They are gifts we give ourselves…..
You already know the ones…the ones that really terrify you. The ones you think you can’t handle. The ones you think are way, way, beyond your capabilities. Gateway assignments. The ones you need to take. They come in on the phone (rarely) or in the email of your imagination as loud as the “TERRAIN! TERRAIN! TERRAIN!” warning in the cockpit. You must respond. You must engage.
Increasingly, these are the ones you give yourself.
On the other side of that job, win, lose or draw, you will be a different photographer, and presumably, absolutely, a better photographer. Like a redwood, you just accumulated another ring. You could liken it to a scar, the way things go in this business. I try not to think about it.
But here’s the beautiful thing about scars. They are on the surface. Not attractive perhaps, but at the end of the day, inconsequential. They don’t affect your core.
Someplace at or near my core, I’ve got this fortress. It is well fortified, and I don’t let anyone in there. No tedious editor, no residue from a soul blasting job, gets in there, ever. Cause inside there lives whatever makes me love doing this as much as I do. Dunno the why’s and wherefore’s of it. I don’t unwrap it or turn it upside down and shake it, trying to figure out what’s inside, cause I might break it. It is what makes me hold my breath at the camera, makes me curse my mistakes and short circuits of mind, will and body, and gives me the recurring nightmare that I am swimming underwater and when I try to break the surface I find it is glass. I can’t break through and I am breathing water and jaysus-be-jaysus where the hell is the next good frame? Why can’t I figure this out and why haven’t shot anything worth a good goddamn in the last bit of forever? Is this the end of the road and the limit of my talent? I wake up in a cold sweat.
Nice, huh? The miracle of photography, sitting on your chest in the middle of the night like a big wet dog, panting in your face, demanding to be fed.
Like the boxer in the song, photographers remember every cut. I certainly do. (It’s just that way with the Irish.) Those cuts are the jobs, the frames. I can remember what I said before and after certain rolls went through the camera. I can remember what I had for breakfast that day and whether I was just shy of 5.6 at one twenty fifth. I can remember the smells in the air, and just how miserable, elated or terrified I was. Often, I can’t remember what I did yesterday, but those are yesterdays I didn’t make a picture.
Ironies abound for photographers. They are occasionally huge and cruel and we either laugh them off, smile through our tears, or are crushed by them. Some are small and produce rolled eyes and a sigh. We are on assignment to shoot the CEO, but we come up the freight elevator. Our work adorns the hushed hallways of corporate palaces even as our demise is plotted and graphed. The rakish, insouciant legacy of a Robert Capa and the derring do that produced those pictures that are the stuff of our collective memory is celebrated and paid lip service, but hey, wait a minute, look at these expenses! That was then fella, and this is, well, now.
Or, we attend a photo gathering where a picture editor exhorts us from the podium to step it up, work harder, get to a new level, and push the envelope. Then that picture editor goes into closed door meetings at their shop and advocates against raising the day rate.
I am the last staff photographer ever, at LIFE magazine. I didn’t get that mildly undesirable title by doing anything in particular. I just kept shooting assignments, and then they fired me. Later, the magazine did its final, absolute death spiral. Like Santino in the Godfather, it took a lot of bullets, but it finally went down for good.
Round about that time, the Time Warner colossus was seeking to “build a bridge to the visual community.” and instituted the Eisie’s, a prestigious series of awards in honor of the legacy of Alfred Eisenstadt. It was determined that LIFE would be the host and sponsor magazine, much to the dismay of TIME, then the big budget gorilla of the photo world.
During my brief tenure at LIFE, I agitated to do stuff, as all of us do. One result of my agitation became a story the mag called “The Panorama of War.” It won the first Eisie for journalistic impact.
I found myself on stage, at a gala hosted by LIFE, accepting a LIFE sponsored award for a LIFE assigned and published story. Mildly ironical problem, though, as I stood there, prize money and the paperweight of the award in hand, was that LIFE magazine had fired me the week before the ceremony. I chuckled inwardly as I smiled at the podium. I even smiled at Norm Pearlstine, the boss of the whole deal, who was sitting in the front row, looking for all the world like he was in a dentist’s chair. I actually felt bad for him cause he had come over to run Time Warner from that sea of type known as the Wall Street Journal and had never met a picture he understood. Here he was at a photo banquet, fer chrissakes, and later, he had to give out the most important award of the night, and thus make the longest speech. He had a terrible time pronouncing “Sebastiao.”
