The Online Photographer

Okay, now for the antidote. This follows up on my glum article from last week, "Is Photography...Ending?"

First of all, you can be a photographer with nothing but a smartphone. To me, what I need for satisfaction is a.) a camera that's fun and satisfying to use while taking pictures, and b.) that gives me results that I love and that nourish my enthusiasm. For me—just for me—a smartphone doesn't cut it because it provides only "a." I do love the freedom and fun of the iPhone camera and I use mine a lot. It's...socially acceptable. The last print I had made for me (by an expert custom printmaker, which I used to be) has an image area of ~12x17", and phone cameras can't do that. But smartphone pictures look great on the phone itself and good on the computer or tablet screen, so, if that's your target, you're good to go with the camera that came with the device you already use every day. A large survey by Piper Sandler recently showed that 87% of American teenagers prefer Apple phones, but some of the Android devices have cameras that are just as good and in some cases better. The advent of the smartphone camera is a bad thing for the camera industry, but it just isn't a bad thing for photography, or for people who love pictures.

You only need what you need
Secondly, the camera market might be declining, but so what? Don't you currently own possibly the best camera you've ever had in your entire life? Or something very close to it? I do. Who doesn't? I suppose someone within the sound of my voice is at the end of their camera's life and is ready to go shopping again, or is tired of hauling a big DSLR around, or finds their interest changing to things a different camera would be better suited for. But, for the most part, digital cameras have fulfilled their early promise, and even an older one is plenty good enough to have fun with and yield great results. Perhaps some people don't have a great camera, or the camera they want. I suspect my readers, in general, have the opposite problem—they have more great cameras than they need.

And if you prefer "slow photography" and still shoot film, there's a modest resurgence of interest in film photography happening, lots of encouragement and sharing of knowledge on the internet, and an endless parade of old products still hanging around (well, maybe not enlargers). And contrary to the many dire predictions that were common in the 1990s and early 2000s, film itself is still available.

Competent? Why you, I'll...
On to the notion of photography galleries withering away and museums sort of being lost about digital, leaning on things like historical surveys and the big names from the end of film. (Not that I don't love those. And, art needs objects.) Here's a memory from my faraway youth. Not long out of art school, I prepared a portfolio of smallish (11x14") B&W prints for a then-new gallery in an arty enclave of D.C., which represented a hot "emerging" talent I admired. Two weeks after dropping it off, having not heard anything from them, I wandered back in to see if any progress had been made regarding my portfolio review. Behind the desk .occupied by a distracted young gallerista talking on the phone, I immediately spied my lovingly prepared portfolio on a cluttered side-table, looking neglected under the beginnings of a paper-drift on top of it. I cooled my heels for quite a while as she continued her phone conversation. When I was finally favored with her attention, I asked if Mr. X, owner of the eponymous gallery, had looked at it yet. She said, "no. And I don't think he will." Then she added, "but I have."

I immediately apprehended that she was probably the person who decided which of the walk-in portfolios to pass along to Mr. X—and mine had not made her cut. With my mind rapidly composing the likely conversation between the two of them, in which Mr. X undoubtedly waxed acerbic and stern about her duty to protect him from all the wannabe junk he didn't want to bother with, I said, "what did you think?"

She looked confused and uncomfortable, and finally she said, "well...[long pause]...it's...competent."

Ouch!

My thinking was something along these lines: damn, who are you? You're the same age as me if not younger; you probably live in a cheap, miserable little walkup just like I do, unless you still live at home; you accept help from your parents or you'd be perpetually broke; you try to put on a brave face about your job when actually you're just a glorified receptionist. And the primary asset that got you hired is that you're slinky and gorgeous, not that your taste in photographs is anything special. And so on. I didn't say any of that, of course. In the few remaining words that were actually spoken, we agreed there was no point in my leaving my work there any longer, and I walked out with my portfolio under my arm, my feelings good and hurt.

I got the last laugh, after a fashion. I got asked to curate a show at a Park Service gallery that got ten times the foot traffic of that little downtown art gallery—if not twenty times—and I showed six photographers, one of whom was me, and I showed the work from that portfolio. It got a lot of nice compliments. We were reviewed in The Washington Post (which later asked me to be its photography critic; I declined). Inside the front door of the gallery I put one of my large color view-camera landscapes, mainly because it was already framed. I sold two prints from that show (for $350 each, score! Two months' rent) but both were of the large color landscape that I had included as decoration for the entryway. So maybe the gallerista was right.

I can't say I wouldn't have appreciated a little more encouragement in my early days. And it was certainly a pleasure to make the rounds of galleries and museums when I lived in D.C.—I took a long day once and month and hit everything, and for a while I did the same in New York City. But is it really so bad that no photographers (the number approaches zero, anyway, compared to the number of photographers there are now) get gallery shows any more? I slapped a bunch of test pictures from that converted Sigma on Flickr, and then kept going, and look at the number of views some of the older ones have gotten—4,000, 5,000, 12,500, 67,000. Does a show of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art get a total of 67,000 walk-through visitors? I don't know. Even my newest one, "Combine Near Dark" (which you should look at on your monitor at night, under subdued room light, by the way—I'll go add that to the description) has gotten 1,200 views. I doubt that the gallery that sent me packing, which is long gone now, ever got 1,200 visitors for a one-month show. Or if they did, it was probably only a few times. Granted, I have an advantage, because I have an existing audience through this site, and I've gotten significant boosts from being picked several times for Flickr's "Explore" page, Flickr's brightly-lit shop window for selections from its contents. But that one that got 67,000 views wasn't featured on Explore. Neither was the one that got 77,000 views.

