If you’re bored of photography, don’t feel inspiration, or feeling lost– take a break. Discover new artistic avenues, and replenish your creative fields.
Feeling like you have to take a photo every single day? Don’t.
This runs counter to a lot of advice out there. And there’s the idea of a 365 project, which Kim says often ends up feeling like a chore.
I’ve felt the pressure first-hand, and the lack of gumption to get out there and shoot—especially after my big portrait project last fall—so I took some time off. I’m taking breaks from Instagram here and there, too.
The kicker to getting over the guilt of taking a break. That’s what I’ve learned to accept lately.
Why feel bad about not doing something that’s totally voluntary anyway?
But stock photography is dying, people pay less and less for images. I know, I worked for years in a design agency were we regularly had to buy images for clients, and our clients budgets were always getting smaller.
Why should I need to sell images if I have clients paying me to shoot specific images ? To me working for a client face to face is rewarding, way more than making money on digital sales to people I will never interact with.
Zeller’s approach won’t work for everyone, but it is an alternative to trying to make a few bucks off of an online store.
A lot of workers in the United States are worried about computers and robots taking over their jobs. In the photography world, it’s guys like Zeller that worry the stock photographers. Facing a race to the bottom, photographers may have to give their stuff away and hope a client stumbles on them.
Or you can give your photos away and not worry about the rest.
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.
Bart (and his wife Karen) were nice enough to have me on the show. So much of what they do at JTV is community boosting that my project made a lot of sense.
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.”
Every year, during the hottest week of the summer, Ann Arbor puts on a giant art fair, shutting down streets downtown and welcoming thousands of people over four days.
I’ve been to Art Fair several times, but this is my first time working on campus during the event. As the artists set up their booths, I walked around town grabbing some of the behind-the-scenes shots.
It’s fun, seeing the event before the event starts. A lot of the art was already on display, but many artists didn’t have their tent up yet, and their wares were sprawled out on the University of Michigan lawn, waiting for hanging.
There were these weird juxtapositions, like fake cactus and palm trees baking in the Midwestern sun, or giant metal sculptures just hanging out on University Ave. And hot. Everything was hot.
Should be a fun couple of days, trying to get into work.
For a few minutes yesterday, though, the setup gave me a great chance to wander around and see what I could see.
A suggestion: If you find an artist you like at one of these art fairs, a good way to support them is to buy a small print or notecard, especially if you can’t afford one of their bigger prints. I found one from photographer Amber Tyrrell that I really liked, so I bought a notecard from her. Three bucks and some change is an easy vote of confidence.
Any little bit of support helps the artists, helps the arts economy, and makes the whole humid thing seem worth it.
With an impending sale of Yahoo!, there’s a lot of hand-wringing about what’s going to happen to Flickr.
I’m worried about Flickr, too, for the same reasons Jim Nix is worried – namely, that if someone buys Flickr and messes it up, where can we photographers go? Especially those of us that have dumped most (in my case) or all (in other photographers’ cases) of our photos onto the site.
I, like Nix, enjoy Flickr’s organization tools, the Groups, the social aspects, and the ease of use. Flickr can be used in all kind of ways, whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional, and a lot of us pay the annual fee to keep the premium features. To me, it’s always been worth the $25 a year.
In recent years, Flickr has tried to Instagram itself by becoming more mobile and more in-the-moment. But what if it just stuck to being a photography enthusiast’s site?
“Growth” and “scaling” make you money, over time, but don’t memberships and providing value make money too?
I’d pay $5 more every year to make Flickr stay healthy, stick to what it does best, and listen to its customers. It’s an important tool in my photography tool belt.
I can’t worry too much, because I don’t have any control over who buys Flickr and what happens to it in the long haul. But I do have a wish list, and at the top of that is that Flickr sticks around and keeps chugging along, even if it’s not in the Who’s Who of social media/photography platforms.
After starting my new job in March, I did what I always do: got out and explored.
I’ve been to Ann Arbor, Michigan, many times, and done a lot of shooting here. Now that it’s my jobby-job town, there are a lot more opportunities to get out and see the city. Lunch hours, in between meetings, after work – all good excuses to get out and make photos.