So it goes, and it always has. We are on our own. Whether we are on assignment or on staff or on Flickr. Whether we are making a buck or winging it, unfunded and unfazed, on the increasingly threadbare seat of our pants. That’s as it should be. Trust me, When it comes to corporate belt tightening, housecleaning, and general neutron bomb keep-the-building-lose-the-people cost cutting, we are both the baby and the bathwater. We get thrown out. They will never understand that picture gathering cannot be plotted on a chart, estimated in a graph, or measured in people hours relative to numbers of units produced. Thank God. If they ever figured it out, and really understood the astonishing alchemy of it all, they would want to be us, and trust me, there’s already plenty of us.
One of my heroes is Frank Hurley, the shooter on the Shackelton expedition. He was one tough nut of an Aussie. When their ship, the Endurance, got locked in the ice, he stripped down and dove into the frigid hold to retrieve his plates.
Hurley “is a marvel,” wrote Frank Worsley, captain of the Endurance. “With cheerful Australian profanity he perambulates alone aloft & everywhere, in the most dangerous & slippery places he can find, content & happy at all times but cursing so if he can get a good or novel picture. Stands bare & and hair waving in the wind, where we are all gloved and helmeted, he snaps his snaps or winds his handle turning out curses of delight & pictures of Life by the fathom.”
As Shackleton said, “What the ice gets, the ice keeps.” The Endurance was doomed. The crew was stranded. Hurley kept shooting.
The ever prescient David Hobby just threw a big rock into the pond of our psyches. Lots of ripples, from Chase Jarvis to Moose Peterson, to Vincent Laforet to the gang over at Sports Shooter. Just like a couple hundred photographers at the exact same location will produce a couple hundred picture points of view, there are lots of opinions out there, from “Yeah, that’s the deal,” to “Is he crazy?”
Not crazy at all, methinks, and that’s not to say we should all apply for non-profit status. I think what David is talking about, really, is not dollars and cents but growth and direction as a photographer, increasingly an isolated task, as the more collective staff photographer experience withers and dies. My advice to young photographers has always been to join the staff of a newspaper or wire service. Get some editor on your case, putting your ass on the street and your eye in the camera everyday. Come back to the wet darkroom to soup your stuff with the rest of the shooters and kibbitz, compete, spin tales, drink beer and give out shit. And listen. And learn.
That is increasingly anachronistic advice, of course. Digital has changed the deal, and the curves in the road upcoming for all of us are steeper, sharper and many aren’t even on the map yet. More so than ever, we are on our own, crafting a path unique to our skills, intentions and career goals. Take a look at Doug Menuez’s recent musings on career path.
A career in photography is a journey without a destination. And really, do you think someone’s gonna buy you a ticket to someplace you can’t even point out on the map? Try writing “meander” on a travel requisition and see how far you get.
I’m not suggesting you don’t need to make money as a shooter. Far from it. But those pictures we get, the ones we keep close, the deepest cuts, if you will, are really of our own volition and making. And those are the ones we seek and need, or better, the ones that seek us. They are way stations. You will stop there, or need to stop there, no matter if someone is paying you or not.
Cause what we are talking about here is food for the table and food for the soul. You gotta sell your stuff. You gotta pitch clients. You gotta make some dough with that fancy machine you have in your hands. And there is no problem with that. It is in fact, a very honorable and wonderful feeling to make your living with a camera. Trust me, I have shot all manner of jobs. I’ve shot for clients I shouldn’t have worked for, just to keep the studio alive. I’ve shot bad deals just cause I wanted the pictures so bad. I’ve shot wonderful jobs that have pushed me personally and professionally. I’ve even gone to photo heaven. In the last couple of years I’ve worked for a client whose art director is a wonder, the people running the show have become like my family, I’ve been treated fairly and I’ve expanded creatively. And, along the way,Ā I’ve shot jobs so thoroughly mercenary that in my head I don’t hear the whir of a motor drive, but the kaching of a cash register. Its a wonderful sound. It means I will be able to keep that camera in my hands a while longer, and extend a little further, reach a little deeper, and stay the course. What an amazement! I got paid to do that which I love!
