Taking a vacation is a good excuse to make some photos. You’re in a new place, with new sights and people to see. Everything is fresh and wonderful (especially when they have lobster rolls along the Atlantic Ocean, as above).
But most of us can’t take a vacation all the time.
So what if you took little trips, around your hometown, or to the cities you’re next to?
I started a little project based on small towns around Michigan a few summers back – little towns that I had never visited, or had only traveled through. I’d take a lunch hour and prowl around main street, and shoot what I see.
You don’t have to go far to see a new place. Chances are, there’s something to see within a few miles of where you are right now. This idea is not new.
August is travel season for a lot of people. Now, challenge yourself to travel a little more local for a new perspective.
But it is possible to make some gas money selling your photos online. Take this old chestnut:
Make photos
Post them online for sale
???
Profit!
Step three is the tricky one. Here’s what I’ve found in the few short years I’ve had an online store.
For one, don’t expect any sales. Start there. No one will buy your photos.
Good?
Okay, accepting that, keep doing what you’re doing: Instagramming, sharing your photos on social media, giving prints away to friends and family, and keep shooting.
Then, when someone asks, “Hey, do you sell your stuff? Can I get a copy of this-or-that photograph?” you say, “Sure do!” And send them a link to your store, with a link to the photo they’re looking to buy.
Boom. There’s your profit. And be grateful for it.
You may get a few sales through searches or people stumbling on your stuff. But that’s what all those question marks in step three are: dumb luck.
It’s different if you attend art shows, or do wedding photography, or shoot on commission. Those all involve hustle, investment, and time. If photography isn’t your main gig, it’s more difficult to make a buck.
I have a few sales here and there every month or two, and then it’s only a few bucks – enough for a coffee. If that’s as ambitious as you get, you probably won’t be disappointed.
Me? I put almost every dollar I make from photography—online sales, wedding gigs, etc—right back into my hobby. Because I’m not doing this stuff for money, I’m doing it for fun.
Make the photos you want to make. Post them online for people to buy. And when people do want to buy your photos, make it easy for them. One, two, three.
I can’t think of a better, less sleazy, way to do it than that.
“Value is not held within the [physical] object,” Travis Shaffer writes. “Rather, it is the opportunity to stand before the work which we desire.”
Which is exactly why I’m a small-time collector of the photographs I enjoy. The idea of (a) supporting emerging artists and (b) collecting appealing work is reason enough to spend a little money of not-so-limited prints.
I don’t do it because it’s a potential investment. And I surely don’t do it to be Mr. Art Collector Guy.
Craft inhabits whatever medium or tool you work with, if you let it.
I revisit Craig Mod’s articles every once in a while, just to feel what he’s feeling at these times of digital/analog transition.
The above, from 2014, recall Mod’s thoughts about how mobile phone photography – always connected, quality digital files, the idea of a singular photograph changing – was growing into its own.
With everything set to automatic, where was the craft in an iPhone photo?
Mod’s point: It’s all in the restrictions you put on yourself.
It’s one reason why I love using a 10 year old digital camera to make most of my images. Almost nothing is automatic, there’s no video setting, and only 12 megapixels. Every day is a limitation.
But even with cameras with auto HDR and leveling and intervalometers and all that, you can make using your camera feel like driving a manual transmission car if you still want that experience.
Turn the display off. Turn auto everything off. Set your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO on manual. Don’t use built-in filters (or do, and treat it like film stock). Etc.
Cameras these days have few limitations. So make up some, and start a new project.
Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchoupitoulas. It isn’t that people are mean or cruel.They’re just busy. When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, your mind becomes powerfully concentrated.
Think about that. All the hard work we put into creative projects, or blog entries, or advertising campaigns – nobody really cares. They have better things to do.
Until they do start to care. But that’s only a fraction.
I try to bring this viewpoint to my job. We fret over the little things, and we polish the text to a buffed shine. Luckily, Ann Arbor (a true college town) is more literate than most cities. Still, at the root, nobody cares.
So give them a reason to.
Or: set your expectations accordingly. If no one cares what you do, doesn’t that give you some freedom to do what you want to do?
Photography itself is its own reward…The art life is a privilege we should be willing to pay for.
In other words, don’t do it for the money, says Brooks Jensen, or for fame. There are plenty of other reasons to do your thing.
In Jensen’s list, most of the reasons are internal, as it should be.
For me, it’s good enough to be a hobby. Like many hobbies—car repair, painting, collecting shot glasses, playing flamenco guitar, film history—it’s not cheap. And that’s okay.
I play guitar because I love music, and because it’s relaxing, not because I’ll be in the Rolling Stones.
There’s something noble about being the “ornery artist.” The one who switches it up when he or she shouldn’t. The one who you can’t pin down. The one who avoids fame and publicity.
As I walked around the Ann Arbor Art Fair on Thursday, especially looking at the photography booths, I couldn’t help but notice how similar they all were: landscapes, sunsets, flowers, bodies of water, animals, HDR (blah!).
Art fair artists are there to sell things, I get it. It’s hard to be ornery and sell in mass quantities.
Wanna be a better photographer? The simple answer is: shoot every single day, study the work of other photographers, and try your darndest to find something new to say in your work.
Bingo.
I struggle with that first bit the most. It’s so hard to get out and shoot on a regular basis.
And “study the work,” not “mindlessly consume and copy.” Get the difference?
That advice appeals to the academic in me. Seeing the world as the “great” photographers saw it is a quick to realize how much farther I have to go, and what I do and don’t enjoy.
The part that surprised me was the question about clichés. Most of the photography editors said there’s no such thing.
So much good stuff throughout this roundup.
Eric Kim: “To find your style in photography is to find who you are as a human being. What interests you in life?”
Laura Austin: “Style is about authenticity.”
Eric Anderson: “Finding your style comes with a lot of practice and being true to yourself.”
