Doug Menuez has written a very strong piece (thanks Sergio for letting me know!) about his personal journey to success as a photographer. He has some very powerful ideas and advice in this article. I applaud his openness in sharing and hope that all of you take a lot of this to heart.
Among all the great info, make sure you recognize this:
- It is scary, you might fail.
- But if you don’t try, you WILL fail.
As I so often tell creatives: if you wanted security, you should have chosen dental school or accountancy. You chose to be a creative so you might as well be as fully creative as you can. Be the BEST creative you can be. Free your creativity and forget those who tell you things like “that’s too weird” or “I don’t get it” or (worst of all) “It would be safer to shoot [X]…” Just friggin’ go for it creatively. 🙂
Thanks for this Leslie…
I’d love to say that this works, but as Doug says, there’s a very good chance you’ll fail. I’ve followed a similar track and for the past 6 years, I’ve had a cast iron integrity, shooting only what I feel represents me and I have to say my book looks great, but I am hurting. Maybe 6 years is not long to be doing it, but right now it’s really tough and the fear of the future is certainly there.
I keep hearing, your work is amazing, it’s really original, but then for some reason, nothing is happening beyond that…I fight with myself all the time, wondering if the best I can do is actualy good enough. I take it totally on board – I know I’m not doing something right, but I can’t for the life of me figure it out.
I feel I’ve become too risky for people – it’s tough out there economically and I’m not sure people want to take risks. The bread and butter clients just don’t understand my book leaving me with a whole heap of bills and rent to pay and a family to feed. It’s also really expensive to shoot a book like this and you need to continue to output work to keep being noticed. You have to make it amazing every time too.
At 32 I’m young, but the fear of being like this for the rest of my life is daunting so say the least. I have full support from an amazing wife, but the rest of my family don’t understand why i’m doing this, and I even feel some anger in that regard. It’s a hard pressure to live with when you have your wife and your parents grandson on the other side of the world trying to do something different. To many that just sounds stupid.
I actually believe in my work enough to keep going, but I wonder if I’m wrong. If my work is not good enough.
I’m sorry to paint your blog with what may appear as negativity, but people need to know that choosing this path is really seriously hard and unbelievably chalenging of your beliefs and mental strength. For me in part it has become a personal crusade to prove hat ANYONE can do it, with persistence and hard work…I seriously hope it works out one day. And I wish everyone else on this path the best of luck.
I completely agree with Dean. This field is nearly impossible to make a super successful, fulfilling career out of. Perhaps the New Economy that emerges from the dust settling in the next few years will be a better climate for us photographers to thrive in.
Unfortunately, I’m in a similar boat as Dean, minus the family to feed. Went to photo school, graduated with honors, moved to LA, made the rounds as an assistant and digital tech while shooting and spending all of my extra cash into producing a better portfolio. Got portfolio reviews, meetings, appointments, all with outstanding remarks, yet no jobs came in. I was told by those I met with that they wanted to see a more varied cast of subjects, higher-end models, more production value, etc. Well, that’s not exactly easy when you’re eating rice and beans every day trying to push for what you thought you wanted to do. Compliments almost become little stabs in the gut after awhile.
Then after eight years of all this, living hand to mouth and giving up the small American luxuries, our economy bottoms out and work is harder to find, even for the guys on the top tier. My usual income over the past two years falls to 1/5 of what it was in less than a month. I got evicted from my small studio loft and have since moved into my car to ride out the slow winter season in hopes I will be able to lease a small studio apartment again like I did four years ago when I got here.
Please don’t let anyone tell you that a lot of hard work and talent is enough to make it, you’ll also need many lucky breaks in there too. Having a monetary reservoir would be nice as well.
Again, not intended to be a negative post, only real. There are photographers out there who believe in this so much that they suffer for eight years with hope and belief that someone who admires their vision will someday actually pay us for it.
Happy Holidays everyone. 🙂
Dean and Hopeful,
It’s very inspiring that you manage to hold onto your photographic vision while waiting for that dedication to pay off. This is what those who eventually become “superstars” do. If you develop a unique style and maintain that vision, you will someday become known for it and that might just pay off.
It also might not. Frankly, it’s very easy to make good money as a photographer, as long as you can shoot to meet the needs, desires and tastes of the people paying the bills. This is what I do every day and frankly, I love it. I treat photography as a business, just as if I was a plumber or a landscaper. I lose no sleep over the fact that I can’t sell clients on the images and concepts I have inside me. I shoot this stuff on my own time and flog it to very select clients. Interestingly, I had a concept I wanted to shoot recently but, would never have been able to make it commercially viable so, I pitched a homeless shelter on the idea for their next campaign and offered to shoot it pro bono, they loved it (most likely because it was free) and are now in the process of planning a media blitz using the images as part of a larger campaign. Everybody wins. I don’t get paid but, I got one of my ideas out there and that will likely turn into other work.
The bottom line is, you might have to try and do both. Feed the belly with client driven stuff and feed the soul with self generated work. The road is long and sometimes you have to take two paths at once.
Just my two cents, good luck to both of you.
In my view, as a professional we must have Multiple personality disorder. That personal creative drive that makes your heart race, and then that part of your work that speaks to your prospective client. Just like any product producer we need to hit our target. The real courage comes in finding that border between the personalities; push hard as you dare till your target starts to follow the direction YOU want to go.
Ahh…where to begin…well, first, it’s easy, I think, to reflect upon your 30 years in the business and find that you are not making the kind of art that you wanted to make…this, after you’ve done well and hit targets that most of us only aspire to. As a person engaged in the business of photography, I work for a client, and therefore a paycheck. I work hard to deliver what they want.
However, I get the argument about stepping outside of yourself and shooting for originality and vision. That is something that perhaps not all of us can do. Witness the legions of digital shooter clones (high contrast, saturated colors, sharp detail, vapid content) that clog the arteries of the lowball stock agencies. They are indistinguishable from one another.
I think there is a happy balance somewhere within the writer’s argument, and that is something we can all aspire to.
Great essay; thanks for sharing, and, have enjoyed reading all of the comments posted.
Loved this article, inspiring!