Many pictures I shoot nowadays have only me as the client. They are pictures I need to do and want to do. I fund them myself. Did one last week in Vancouver. Wanted to work with a dancer, so came in early, rented a studio, paid an assistant and paid the dancer (I always pay the dancers, they work just as hard as we do and make even less) and shot some pictures I really like. When I finally get home I’ve got a studio, six square feet of chrome diamond plate flooring as a backdrop, a smoke machine, some heavy gauge chain, a battered chainsaw, and a physical trainer whose endearing nickname is “The Pain Chisel” all arranged for. Can’t wait.
I could gin up a portfolio of fancy flying, dancing, body bulging, glam type pictures and bring them to one of the stylish, au courant type magazines, and they would laugh me out of the building. I’m realistic about this. For better or for worse, I grew up shooting for mom and dad’s magazines–LIFE, National Geographic, Time, Sports Illustrated. At a place like Vogue or Esquire or GQ, I couldn’t get arrested. At one of the hipper men’s magazines, a book I’ve shot a couple covers for and a couple years back knocked out a fashion piece involving the U.S. military (which they liked so much they expanded the story from six to ten pages) I had to go in and show my book to the new, thirty-ish photo editor. He liked my stuff and was very respectful. As he closed my portfolio, he looked at me and said, “You’ve had a great career.”
In other words, “I’ll hire you for an editor’s note picture if I can’t find someone else at the last minute.”
Okay. Picture editors at places like this are relentlessly searching not so much for good pictures, but for buzz. Occasionally, good pictures and buzz coincide. Tough thing is though, even when they are able to stuff good pix into their mag, it is so graphically cluttered (the printed version of a sound byte) you can’t really enjoy ’em anyway. Hell, lots of times you can’t even find ’em.
Will some of these pictures I pursue on my own ever sell? Dunno. Never been much of a stock shooter cause my stuff has been so assignment specific. I get sales reports now with my pictures turning around eye popping amounts of remuneration, like a recent one I got from a prestigious bastion of publishing erudition for all of $4.67. Jeez, never thought a stock sale wouldn’t even get me into the movies. Shit, that one won’t even get me one of those big boxes of Raisinets.
I get a check like that and I either laugh or cry, depending on how many days I have left to pull together the mortgage. I look at these picture statements and I feel like a kid in a Cape May arcade who just turned about $50 of cash money into a clutch of “admit one” tickets that gets dumped into the counting hopper and spits out a chit that allows him to pick out anything in the shop that’s worth less than a buck.
This is not a good business model. My accountant on occasion has mentioned my endeavors lean more towards “hobby” than profession. Okay. The numbers don’t add up. Pretty much, I’ve never added up either, even to my parents.
We run when others walk. We work when others play. We adjust our schedules to accommodate theirs. We present the flimsiest of reasons to insist that we be allowed to keep doing that which we need to do, something for us that is as necessary as breathing. Paid or not, it is what we do.
By the way, at the age of 76, Frank Hurley came back off assignment, and shrugged off his camera bag and sat down, saying he didn’t feel well. He was dead the next morning. I suspect there was still film in his holders.
More tk….
Discover more from Joe McNally Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
;
Thank you, Joe. I really needed that. I needed some inspiration on this icy, miserable northern Vermont day. This little essay has more meat in it than lifetime’s supply of Omaha Steaks. I’ve been slowly digesting the many bits and pieces of this, and I’m sure I’ll continue to for quite a while.
Thank you again.
loved this big… not only are you beyond belief behind the camera, but you can write like the devil. It just so totally unfair (and *completely* wonderful) that there’s so much talent in one person. As a new photographer, all the how-to posts from other photographers (and you) are great and well appreciated, but inspiration like you dish out… that is the life and breath that helps get us through the tough jobs (or the no jobs) and back to remembering why we do this in the first place. Thank you…
i love this post joe…and i while i know you didn’t write it specifically for me….i read it as if you were telling me this in person.
good schtuff.. my “street” work in baltimore appeals to me more than anything…but i’m traveling the wedding circuit and doing the family & kid shoots to pay the bills.
yours words are honest …. & real. i’m hopeful to have my wits about me in the end…and camera by my side. i’ll keep shooting for me and i’m hopeful…like Field of Dreams…as i build it….they will come.
cheers!
