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One of the very best things about being a photographer is that you get to poke around. When I did work for hire in D.C., I was the junior partner in a studio with several older and more established photographers, and most of the work I took were their cast-off jobs—the smaller, easier, cheaper jobs that would cover my lower day rate, or jobs they'd taken that they wanted to push aside to make room for more lucrative ones. I assisted the studio owner on jobs sometimes—even modeled a few times—and I did a lot of custom darkroom printing. I also got my own jobs from a variety of sources—I exhibited portraits at my friend Judy's frame shop in Georgetown to get portrait work, I had an ad in the Yellow Pages, and former clients recommended me to new ones. Sometimes a portrait resulted in a professional assignment for the portrait client's workplace, a corporation or government agency. Sometimes a non-profit would call because I was cheap. The end result was that I got dropped into all sorts of odd situations and I never knew what was coming next. It couldn't have been better.
Some of the photography was pretty basic, and a lot of it was...well, fake, which didn't sit well with me at the time. Like the time I was hired to document a protest for the entity that had organized it, and only six protesters showed up. I had to get creative to make them look like a crowd. At least there were several policemen, one mounted on a crowd-control horse! That helped. But a lot of times the motley of random jobs made for opportunities I never would have gotten otherwise. I got to photograph the jazz and classical trumpet player Wynton Marsalis, who was a sensation at the time. My picture was too loose and "snapshotty" for the newspaper, though. I photographed then-newly-appointed U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter buying sweatpants at the Harvard Coop on his way from his home in New England to Washington. A store employee offered to have them altered by their tailor! Custom-tailored sweatpants?! Justice Souter told me he was embarrassed by all the attention, including from me.
One time I had to do a small job at what turned out to be a very interesting company. Sitting on a sofa in the hallway, primly, looking straight ahead, were three middle-aged women dressed beautifully in the traditional garb of India, hands folded identically in their laps, while several small children played quietly nearby. I tried to engage the women in conversation, and was quickly pulled away to have it explained to me that they were not allowed to speak—they were the children's minders; they spoke no English. The owner and his wife both worked there at the office every day, and always brought their small children to work with them. It was the early days of cell phones, and the company built the networks that handled and mapped the handoff of cell signals from one tower to the next. The mapping devices were incredibly complex. I asked a bunch of questions, and the owner himself, who was not particularly busy because he had the whole enterprise humming along very nicely without much need for his minute-to-minute attention, gave me a tour and explained everything about their work to me. (No one is as interested in a company's work as the owner.) Absolutely fascinating. He said it wasn't yet profitable, but his opinion was that it would be, because cell phones were the coming thing and were going to be big one day. (Got that right.) And of course I was well aware that if I had not come in as a photographer, I never, ever would have had the chance to be treated to that guided tour and see up close what that company did and how it operated. Every day was something new, and I loved that about the work.
The only problem was that the photography didn't always satisfy me. And, to be brutally honest, I wasn't always good at it. I was constantly on the lookout to get "real" pictures while I was there doing something else altogether for the client. That divided my attention—which wasn't good, although I didn't understand that at the time. You need to do what you're hired for. People were always complaining about my work, but they complained about the very things that I liked. And I often didn't sufficiently respect the things they liked. I think I mentioned the other day that I once delivered a set of portrait proofs to the mother of a high school student, and in one of the proofs the girl's bra strap was showing. I honestly didn't understand at the time what a blatantly unprofessional faux pas that was—because that frame also happened to be, artistically, the best picture. (I still have it around here somewhere.) Couldn't they see that?
I should have understood that they couldn't see it my way, because I couldn't see it their way.
A few jobs brought my interests and the clients' interests together, but more often than not they were at odds. I'm not saying I didn't have successes—a lot of jobs I was able to do just fine, from band portraits to catalog pictures to some real estate photos I took from a chartered helicopter. That helicopter was fun. I had to pay for half an hour of air time, and I took half of it for myself, which neatly illustrates the divided-attention thing I was just talking about. (I didn't charge the client for the fifteen minutes I used for myself, of course.) I also had some failures, too, and a couple of them were so spectacular I'm embarrassed just to think of them, like the time I exposed critical pictures on a roll of film that had already been exposed. In the end, it's probably a good thing I didn't end up trying to make my living as an actual professional. I wouldn't have been all that good at it. You can't do just nine out of every ten jobs right and stay in business.