This is, at its most basic, the best reason to make photography a hobby. You get to really learn about and know a place through the viewfinder.
A new place also provides that little spark of freshness you might need to practice your craft.
Do your everyday surroundings get stale? Go somewhere new, and – bam – instant inspiration.
For the fans, it’s great, especially if it’s a truly beloved and well-known album. It’s a well-worn reminder of why you love the band and their music.
What if we could go back and try our hands at an old project, and reinterpret it years later?
William Christenberry made a career out of it, coming back to the same location year after year, watching it fall apart.
I often wonder what i would do if I took my life-changing Route 66 roadtrip and did it all over again, but with the photo skills I have now. It would probably be a longer trip out of necessity.
Pulling over, after all, takes time.
A greatest hits in photos, knowing what I know now? Let’s hit the road.
It’s fine to start something, and give up after you begin – midway, almost done, whatever. Sometimes things don’t work out.
I’ve done that quite a few times. A new project will pop into my head, and I’ll start on it, but then I give up. Lack of interest, lack of time, whatever.
The trouble starts when you share a project you haven’t thought through to completion. You make a big announcement, “Hey! I’m doing a thing!” You share the thing. Everyone’s excited.
And then? Crickets.
People that follow your work are left in the lurch. Nothing more comes of your big project after that first big thing, or the announcement. Do that a few times, and people start to question your credibility.
If you have critics, maybe you’re on to something. Adam Smith, in You and Your Work Aren’t For Everyone, says that the Wright brothers had their share of naysayers, but they kept experimenting, until…liftoff.
“Nothing shuts critics up faster than producing results,” Smith says.
But just because you have critics doesn’t mean what you’re doing is great. You just have to outlast them, and keep producing the kind of work that’s right for you.
Working on personal projects is something I still try to do, it’s very important to me. I also believe it plays an important part in developing your own style, staying creatively motivated, exploring new ideas and learning new things…I try hard to produce personal projects fairly regularly, even when I’m busy with actual work. I try to produce and post something usually once or twice a week.
GIF artist Al Boardman talks about personal projects in a way a lot of artists do: It’s important to do the fun stuff and the paid stuff.
The paid stuff keeps the lights on, but the personal stuff keeps you, you.
And it’s usually the personal work that makes people sit up, take notice, and ask if you’re for hire.
Will I ever get over the awkwardness of asking people to take portraits, or for their help in starting a documentary project?
Probably not, which is why I try to do it often.
It’s kind of weird, to go up to someone, or send someone a note, and ask to make their portrait. How well do they know you? How well do they know your work? Do they know you at all?
I like to think it’s flattering to ask someone to take their portrait. It kind of says that I think the person is interesting enough to inquire. It also says that I want to spend a bit of time with the person – to get to know them better.
But I’m also a guy, and sometimes it feels like the bad guy stereotypes come through when I ask someone to join me in making photos.
For documentaries, it’s really weird, because here’s someone who does a cool thing but doesn’t know who I am, or what I’ve done. That was the case with my Albion Anagama documentary. I learned after the project was done that Ken and Anne had no idea what to expect. Thankfully, they were pleasantly surprised with the outcome.
But what if they weren’t?
That’s the risk of making something: you don’t know what the participant will think. You only hope that they’ll be pleased enough to continue a relationship and work with you again.
Getting over the hump of asking in the first place? I have no idea how to solve it. I’m going to keep trying, though, no matter how much discomfort it causes me.
Sometimes, when I just need to unwind at work, or kill some time in the grocery line, I’ll look at the For Sale board on Fred Miranda.
I don’t need anything, and I’m sure as heck not going to buy anything. But it’s fun to read the equipment listings, especially when I don’t recognize something. That’s always a good research opportunity, and I love few things more than doing research.
Granted, I have picked up a few good finds on Fred Miranda. My go-to Canon 5D is from that listing board, as was my Fuji X-E1 and my 20mm lens.
I look at Fred Miranda like a car person reads a hot rod mag. No harm in that.