The problem with looking through a viewfinder is that it’s like crack. Once you’re hooked on seeing that miniature world, you can’t leave it. It’s wondrous and mesmerizing. What the editors don’t know is that, for the right assignment, you’d probably pay them for the chance to shoot.
REALLY wonderful post ! When I was in high school I always thought that photography was beyond my reach, too competitive, or (even worse) doing it as a career would kill whatever love I had for photography that was inside of me. Oh, how wrong I was! After giving the military a good 8 years of my life I realized that it was the only thing I could do as a career that would make me happy … now, I’m barely making enough money to buy groceries and gas, but that’s what supportive husbands are for, right?
BTW, this is my fave line from what you said: “A career in photography is a journey without a destination.” So true … every year is a surprise to see how it turns out. š
Thanks so much for sharing, Joe š
“…I had to go in and show my book to the new, thirty-ish photo editor. He liked my stuff and was very respectful. As he closed my portfolio, he looked at me and said, You’ve had a great career.”
So I ask myself, Joe how do you restrain yourself from reaching across the kids desk and twisting his nose and make that honking sound?
Keep doing what your doing Joe, we need your influence so we can do the same.
Hoover
You just gave me the good kind of chills. Well said.
This is the most poignant set of words I have ever read about being a photographer!
I get a check like that and I either laugh or cry, depending on how many days I have left to pull together the mortgage.
Joe,
This is the single best (most true) thing I have ever read on the net.
Amen brother…..
Thank you for the most inspiring thing I’ve read about photography in a good while. It brought tears to my eyes and hope to my heart. Thanks for all the sharing that you do. In an age where media outlets are downsizing and closing everyday, I look to you, and other established photographers who blog about their work, as the modern day equivalent of hanging out with the street-wise photographer at the local paper; listening to their advice and wisdom and learning from their stories of hard frames fought, lost and won. Thanks, it means the world to me.
Joe..
WOW!
And we all thought you lived a glamorous lifestyle! HA! Thanks for sharing your feelings. I am eagerly waiting for your new book “The official Biography”. It would sell millions especially with your writing talent. Oh..and you could throw in a few photographs. Only because YOU want to!
Thanks
You should throw up your sandwich board photo to accompany this article.
Joe-
A most sincere thank you. Though I’m sure that this is only an instant of feeling, I know it took a long while to compose. I thank you for that time, and for that feeling. It’s a rare honor to be able to hear from those who have been-there/done-that, and you never fail to amaze.
When the book on Joe McNally is written, this should be the introduction!
Cheers.
Thanks for sharing Joe.
Like Kathyrn above I ought to say that this struck me emotionally….”food for the soul” you say. I know that as I start out as a p/t freelance I am going to be going for jobs I do not ‘click with’ and that I have to learn to engage for those roles or step aside.
Tomorrow I am going to shoot warehouses and retail buildings in Bracknell. England is cold, grey and no strong light right now. 15 minutes ago I was assuming tomorrow would suck and fretting how how I would engage with this. Now I am going to go upstairs, empty EVERYTHING onto the floor and work out just how to make this sing.
We’ve never met, but thanks.
Joe, thank you seems so inadequate. I’m 76 and still picking up the camera bag in the morning. Thank goodness the mortgage is paid. Now where’s the money for that 600 I want?
I think this is your very best inspirational piece. Ever.
It came at the exactly right moment for me. Thank’s Joe, you just made my day.
Very well put. Fantastic piece of writing. Thank you.
Thanks Joe, thought it was just me š
I only feel alive when I am scared. This job sometimes challenges you even on dead end assignments.
I would not have it any other way, thanks for baring your soul Joe
This could very well be the best blog post I have ever read. You are such the artist with the written word. I humbly dribble out daily sentences of verbal diarrhea in the hopes that someday, maybe someday…….it just clicks. My friend, you are a true inspiration š
Fantastic article, brilliantly felt and written. Thank you, Joe.