I think you see the point I'm making. Most of us get much more exposure now, or at least have a fair chance to go after it.

There are a lot of advantages to having gatekeepers. One is that curators curate, which is highly useful to the rest of us. I loved photography galleries. Another is that a show of carefully prepared original art is the best way to look at photographs. Or was, until the museums started turning the lighting down. But for most people—we have it better now.

Don't complain
While it's true that photography's culture is changing and we're losing a lot that we once took for granted, this is also true: it's always been that way. Also during my time in D.C. after graduating from the Corcoran, I worked for six months as an assistant to a studio advertising photographer. When I knew him, he liked to complain about how "amateurs" were stealing work from him—I could reconstruct his arguments today, I heard them so often. His idea was that there were all these people out there who thought they were photographers who did professional jobs for nothing, or for very little, just because they wanted to call themselves pros. (I didn't point out that, technically, this included me.) I won't go on about this; suffice to say that I read a lot about photography in my early days, and, if you read around enough in photography's history, you'll soon detect a steady undercurrent of photographers bitching and moaning about how great things used to be and how much worse they are now. Often, right alongside other photographers who are embracing whatever is new and gushing about how great the new thing is! Whether it's that newfangled albumen printing, or the new "fast" ISO 64 Kodachrome, or cameras that have an exposure meter built in. Right up to all the recent hand-wringing about social media changing (Google "social media is dead" and look at some of the articles. Snapchat is changing! Instagram is changing! Social media isn't what it used to be, apparently.)

They're both wrong, really. In some ways the new developments are better; in some ways, it's a shame that we've lost what we've lost. The point is, this isn't a new thing.

Outside in
One last thought and I'll shut up. We—dedicated photographers, enthusiasts of the pastime, those who love photographic images—have always been basically outsiders. We have always gone our own way and done our own thing. The technology has always been in flux; social acceptance has gone up and down; the culture has constantly changed. The meaning of what a photograph does and what it means has actually never been static or stable. None of it matters, really. The fact remains that it's a pleasure to look hard at the world and investigate what we see in our lives. Seeing—and, sometimes, photographing—always is, always was, and always will be a joy.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

John Sullivan: "I am retired from a museum photography job. For many years I created beautiful images of rare priceless objects. I got great satisfaction doing this. In the final years of my job I began doing more of the art photography that I have loved. I get more enjoyment from this than all the work that I did for the museum. Before I retired I got the distinct impression that no matter how excellent my images were, I could be replaced by another technical photographer and not be missed. When people see the images I am making for myself I know they can't be done by anyone else and they cause others to experience joy."

Patrick Murphy: "This is one of the saddest sentences I've ever read: 'We were reviewed in The Washington Post (which later asked me to be its photography critic; I declined).' I have great respect for you, and great respect for the Post. I'm the same age as you and grew up in D.C. during the Post's tremendous Pentagon Papers/Watergate era. My career goal at 20 was to be the Post's Comics Editor. But to be the photography critic?!? Heaven! You must tell us why you turned this down, and your thoughts on it now as you look back."

Mike replies: tl;dr version: The pay wasn't adequate.

I don't recall a lot of the details now, but here's the story as I remember it. I had written for several smaller papers and arts journals in the D.C. area, and became mildly notorious (even in New York, just a little) after I wrote an article that was harshly critical of Richard Avedon's "In the American West." My title was "The Fashion Photographer's Nightmare"; the paper that published it changed the title to "Sniping at Avedon," which I thought was less a title for the article than a critique of it. And I don't think I would have been "the" photography critic...I think there was someone with a name who was writing feature articles. They wanted someone to write short gallery and museum show reviews. At first I was very excited about it. The previous reviewer had just moved on. Because I knew several gallery owners, I knew that that person, and I honestly can't recall the name now, was known to write show reviews based on only a phone call to the gallery owner, without even seeing the work. Well, I would definitely not have done that. I would have visited the work twice, spoken to the artist, and interviewed the gallery owner or someone else who was in some meaningful way connected to the work. I can't recall if they wanted three pieces a week or five, but I figured that the way I would want to do it, it would be about a half-time job, maybe twenty hours a week. And the offer was $105 a week. When I complained, it was sweetened to $130. (Which was considerate of them, I now realize.) It just wasn't enough. I had recently graduated, and had debts, and was trying to make a go of it as a photographer, meaning, I had no job. There were many months when I didn't know how I was going to meet the rent for the very next month. I'm pleased to report that I never did anything illegal*. Well, not for money.

As far as my thoughts looking back, my official position is that I regret everything*. However, the missed Post opportunity is one thing I truly regret. After I had matured just a little, it occurred to me that it would have been a nice line to have on my resumé. But later still, after I had matured even a little bit more, I realized that everyone has to pay their dues...and that I should have done so too.

*That's meant to be a joke!

Alan Whiting: "Mike, I would also emphasize (under the 'now is better' heading) The sheer technical advance of imaging. Pictures are now routinely produced that would have been impossible, or very difficult, a few decades ago. I'm thinking in particular of nightscapes showing the Milky Way and a scenic foreground; and the pictures produced by amateur astronomers in general. There must be other examples. A picture that presented no technical challenges in the old days might not be much improved by present technology, but the range of possible images has been greatly extended."

Mike replies: Great point, Alan, thanks.