But the joy of getting to do something new or different every day, of getting to go odd places and see weird things, of getting to poke around and talk to people I would never have gotten to talk to otherwise—that part of it was fantastic. I was a collector of experiences in those days—something I started because I couldn't afford graduate school. My years as a working professional were just one more experience. But I remember those experiences very fondly, and wouldn't want to have missed any of it.
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Aaron: "As the family photographer I have to keep in mind that the sorts of photos my family likes are usually not the sorts of photos I like. I tend toward the journalistic but they only want posed. They also don't care about composition. They just want to 'look good.' None of this is a complaint by the way. I'm happy to take photographs they like but I often have to remind myself to get a few because I'm looking for something else."
Kenneth Wajda: "I worked for a large daily newspaper in New Jersey for 13 years from 1987 to 2001, and in that time I always thought, 'I have the best job in the world,' meeting people, getting to photograph everything from Little League to U.S. Presidents. News, sports, and features. Every day was different, and we had such a great camaraderie at the newsroom. The photographers would go out every week on Monday nights to the local Irish pub together. It was just a wonderful job. Here is Maureen Dowd’s sweet article about the newsroom."
Rob Spring: "I know of what you speak. As a consulting engineer and technical trainer I found myself in many places I would never had been allowed into: nuclear power plants, a Formula 1 race car manufacturer, automotive assembly lines, all the NASA facilities—but also some very mundane industries such as aluminum can manufacturing (which isn't very mundane as you watch hundreds of thousands of cans fly by). Although my work was always pretty similar, getting the grand tour and an explanation of how everything worked was like being a kid in a candy store."
Bear.: "I learned that 9 out of 10 wasn't good enough in my first job as a lawyer. There was a short induction course for incoming graduates. The managing partner gave a little welcome speech to the following effect: 'You're here because you're very clever people. Many of you will have average university grades of 80% [a 'high distinction']. But you must understand that you are not in law school any more. 80% just doesn't make the cut any more. This firm is being paid to produce legal work that is as close to perfection as is humanly possible. If what you do happens to be perfect, don't expect praise—that's what you are being paid to do. But if your work falls short of perfection, you will be taken to task and guided as to how to improve.' A meaningful pause. 'And here's the secret, your work will never be perfect.'"
Kirk: "I have been a full-time working photographer since 1988. That's 36 years. In all that time I never wanted to do anything else. I've been around the world, in countless boardrooms with industry movers and shakers, and in the most interesting places I could have ever imagined. I've also made a good living, sent a kid to a nice college, bought nice houses and fun cameras. At 68 I tried to retire but I missed the fun, the people, the money and the satisfaction of making photographs that clients loved. And the clients seemed to miss me. Just ending a week filled with new projects and much satisfaction. No better job I know of. And yes, you have to have at least a 99 out of 100 hit rate for your clients. Well, only if you want to keep them as clients...."
Nice chapter to your memoir. Seeing the world through the loose, creative eyes of an artist while trying to practice a professional craft and business is a difficult balance, I'm sure. Easier to do that as a teacher, but of course teaching has its own difficulties. And trying to pay bills as a full time "art" photographer, another Sally Mann, is a little like trying to be a rock star. Possible, but very unlikely. However, managing to pay your bills through writing about photography for a personal blog is also very unlikely, maybe even more so! You are a rock star of photography bloggers. : )
Posted by: John Krumm | Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 01:58 PM
You are correct, working as a professional photographer is not always satisfying. Art is often in the eye of the checkbook holder.
Posted by: Rob Griffin | Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 02:44 PM
I can't help picturing the Supreme Court Justice in his custom-tailored sweatpants, gavel in hand, singing Hammertime
Posted by: Sean | Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 03:27 PM
I had a friend in the ad biz whose father was also in the ad biz. My friend told me that his father always told him of client work: "It has to be bad enough that they'll like it..."
Posted by: Chris Y | Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 04:47 PM
I went to New York City and got a job as a photo assistant for a Fashion photographer. What he told me was :”I will teach you all about photography but not about the business end.” And that is the reason most working pros have a photo rep because we photographers are mostly poor business men !
Bill
Posted by: Bill Giokas | Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 05:52 PM
Serious question - do you think people with an average IQ have happier lives than those on the far right of the bell curve?
Caring about outcomes. Being curious. Placing importance on ethics (even when it's hard). Striving for quality over volume... these are things shunned by Capitalism. And those from Marketing who drive consumers feelings of scarcity.