Wow…
I never put it to words before, but that is what drives me to shoot. I don’t make my living from it like you do, (at least not yet…), but I love photography. There is that core that drives me to shoot.
Thanks for writing this post. Best one I have every read on photography, here or anywhere else.
Thanks…
Dang!!! Here I was feeling like I was shortchanging myself because I’m still keeping the “day job” so I can afford to shoot personal projects to satisfy my own internal visual lust.
Your post was not only inspirational but reminded me again of some words of wisdom written by Robert Adams. I’m reminded that it’s not what we do to pay the bills but what we do during the time that’s our own that really matters. It’s how we mold what we have to do, to feed what it is we want to do.
It hardly seems enough to say…….but thanks!
No images but all heart. Emotion. Feeling.
That’s why you images say what they say and what many of us try to emulate whenever we can.
Others before me have said it better. But thanks for this post. It’s something like this this that will take me behind the lens yet another day.
Joe: Reading this reminded me of a night nearly 30 years ago, when I was a summer student working with Environment Canada, testing the impacts of spraying a new pesticide to combat spruce budworm. My boss and I were out in the woods, in the dark, in rain that was pounding down so hard we could barely hear each other, with a flashlight that worked fine when pointed to the sky but shut off when turned down so we could see what we were doing. We were collecting tiny flies out of these plastic buckets with a pair of tweezers, and putting them into a vial of alcohol. And my boss turned to me and said, “You know, Mike, sometimes I wonder why I love this f___ing job.” That summed it all up, right there. You do it because you can’t imagine doing anything else.
Mike.
Thanks Joe. Your post touched a nerve with me, at this time of year I always get a bit of a downer on, I don’t know why, it’s not S.A.D Disorder or illness, I think now, that it’s because it’s because I don’t get enough photography time.
Personal work goes out he window at this time of year, no one wants to stad about in the wind, rain and cold so I can get a few pics of them. I can’t afford to hire studio space or anything like that and going to peoples houses is out of the question as they are getting ready for christmas.
I agreed with David, working for free on stuff you want to do is a great way to broaden your horizions, I mean who is going to hire you for something you love unless you can show them that you rock at it? Definitely a catch 22, only broken by getting off your arse and doing one job for nothing. My advice is to do it for a non-profit or charity, not a major multinational. I plan on doing this soon.
I don’t know about yourself, but I liken taking a fantastic pic to fishing, you wait patiently for hours sometimes jiggling the bait, allowing it to roll downstream and then gently draging it back upstream until you see the float bobbing, then you strike! You have a fish! It’s that rush of adrenalin, the burst of “YES!” you know you’ve got it in the bag when you get that buzz. Just like a great photo.
Your writing is like that for me, very down to earth without the conciet of the famous.
You give me a buzz when I read it.
Thank you.
Whoa. I feel like I’ve just had my head blown clean off. All those thoughts you have rushing around inside – it’s the curse of the photographer. I feel almost like Gollum sometimes “Mmmm my precious, we need’s this picture. It’s ours…” but it drives you on to take the shot and grow. Even when you’re fingers are freezing off and your brain is addled with thoughts both good and bad.
Take the picture, take the picture, take the picture………
I was just reading through the comments getting ready to post and then the last post from michelle was exactly what I was going to say (down to the part about not getting anybody to stand in the wind this time of year!).
Anyway, very well written Joe.
Thank you for your post. Read it all. As one who is starting out on the journey of photography your words are both inspirational and a reality-check. If the journey has no destination, maybe the development of our personality and character along the way are what matters most.
From Europe,
Rogier
Not only your best ever piece of writing, Joe, but on photography and the photographer from anyone that I have read in many years. At the risk of sounding like Chris Mathews on “Hardball”, it sent a chill up my leg.
