To All My Friends Out There ... Wish You All A Very HAPPY NEW YEAR !! Have a Fabulous 2015 !! ... Love You All :) I came across a beautiful message & felt I must share it with you all. For all my photographer friends ... read on ... The rest of you MAY skip & go directly on to viewing the video clip. However, do note that anyone pursuing any career or field in life has oodles to take away from these inspirational words... *** Excerpt Begins Here *** I talk with a lot of aspiring photographers every day. I’d say 5 or 6 each week on a one-to-one basis and many more via our Artphotofeature Street Photography Group on Facebook. With a membership approaching 100,000, I figure I look at about 500 to 700 street photos a day over there, offering critique and feedback on selected shots. There are great photographs there, really amazing stuff every day but the majority of the work just isn’t very good – yet. That’s okay because that’s what the group is all about. It’s a place to get better. Whenever people have contacted me outside of the group I’ve historically done what I could to offer encouragement or any bit of advice that might be useful but man, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to continue any kind of mentoring process outside of the group. It takes a lot of time and I’m at a point where I really want to work on improving my own photography and evolve to the next “thing”, whatever that is going to be. Typically these are young photographers looking in some way to improve their craft, with almost all of them hoping to procure a magical shortcut that gets them to the next level. They ask for advice and tips on everything from gear, exposure control, composition, post-processing and how to break into the business and get their work published. There is never an easy answer. Well, actually, that’s not exactly true. There is an easy answer for most of them but most of them, most often, don’t want to hear that advice. That simple answer? Shoot a lot. It all comes from the work. The shear volume. The mistakes. The successes. Shoot enough and you’ll eventually discover how to tell a story with your photographs. It really is that simple but people often confuse simple with easy. It won’t be easy. Quite the contrary. It’s going to be hard. Honestly, it’s never been more difficult to get work as a professional photographer. The field is gutted. Your competition is everywhere and your competition is better than you are. They are better than me. They are better than the people I idolize. They are extraordinary. As with any field you need to outwork the competition and when it get’s difficult or frustrating and you feel like your work is crap (and you will) you have to keep chugging along. There is a reason you are drawn to photography. It’s because you are somehow wired to create and somewhere along the line you saw a great photograph that made you think, “I want to do that. I need to do that.” In the beginning you will have a difficult time conveying your vision to others and your work isn’t going to be as good as you think it is and when some dufus (like me) tells you that, you are going to be crushed. You’ll be disappointed and bristle and maybe get angry and perhaps lash out and then many of you will just give up. For those that don’t quit it will eventually start to come together for you. I promise. *** End of Excerpt ***
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 23:43:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015