My own theory is that the lower a persons IQ, the happier they'll be with the world and how it's presented to them. Of course, it also means that they'll expect simple solutions to work on complex problems, hence the rise of Populism yet again.
Posted by: Kye Wood | Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 07:18 PM
This post reminded me of why I would have been a total failure as a photography professional. I've never been good at marketing myself and that's why I rarely sell a photo. These days if someone sees a photo of mine and wants it, if I know them, I print, matte, and frame it and give it to them. Even in my youth when I exhibited more and sold more, I had a hard time charging for a photo.
You found your niche, writing, and you're good at it. I was lucky enough to find mine (it had nothing to do with photography) and had a successful career. I am now retired and spend most of my free time photographing, and printing. I do it for me!
Posted by: Eric Brody | Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 08:27 PM
Perhaps a job as a news photographer would also have been interesting to meet new people every day. Sadly, you'd probably also have to do something else with the demise of so many newspapers.
(I appreciate the small note about the time that the comments were updated. Maybe you could consider adding that info at the top of each post.)
Posted by: Dave | Friday, 28 June 2024 at 11:13 AM
I had a similar experience, when I moved to Italy. I found a job taking pictures for a local news magazine, whilst I learnt Italian. It was a brilliant introduction to the workings of Italian society, and how local politics really works.
I got to meet a lot of interesting people, and access to all sorts of interesting places.
After a while I went back to my real profession as a Structural Engineer. I realised that news photography here was a job with just a poorly paid future, and I did not have the interest or financial means to set up a studio doing wedding photography a sector where a decent income could be made in a small city.
I did carry on with performing arts photography, part time for ten years, and got to meet a lot of my Jazz heroes.
My job as an Engineer has probably taken me to more interesting places, than photography ever did, or ever would, as I did a lot of work on construction sites abroad, in places raging from Spain to Mexico.
Posted by: Nigel | Friday, 28 June 2024 at 12:45 PM
I think such varied experiences when you're new to a field is an extremely valuable foundational growth stage...although it usually feels like you're last man on a crack-the-whip. (Good for elder "I remember when..." yarns, too!)
An interesting parallel item posted at Petapixel recently:
https://petapixel.com/2024/06/28/survey-finds-career-in-freelance-photojournalism-is-unsustainable/
Posted by: Ken Tanaka | Friday, 28 June 2024 at 01:09 PM
I don't really enjoy talking with people very much most of the time, but I am a serious neophile. So, I sometimes (but not always!) envy folks whose jobs constantly expose them to novelty. I've gotten to see some very cool stuff in my job as a scientist (e.g. the atomic clocks at NIST, multiple nuclear reactors), but those experiences are sporadic rather than regular. The thought of regularly getting behind the scenes of the world definitely has its appeal.
Posted by: Nick | Friday, 28 June 2024 at 04:48 PM
Software consulting got me out to the interesting fringes periodically, so I understand what you're talking about there. It was great! (I didn't do enough semi-pro photo work to get that much interesting stuff, though there was a bit.)
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Friday, 28 June 2024 at 05:01 PM
I never planned on being a newspaper photographer but that's what I ended up doing for a career that spanned 41 years with three different small newspapers. I started fresh out of high school at 18 years of age working for a weekly newspaper, The Goldstream Gazette on Vancouver Island. I made up a portfolio of my best work and got a job in a small daily newspaper in Brampton Ontario, The Brampton Times. I made a cross-Canada drive when I was 21 years old to get that job, and that's when I found out how big Canada was! I worked at the Brampton paper but was homesick for the wild landscape of British Columbia. One day photographer's job was offered to me at a daily newspaper in Kelowna, B.C. The Kelowna Daily Courier so I took it. I worked at the Courier for 34 years until early 2018 when I was laid off. It was a great job and I loved what I did over my four-decade-long career. I should also add that in addition to my newspaper work, I did my own personal photography work that was important to me as an artist.
Posted by: Gary Nylander | Saturday, 29 June 2024 at 12:33 AM
Over the years, I had come to think of about four levels of “self” in pursuit of a career. The first getting self awareness in your craft and its execution with others. The other three are self esteem, self respect and self control, which have to be navigated for loss, acceptance and/or avoidance.
Posted by: Bob G. | Saturday, 29 June 2024 at 09:59 AM
Thanks, Kenneth Wajda, for the Maureen Dowd column. She captures what really was a better time in a better place. Except, maybe, for the spittoons.
Posted by: Michael Matthews | Sunday, 30 June 2024 at 09:52 PM