Joe – Dude why am I not surprised that you are a fan of the Old Man? That’s what we call him down under anyway.I was in Sydney a few weeks ago at the Australian Museum where they have a huge show on at the Moment of his work in Papua in the 20’s and 30’s , as i mooched around the walls looking at photos of and by people long dead – I fell in love with photography all over again, seeing the beautiful prints , the chinks and cracks in the plate glass negatives ,This blokes camera and tripod weighed at least 30 pounds and was part of the first expidition to the Papua New Guinea highlands , the people he shot had never seen such a man ,or any white man for that matter.
But one thing that struck me was a housekeeping photo of the Comms center of this converted Pearling Lugger , with a wireless telegraph set up and a fucking arsenal from a webley revolver to an Elephant gun , Frank Hurley if he were alive today would be absoluteley Digied up and taking pictures that Intrigue, inform and amaze , he was the kind of man who would make his mark on any era he was born in.
I don’t know how much you know about the man but after Shackletons expedition where because of weight restrictions on the Dinghy , he had to smash hundreds of glass plate negatives because he couldnt take them on the boat , THATS a ruthless edit!
He went stright from that journey back to Australia in 1916 and went straight to the Western Front as one of Australia’s official war photographers
http://blog.awm.gov.au/focus/?page_id=203
Cheers Glenn
Joe, your genius lies not only in the making of excellent images, but also in your crafting of the printed word. Wonderful!
“We run when others walk. We work when others play. We adjust our schedules to accommodate theirs. We present the flimsiest of reasons to insist that we be allowed to keep doing that which we need to do, something for us that is as necessary as breathing. Paid or not, it is what we do.”
Joe, your whole post resonated with me, but the quote above really hit home. People think that having a fancy camera will make them a photographer, but nothing could be further from the truth. I could have the most expensive paint brushes, paints, pallet and canvas, but that would not make me Picasso. It’s not the equipment we have, it’s the way we live, think and see the world that makes us photographers. Thanks for expressing what we all have inside of us so eloquently.
I m stunning with this article. I have never come across a professional photography that as good and more importantly patient enough in writting. WOW
Joe,
You went to the core and soul of many of us who have been at this for a long time. I can’t imagine how long or how much thought you put into this article. It should be required reading for anybody who wants to try to be in this business or anybody who has been in this business for as many decades as some of us.
As my wife and partner, Margo Pinkerton, always says, “I cannot NOT be a photographer.”
Joe, you’re not just a great and inspiring photographer and teacher, you’re also a great writer. You have wisdom that comes from a life’s work and passion.
I know one day we’ll meet and it will be a wonderful day indeed. š
Great and inspiring!!!!!!
Thanks……
Joe,
There is some real deep perspective in there.
Thanks for sharing!
Cheers, Jeremy
It just shows that photography is an art. It requires passion and dedication, we’re paid (sometimes) to do what we love. Sometimes we pay to do what we love. In the end, we do it for ourselves, to push our art further. Most of the people who will see our pictures will not really understand how much work we put into them, the attention to detail.
Photos are everywhere, billboards, magazines, ads, they’re mundane and people see them, some watch them, but photographers analyze them. If we were to stick with what’s asked of us, the same pictures we see everywhere wouldn’t be half as interesting; they would only be another product of this society system. As long as we keep pushing our own limits, photos will remain interesting. The day we shoot for money exclusively, … we won’t be artists anymore, and our pics will be mindblowingly boring.
In Princeton, New Jersey there is a bronze statue of a man eating a sandwich while reading a book.
You have to get on your knees to look up at the book’s cover.
In large type, the book is called “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.”
All my best personal work have been wonderfully expensive emotionally. We pay a high price for the emotional satisfaction the comes from our talents. Now to get the bank to deposit the joy, frustration, anger, and hope that comes from the experience of a camera in one’s hand.
Thanks so much for making the effort to post these wonderful stories and pieces of advice. It always hits home and is taken to heart. Can’t wait for The Hot Shoe Diaries.
I can’t imagine you dusting off the ol “Book” , strapping on the tie and making the trip down to the editor’s office of that hip mag.
“You’ve had a great career”.. WTF that’s no condescending at all.
Joe as a working Pro of 20 years in one of the coldest cities in North America, I will think of this post tomorrow,..as I stand outside in -30C with -42C windchill and shoot a magazine cover.
