Article
Outdoor Photography May 2006
The price I pay for a certain amount of public profile is regular emails from aspiring and student photographers asking for advice and information on how to become a photographer. I try to reply to such requests personally and honestly, as I believe everybody is entitled to ask, and deserves help. Over twenty years ago I too needed help to make my way, and remain grateful for every shred of information, every kind word, and every helping hand that was extended to me. My own experience suggests that photography is not the easiest career choice. It took me over fifteen years full-time in the industry before I could truly call myself a landscape photographer.
There is no 'one size fits all' solution to a photographic career, but many potential paths, including photographic education courses, both full time or part-time. For some young people, there is no better way of learning than assisting a top professional photographer. For some, retaining the day-job and building a part time career with work at weekends is a possibility. I have a couple of friends who have done this, and gone on to become successful professionals specialising in outdoor themes including landscape, and who have the writing skills to back their pictures up with well-crafted articles. A rare few may be ready to take the plunge immediately, to abandon an existing career, and set up in business.
But whatever your aspirations, here are a few suggestions that are relevant to most of us, whether or not landscape is our first love.
The first is: have a passion for your chosen subject matter. There isn't much point going into fashion photography if you have no interest in clothes. You may love gardening, or animals, or bridges, or sport, or the human face. You may love all of these things. The point is, there is a market, a demand, a need for pictures of them all. None of this is rocket science, yet it is sometimes important to be reminded that successful people, and especially successful artists, manage to fuse the their life and work with the things that really interest them.
Secondly, much patience will be needed, and endless perseverance. Landscape especially is not for the faint-hearted. The terrain and the weather can be merciless. And no landscape photographer ever got rich quick. Or rich ever!
Thirdly, build on your successes, but also learn from your mistakes. That may seem obvious, but have you ever analysed those pictures that you know deep down don't really work, and asked why? For aspiring professionals, constructive self-criticism is simply essential.
My fourth guideline is: don't let the technology get you down. Photography is in a revolution unprecedented in its history, in which some are taking advantage, and some are suffering the consequences of the digital wave. When and if the dust settles, of one thing I am fairly certain. It will still be about the quality of the pictures you make, not about the camera, the pixels, the lenses or anything else. Never lose sight of the photographs themselves. In equipment terms I still believe in 'whatever works, works', whether top of the range digital, or home-made pinhole camera. Photography is a way of seeing. Develop your own way of seeing in whatever manner works best for you and your circumstances.
The final thought I have is (perhaps predictably) best summed up in the old Shakespeare quote, 'To thine own self be true'. I might appear to have covered that earlier in the idea that the photographer should photograph what they feel passionate about. But I am aware that some are passionate about all sorts of different things, while others may feel a bit unsure what they want to photograph, and perhaps just love the picture making process itself. Being true to yourself is more about who you are and what you believe, photographically or otherwise. Allow me to illustrate.
As an assistant to photographer to Mike Mitchell in Washington DC many years ago I helped my employer create a series of highly sophisticated studio still life photographs, conveying complex ideas for a high-tech client. Each picture took one or two days to complete. We worked with a model maker, and executed many special effects, all in camera, since this was before the days of Photoshop, and long before digital capture. We shot multiple exposures, building up the individual components of the image on an individual sheet of film using elegantly restrained studio flash. We were often obliged to shoot multi flash to accumulate exposure adequately (with the small lens openings). One set-up took me four hours to expose 26 sheets of film, each one shot with different lighting ratios, colour gels and up to 30 flashes to ensure we made the perfect transparency. It was to prove a turning point in my photographic education.
Mike's remarkable images went on to win prestigious photography awards. But for all the effort and creativity that went into them, they left me unmoved. I felt that an airbrush artist or commercial illustrator could have achieved the same result more easily and much more cheaply than we had. In the clinical light of the studio the special effects and modelled objects had become, for me, mere illustration. The client had chosen photography for its power and authenticity, yet these images were barely photographic.
I realised I was never going to be happy working indoors all my life, and this experience convinced me photography worked best when rooted in the real world. Since then I hope I have brought some of the perfectionism and discipline of the studio to the great outdoors, yet been true to the colours, texture, light and spirit of the real landscape.
So be true to yourself, use whatever gear you can afford, develop your own vision, your own way of seeing, do the work you really love, and never, ever give up. Now there's some great career advice, all for the price of OP. And you didn't even have to email me!
