes a long way.

 

[jtk]

It's not all doom and gloom folks...

For me, I think the first ten years were the hardest and that was in the late 80's on through the late 90's. After that things really started cooking right up until the economic crash of 2008.
So the broad effects of the crash really had me soul search and figure out what was important to me. One thing I did because of the *very* lucrative market and especially the area I am in is to take down all public websites and just reduce it to a splash page and have the rest be password protected. This "submarine" approach was initially to keep current clients and other work out of the prying eyes of those trying to break in. But what I did not expect is how well that would end up being appreciated by clients who wanted actual exclusivity in the content I create.

So it has stayed that way and the in person marketing I do coupled with exponential word of mouth growth has paid off immensely and will remain my marketing for commercial work. 2019 was my best year ever for fun, rewarding and highly creative work and is no lower than 2nd best in terms of gross revenue.

Like JBrunner has said above several who were once banking major coin have gone bust, but some are at the top of their game and are reaping the rewards. I am very, very thankful to be in the latter category, it's a life I would not trade for anyone else's.

That's the way it is in New Mexico and, probably everywhere else. Winners earn their success...losers complain.

Long, long ago when I started pro work a couple of successes told me, in no uncertain terms, to charge twice what struggling losers charge. So I charged 3x, which was still a lot less than the best charged. If you're cheap, you're cheap and probably NFG. Clients aren't stupid or evil ...and if you disagree you should find some other line of work.