Photography as a career
I have been through a number of incarnations in my life, most people have. I started out as a skinny redhead and somehow ended up a fat, bald, 50-something year old. I am on my third marriage, or is that mirage? I always get those confused. As a teenager I wanted to be a musician, and picked up the drums and guitar pretty quickly. I used to perform with my sister all over Utah. I became interested in photography when I was 20 and bought my first 35mm SLR camera. The rest has all been downhill, or is that uphill? I get confused easily with every hair follicle lost. I think there is a direct link between loss of hair and loss of brain cells… Where was I?
Most people who know me now do not really know about my past lives and what I did as a young man. People seem to think I somehow started out where I am today. I first worked in a professional photo lab/camera store in January 1987 in Carmel, California. A year and a half later I started working for a portrait studio and getting trained as a photographer. Over the following ten years, I worked in many different photo labs and portrait studios in the Monterey, California area and then in Utah. I even did a stint in camera repair in California. After moving back to Utah, I opened my own camera repair shop for a while. During the same 10-year period, my sole source of income was taking photographs, working in photofinishing, and fixing cameras. Even when I was not employed at a studio I was shooting on the side for money. I did more weddings than I care to remember, shot freelance for a while, and had a couple modeling agencies as clients. I ate, slept, drank, and paid my bills with photography.
In 1997 I turned all that accumulated knowledge into a career working for Fuji USA as a field service engineer fixing and installing photo processing equipment in stores all over the western USA. After 6 years, I turned that into being an account executive over one of Fuji’s largest accounts, which is what I still do full time. I quit shooting for a living in 1997 but I still studied and photographed regularly for pure joy. I still considered myself a professional photographer because my whole career was based around photography and photofinishing.
I was talking with someone a few years ago and they commented on how they thought it was great that I was an “amateur photographer who enjoyed this hobby.” I was literally taken aback, insulted, and then I stopped and thought about how long this person had known me. They had not even known me for five years, this person never knew me when I had a full head of red hair, let alone when I was making a living as a people photographer. So later I dug through some boxes in my basement and found a bunch of 8x10’s I used to show in my portfolio. I sat down with that person and showed them some of my old work that I had not even looked at in years. I explained that I had not considered myself an amateur photographer since 1989, and I am not bragging here but I could teach college-level photography courses. I have a full understanding of how to take photographs, which I did so for a long time to feed my family, but I also understand all the science involved in developing film, processing prints, how to fix that equipment, and resolve chemical issues. I fully understand every aspect of the photography world because I have lived it, worked in it, and made it a career. I think that qualifies me as a professional photographer.
So, jump ahead 18 years to when I started selling my work online and at art shows. Returning to the business of selling my work was not an easy choice because I am not as young as I once was. I sometimes hardly have the energy to deal with my “day job", but I looked around and decided to try my hand at it, I am not getting any younger so in I jumped.
At almost every show I have done I meet someone who considers themselves a photographer. Some of them like me have been kicking around in this business for years, others are just starting out and trying to learn the ropes. I try to talk to every one of them if I can, and share the joy of photography with them. I have had more than one young person who really appreciates my work tell me that photography is what they want to do with their lives. I reply by wishing them the best of luck, but it is a tough business, especially if you are trying to sell fine art prints. The real money is in weddings, lots and lots of weddings.
I occasionally meet people who are very judgmental of my work. You can tell by their questions and their comments that they think I just woke up one morning and decided I was going to start being a photographer. Well they are not far from the truth, only that morning was in January of 1987. My wife has commented on more than one occasion that some people just think they are better than me and do not want to spend money buying someone else’s work. I think that is fair, I have been there. I have seen lots of work over the years I did not think was very good. I have seen lots of work I loved yet could not bring myself to spend the money buying it. I have also seen work and thought “dang I could do that if only I could travel to that location and spend the time there.”
Photography is an odd art, everyone has a camera and takes pictures, some never get past the point of getting their finger out of the image, others turn into masters of the art. The reality is I am not trying to sell my work to other photographers. I am trying to sell my work to people who have been to these places I have visited and wished they could have taken the shot I got. I am trying to sell my photographs to people who dream of visiting these places and know they may never make it. I am trying to sell my photographs to those who see one of my images and are moved by it, connect with it, and want to make it theirs. Selling photographs of places is like that, the viewer needs to be captivated by the image.
Working for so many years as a people photographer was different. My job as a portrait photographer was to capture that one moment in the person’s life that they could share with others. That look in their eyes or that smile that would convey who they were at that very instance.
Many people think the skill in people photography is the ability to work the camera, but that is only part of the equation. The real skill is getting the person you are photographing to like you and to feel comfortable in front of the camera.
I do not take photographs of people anymore if I can help it. Doing it well is a skill that I have not practiced in so long I lost whatever edge I once had. With that said, I would like to share some of my work from once upon a time, when I was portrait photographer years ago, when I had hair, lots and lots of red hair.