You wanna man-up sometime, come do your seminar in Winnipeg, in winter š
OK, Joe, just like I responded to DH’s post … I’m on board. And by gawd, you have had a great career, haven’t you? But I do have just one question: if an airplane shouts “terrain terrain terrain” just before it crashes … does that mean that a train shouts “airplane airplane airplane” just before IT crashes? Sorry, but inquiring minds want to know.
this piece was really good to read.
just got in after a long day in the studio with an even longer one comeing tomorrow, great i got 4 and a half hours sleep before i need to get up again, happy days.
you got to be passionate about photog, joe is without doubt, passionate or slave it is hard to seperate the two…maybe
keep going joe, you are very good at what you do and people like me apprecate your ramblings and wisdom that you pass on ….
happy xmas
jason
Joe,
Very powerful stuff. Please keep it coming. Thanks for sharing.
Andrew
Somewhere, Carl Mydans is smiling.
Mr. McNally,
I was almost asleep last night when I heard the ding of the new mail sound on my phone ( I subscribe to your blog posts by email). Instead of ignoring it, I picked it up and read your post.
All I can say is thank you. You’ve inspired me to look for those assignments. I waited 30 years to see what I can do professionally with a camera. Now at 51, I’m a green rookie, and you’ve laid it out so clearly, if only I am honest enough take your words, and see what I can do with them.
Thanks again, and I look forward to your next post.
Best regards,
Erich Adickes
I opened this blog post up yesterday. It sat open in a tab for a day and a half, because I was too busy to read it. Am I ever glad I took the time to read it tonight. Well worth the wait!
Thank you for this, Joe. Incredibly inspirational!
By the way, what does it mean when you end your post with “more tk”? English isn’t my first language so I’m a little confused here…
This is such an important post, sir. I occasionally work with young photographers (to the medium, not age wise) and when I talk of the passion that must be involved to make a single moment in time, in two dimensions, powerful – meaningful – I sometimes get blank stares.
I sometimes get glimmers of introspective awareness. This article will be one that I point to again and again.
And, btw… I am glad to know I am not the only one with the crazy ability to remember every thing about every photo I ever made… fstop, shutte, lens, temperature, what I was thinking or discussing with the talent… all of it.
But cannot for the life of me remember to bring milk home at the end of the day.
Salutes, Bill. Great read.
Joe,
This is now printed and I’ve sent my secretary out looking for a frame so I can hang it on my wall and read it everyday.
Thanks.
Hi Joe,
I have watched your DVD about 10-15 times now, I am reading your book and will reread it again. You are not only a wonderful photogrpher, but a great writer thank you for sharing your talents with us. I am hoping to do workshop this coming fall in NYC. The good thing for me is and one I am very happy about, I always wanted to be a photographer, but like so many others felt I did not have the talent too. So after a long absents from doing what I love I have come back to the fold with folks like you out there I know I can become the best I can, and for me that is good enough. The part I mention above is I can do it because I love it not because I have to. I have a great job so I now work for my photos.
You are a great writer never knock you writing, as you have a great way of putting the words in the right place.
Thanks you once again for sharing and I wish all the best to you and your family. Have a great holiday and happy and safe New Years.
thanks Rich
Hi Joe
I can’t believe that one person is feeling so much the same as i do. You just said it better than i could ever do.
Regards
Gerhard
Joh – I’m surprised that you posted my earlier comment – I was in a goofy mood. Now, I’ll be serious. You and David Hobby have opened an important dialog. It’s especially valuable to me because I have Parkinson’s disease. Photography is what keeps me motivated and engaged with the world, and I have made many new friends through it. I’m aware that some working photographers are threatened by people who work inexpensively or for free. I don’t want to take food off anyone’s table, so I stay away from the bread and butter jobs in our area – no weddings, no school portraits, no commercial assignments. I work the fringes – musicians, community events, and so forth. Right now I’m volunteering to take photos of African-American churches for a group that is putting together a display for black history month and the MLK birthday, and I’m learning more about photography by doing so. Most important, I’m not sitting at home feeling sorry for myself. Thank you for your post.
