If you embrace your contradictions and work hard at being yourself, you will end up in a surprising place, one more authentic than if you just do what you are think you are supposed to do. And in these days of ubiquitous photography what we need, more than anything, is authenticity. People recognize it.
via Colin Pantall’s blog: Follow your Bad Instincts: Dos and Don’ts of Tony Fouhse.
“They put the cart before the horse. Forget about shows, forget about books, forget about being famous, forget about people knowing who you are. Take the first 10 or 15 years to figure out how to be a fucking photographer.”
via Practical Advice for the Emerging Photographer | Stella Kramer.
A panel discussion featuring:
Kira Pollack Photo Director, Time Magazine
Dora Somosi Photo Director, GQ Magazine
Danielle Levitt Photographer
Shaul Schwarz Photographer
Monday, November 4th
SVA Theatre(Beatrice) 333 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10001
Doors open at 6:30 pm, Presentation begins at 7:00 pm
Tickets here: Eventbrite – Video in Publishing
RSVP Now! All tickets, and seating, are first come, first served. When tickets sell out, they’re gone!
I was asked to write about what it’s like to “go viral.” Well, this was my experience – an emotionally and physically draining roller-coaster. I wasn’t prepared and it ate me alive. Do I regret it? Not a bit. While I would have maybe done things a bit differently, what I have experienced has really helped me to focus on what is truly important in life (and perhaps to also have a bit of compassion for those who choose to live their lives in the lime light.)
There’s always a need to interpret a scene in an elevated manner. The more photographers that I work with, the more the difference between an amateur “Instagrammer” and a professional photographer becomes clear. What a professional photographer does is see beauty where no one else can see it. That’s what a brand can leverage. Oftentimes a brand will say, “I want a similar thing to what so and so is doing,” and a lot of this is regurgitative. It takes great minds to build a unique way of a brand speaking through pure imagery.
via Social@Ogilvy’s ACD: Pro Photogs Are Key to Mobile Ads, Branded Content.
I find architects to be a fairly laid back bunch as a whole, unlike advertising shoots which tend to involve more people and sometimes a very compressed time frame. It’s harder to develop an affection for an abstract concept like a brand, but an architect is real person and often has a lot riding on the success of the building so it becomes more personal.
via Architectural Photographer Friday: Andrew Prokos | Photography and Architecture.
When I was teaching myself to write, in my twenties and thirties, here’s what I used to do. I’d work at a real job (usually in advertising in New York) and save my money till I had enough to last me about two years. Then I’d quit, move someplace really cheap, rent a place, and write full-time. I did this three times between 1967 and 1980.
I never sold anything. Never got anything published. Never made a penny.
I just kind of put my camera above my head and even didn’t look and clicked a picture when he moved over the trench and that was all,” he said. “I never looked at my pictures there. And I sent my pictures back with lots of other pictures that I took. I stayed in Spain for three months and when I came back, I was a very famous photographer because that camera which I hold above my head just caught a man at the moment when he was shot.“
via Robert Capa: Finding a Fearless Photographer’s Voice – NYTimes.com.
“Let inspiration inspire you and take every opportunity,” Rosie says. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s something big or small, but it will lead somewhere as long as you try hard and do a good job. And have fun doing it! It’s pointless to spend your life doing something that you don’t enjoy. As long as I’m shooting, as long as I’m taking pictures and asking people to climb into mud puddles, and painting my front driveway yellow, I’m happy. And I can’t wait to see what’s next!”
via Maroon 5 discovers young photographer on Flickr « Flickr Blog.
My boss, who had been a commercial lender for over 30 years, said that the best loan customer is someone who has no passion whatsoever, just a desire to work hard at something that looks good on a spreadsheet. Maybe the loan customer wants to start a dry-cleaning store or invest in a fast-food franchise—boring stuff. That’s the person you bet on. You want the grinder, not the guy who loves his job.
The burgeoning model requires a Malcolm X “By Any Means Necessary” attitude. Photographers are encouraged to write, blog, teach workshops, engage in social media, secure sponsorships, develop exterior passions and basically do anything and everything to put food on the table.
via Ansel Adams: Master Photographer, Master Marketer – NYTimes.com.
Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are white guys. (Really.) But lists of various sorts with just white male photographers on them show up on my radar screen way too often.
via John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History.
…Juergen, Arnold here,” he said in broad Austrian. “Thought I’d give you a call and tell you my idea.” Completely groggy, I thought his ideas were good too. So, I had to get up at four o’clock the next morning to go up some mountain in Malibu. There I waited for Arnold Schwarzenegger. The sun rose, and he rode elegantly past me like a cowboy on his horse. It was sultry, dusty – I was totally wiped out. Picture taken. Then I had to climb back down on my own. Later in his office I said, “I’ve got an idea too now, Arnold, climb into the crocodile’s mouth.” “Juergen, for you I’d do anything.”’
via The stories behind Juergen Teller’s best shots – Telegraph.
You don’t need a better way to talk about what you do, or a better gimmick, or a better social media strategy. In fact, you need to reinvent and rebuild what you make for a new reality, a reality where paying for something is an intentional act of buying something way better than the free alternative.
It’s not clear whether this flowering of image-making will lead to a more visually literate public—or simply numb us to the profound effects a well-made image can have. But the change is irreversible. Let’s hope the millions of new photographs made today help us see what we all have in common, rather than what sets us apart.
James Estrin via National Geographic: The Visual Village.
Black and white is a reduction of things. Color is an illustration of things…
via Elliott Erwitt, Coloring Outside the Lines – NYTimes.com.
the camera and commercial printing changed the very nature of art on canvas (and mass production changed sculpture). When anyone could have a print, or a vase, or a photo, art’s position as a signifier and a cultural force was threatened.
Hence the beginning of our modern definition of art, one that so many people are resistant to. Art doesn’t mean painting, art doesn’t mean realistic and art doesn’t mean beautiful.
What makes a good portrait a good portrait is not the amount of collaboration, it is a photographer’s willingness to take what s/he wants. If that sounds too Nietzsche to you, then, well, maybe you don’t want to take portraits.
It’s much, much harder to be selfish when working with someone after having gained consent. This involves asking (and, possibly, rejection). It gets hardest when there’s more at stake than just a good picture – let’s face it, even the greatest photographs are just photographs, really not more, but also most certainly not less.
via Matthew Swarts and Beth | Conscientious Photography Magazine.