"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” --Howard Thurman, American theologian, clergyman and activist, 1900-1981.
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I have been semi-launching a photography business for several years now. Today is the day when I push forward on the throttle, as I begin plunking down an unholy amount of money on top-of-the-line equipment I have been reviewing for months. This is just as I am getting lots of requests for my pictures.
All good, right?
Ah, but the id or the super ego or the devil, whichever you want to call that naysayer entity that co-exists with your guardian angel, will try to have its way when you are headed toward the light, which is to say away from the dark, which is sometimes more familiar. And here is what the dark was saying to me yesterday as I made final plans for today's spending event:
1. You have never spent this much money at one time. You once bought a new car and a house. But it was WITH your husband. And he signed the papers. How can you possibly make this important decision all by yourself?
2. As soon as you lay out all that cash at Campus Camera, you'd better be prepared to announce in a loud, albeit falsetto, voice: "This is what I want to do. This is how I want to spend my time." And you damned well better be good at it.
3. Will you make back your investment? Or is this really an expensive hobby, a self-induuuuuuulgence, disguised as a business? Wouldn't the Family, and the World, be better served if you instead took all that money and dry-walled the basement, or sent your daughter to a small private college where your daughter really wants to go instead of the cheaper (free because her daddy teaches there), larger public institution here in town? Hm, Mom?
4. Take a look at the Internet and the hundreds upon trillions of wedding and portrait photographers who will always have a bigger lens, a better camera and more tutorials than you. Can you possibly compete?
So yeah. So yesterday, I FB-posted some of these anxieties to Joe Jackson of Rock Hill, SC, an amazing photographer, www.joejackson.zenfolio.com (sorry this blog won't let me hyperlink yet again!) and one of my emerging fav peeps in the world, whose very approach to work and life embraces all that I believe in. His photos are warm. He is warm. His photos are genuine. He is genuine. His photos are generous. He is generous.
I used to work with Joe at The State newspaper in SC where I learned a lot of what I know about photography. I was hired as a words person, a writer, a reporter. But for every story I wrote, I was assigned a photographer. And I watched them with great interest and fascination, perfecting my own understanding of photography, which dates back to when I was 19 and a traveling studio photographer, shooting, believe it or not, Shriners, for Shriner yearbooks.
I learned a lot about form and composition and umbrella lights, shooting large Shriner families in a studio setting. I learned how to handle a 35 from one of the other Shriner photographers, a freelancer who taught me the rudimentaries with a manual Leica and a hand-held meter. I also learned from my photo j classes in journalism school. But, truly, it was these guys at The State newspaper -- Ginger Pinson, Linda Stelter, Anne McQuary, Jeff Amberg and Joe who taught me about getting the picture to match the story, about capturing the moment, about not invading private space while completely invading it, about staying out of the picture, existentially. The picture is not about my ego, but about the subject.
I folded this knowledge into my own creative expression and a few Nikons here and there. And then one day I had an exhibit at Starbucks. And then one day I started landing wedding and portrait jobs. And then one day I began needing new equipment -- and mentors, which everybody, even Mother Teresa, needs. You can be a teacher, even, and still need somebody to teach you. How do you otherwise get better? Ah, but you've got to find the right mentor, somebody who speaks your language, and if s/he doesn't, well you have to keep moving with patience despite your impatience. It's like choosing a therapist, or a husband.
I tried a few before I found Joe. I found a guy in Cleveland online, who promised great tutorials. I drove all the way to the west side of Cleveland in a snow storm. He did know a lot about light. But his photos were way too artificial looking for my tastes. I found a camera store clerk in Aurora who takes wedding photos. I learned some from her, about light, again, always about light, until it became clear that wedding photography for her was a formula. She was burned out. I tried a few others, who were preachy or ego-y or downright mean. They'd been working stiffs for decades. What did I think, that I could pick up a digital camera and start shooting?
And then I saw Joe's stuff online. And here's the thing: People keep telling me what they like about my portraits is how warm they are, how much personality I capture in the photos. I think it's because I like people. Simple as that maybe, and I say this with all humility. This is what I saw when I revisited Joe's pictures online for the first time in 15 years. I could feel Joe's warmth behind the lens. And so I ventured forth. I FBed him a question about one of his pictures and the lens he used. And he answered in 7 paragraphs. And then I asked him another question. And he answered in 10 paragraphs. And I kept asking, even as I apologized for taking up too much of his time, and he kept answering, by telling me he was pleased to help me. He even went so far as to have a phone conversation one day with me on his entire lunch break.
And so yesterday, when I found the Dark Knight sitting on my shoulder, I went to Joe with my anxieties, to which he replied:
"One of the best things about FB (and the internet in general) is that it allows you to see others' work. One of the worst things about FB (and the internet in general) is that it allows you to see others' work.
I am one of the world's worst offenders when it comes to the sin of obsessing over the perceived chasm of "quality" between my pictures and what I see on other photographers' sites. Here's my advice:
1) Step away from the internet. Resist the urge to compare. Feel free to look and ask if the purpose is to increase your own knowledge, but step away once you begin feeling either seriously inferior or superior. Both extremes are fatal to your mental and professional health.
2) (This one is listed at the risk of sounding evangelical, but you asked.) Are you using your God-given technical, personal, and business skills in a way that ultimately reveals the beauty of creation and celebrates our connections to each other? Or put another way - does your art lift people and their spirits, or does it diminish? As long as you're doing your share of the lifting, I'm good with it.
3) Clients come to us asking for pictures, but what we actually have to sell is "the experience." If your client walks away from the session feeling like both of you had a genuinely good time, THAT is what they will remember and share. I know you. So I know for a fact that one reason people come to you is because you make good pictures. But I also know that people come to you because they already know, or have heard, that they will have a good time with some one who will be warm, funny, and engaging.
4) And finally, if one goal is to make money at this - is there a market for what I do? Apparently there is. Regardless of your self-perception, or maybe in spite of it, people like what you do. And they will give you money to do it. Accept it and be happy. If you seriously entertain thoughts of inferiority, those feelings will encroach upon your interactions with your clients. When your personal demons shout "You people are nuts for spending money on me when you should be hiring this other photographer instead," your clients will hear the message loud and clear. Do not give the demons a voice.
Want to expand your technical skills or explore other styles? Fine. Knock yourself out. But do it for your own personal or professional growth, NOT in order to sate a false feeling of inferiority.
So...my assessment is this: you're well-covered on points #2-4. Keep working on #1 to banish the demons, and you'll be great. Or just ask me and I'll remind you."
The dark side is always there, hovering. But the light is where we belong. Thanks for being my light, Joe. And I didn't even need a flash. Campus Camera, here I come.
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