Creatives are inundated from all directions by messages meant to undermine their confidence in their work and to get them to focus on things other than the act of creating an image. If you find yourself a bit lost in the midst of all that right now, take a few minutes to watch this great video essay that contains an important message every photographer and filmmaker should hear.
Coming to you from aows, this excellent video essay discusses the core of being a photographer, what it means, and some of the things that distract us. I think it makes a particularly good point regarding feeling "lacking," as in being made to feel as if we are missing some magical key to improving our photos, whether that is a piece of gear or something else. It is true that sometimes, a certain lens or whatever might make a particular shot easier, but at the end of the day, there are no magic keys or shortcuts to developing proficiency and nurturing a creative voice. The only way there is taking photos — lots of them. But after all, isn't the love of that very act the reason why we all picked up a camera in the first place? Check out the video above for the full rundown.
Have contemporary lost the challenge of creating meaningful artistic photographs? Has post processing become the dominant home for creativity, rather than being behind the camera?. This is another example of using misty weather to compensate for a failure at being able to make a meaningful photograph. It is a natural example of the other failure of contemporary photographers; paying attention to the bokeh rather than the subject.
I've not noticed an onslaught of messages meant to undermine creatives' confidence in their (our) work but I never use Facebook so maybe I've shielded myself somewhat from the trolls. I've seen an explosion of photography, mostly due to the advent of the iPhone, and much of it is very good. This, more than anything, has diluted what was once a professional market: amazing images are now so ubiquitous it's hard for the really amazing ones to stand out. These days, if you want to make money as a photographer, you're better off studying marketing in college and doing photography on the side.
If you want to make money from any business, yeah, you need to study marketing. Nothing new about that. And if the business is commercial photography, you're basically part of a client's marketing team, so you better know a LOT about marketing. You're getting paid to help sell a product or service.
Takes a very long time to make pretty simple points. And he tries so hard to be profound he misses making points. Here's really all he said: there is beauty wherever you are and photography is a way of sharing it with others.
I enjoyed watching this clip. A subtile artistic statement from someone who obviously have a passion for creating images. Fun to to watch the images being made, I got what he was saying, but the clip kind of spoke for it self. I love this style of imagery to.
For me, it's finding the time to make images. My distraction is my daily job which is needed to pay the mortgage and food. The little bit of time left over is never enough to fulfill my creative appetite.