Joe-
No sense in repeating what’s been said so eloquently by others. But there’ s another page to the story. For those of us who on one hand, have chosen another life path that doesn’t place us in the same world as yours, along our alternative path I’ve recognized what your world and perspective offers–through your images and your words. Fortunately, you are willing and able to share with us. I wanted to be a professional, and am. Success is one dimensional, and for that other dimension and inspiration to be better at keeping the eye in the camera, thanks ain’t quite enough.
John
Thank you Joe. Another post that lands straight into the gut of working photographers. Thanks for saying what needs to be said. Appreciate all your work on this ‘blog. -j.
Dear Joe,
Wonderfull, inspiring post.
I have long wondered whether it would be possible for you to come to Europe and give one or more of your workshops.
I’d attend. Most definitely.
As a matter of fact, if you decide you like the idea, I would love to see if I can help to set it up for you. Maybe a small tour of Europe, and especially the Netherlands š
Anyhow, just wanted to compliment you on another wonderfull post. Thanks
Joe,
Great post! It hits home with me… I shoot for State Government doing conservation related shoots and “Meander” doesn’t fly with politicians. Thanks for reminding me what I love and what I get to do everyday. Can you run for Governor of Alabama?
Thanks
Joe,
This reminds me very much of Tony Levin talking about bass playing, he doesn’t talk about it but just talks about life instead. Much more interesting. I agree with what a few have said, you’d be great choice for writing a book on photography that went beyond photography, The Moment It Clicks did that to a point. I think it could go a lot further. Photography can be a solitary thing so this kind of emotional support is always useful (while possibly providing some form of therapy for you š ).
Regards and blessings
Jase
Reading this made me fell like a kid and an old man all at the same time. Bravo.
Joe,
I am in tears, don’t know why but something hit home. I have been trying to figure this out for a long number of years….and you said it all…
When I first started, an older photographer said, ” ..know that photography is a jealous mistress that doesn’t kindly to being in the back seat..”
She has been and still is my lover, and now thanks to your great words, I understand her a little better.
good shooting
matthew pace
Wow!
And I mean WOW. I didn’t even get half way through this post and all I wanted to do was run, run as fast as I could out the door, grabbing only my camera and picking a location on the map (GPS) and see what developed.
You have inspired me to no end and this… well it just put a cherry on top of my love of your work.
For Christmas I received your DVD and a bunch of new gear. I’ve been a “photographer” my whole life but did nothing about it until about 6 months ago. I could only dream of the experiences you have. When reading your post, for the 5th time, it almost felt like…. I was in my own head. Running from thought to thought getting more excited on to the next until it’s all spinning around in there… until I go get it on “film”. I had to remember to breath at one point.
There are two quotes from this blog that will stay with me forever. “Often, I can’t remember what I did yesterday, but those are yesterdays I didn’t make a picture.”, and “A career in photography is a journey without a destination.” And the entire first part up to “Nice, huh? The miracle of photography, sitting on your chest in the middle of the night like a big wet dog, panting in your face, demanding to be fed.” makes me speechless.
Thank you for the inspiration to keep on shooting!
I loved that…that was such good reading.
Inspiration to keep shooting.
Thank you.
Edd
Thank you so much for this incredibly inspiring post. Truly wonderful, and a great way to start my day today.
I’m at a crossroads myself as far as what I’m going to do after college. Thank you for this.
Wow! That piece left me speechless. I’m inspired again. Thank you very much. I needed that.
Your fan from the Philippines,
Tony
yup I reread it again..its such a fascinating and awesome article. I believe I will be rereading this many times in my lifetime
Joe,
I have re-read this blog post so many times. I know you posted it so long ago, but I have it book marked so I can go back to it whenever I need a kick in the ass to pick up my cameras again and get after it. (I also have letter to a young photographer book marked)
You are such an inspiration and have done more to fuel my love of photography. You have opened so many doors through your teaching that I feel that I will forever be in your debt.
Little less than two years before I am out of the military and I make the giant leap into photography, so I am trying to learn everything I can. I just can’t thank you enough for all of the wonderful information you have on your blog.
I have so much more to say, but I just can’t find the right words. I will say this though, if I ever lucky enough to meet you I’d love to buy you beer.
Every profression, even photography has heros…..thanks for being mine.
Kyle