Evolution

As things in Miami have been heating up with the near arrival of Art Basel | Miami Beach craziness, I spent a mostly quiet week in the office editing, invoicing, confirming upcoming jobs, and having several exchanges that brought me back to thinking again about my evolution over these past 5 freelance years.

At this point almost all my freelance photography friends fall into one of two categories: conflict photographers or portrait photographers, with very little middle ground in between. The conflict photographers don't always shoot war of course, but they are almost always hired to shoot the edgy sort of vibe that their experiences shooting conflict helped define in their style. The portrait photographers nearly always shoot exactly that, even if their passion is or once was the same "reportage" that inspired both groups in college.

Maybe these two groups always existed, but it seems to me that the grey area in between is shrinking ever more dramatically by force of the market for editorial photography, which has become overwhelming filled with portraiture. Every magazine is filled to the gills with smiling and stoic faces captured in canned situations. Portraits are the photography market. And even though portraiture is an incredibly broad category including many, many different types of styles (which I do find exciting), when viewed from my background in journalism it all feels ever more homogenous. Ultimately, we are all portrait photographers.

Perhaps what leaves this annoying aftertaste in my mouth is that I didn't really choose to become a portrait photographer. The only choice I made was to not try my hand at conflict photography, and therefore because I still wanted to be a freelance editorial shooter capable of juggling lots of different assignments I was pushed towards the other camp (of course there are dozens of other specialties I'm ignoring here; architecture, aerial, food, etc) by market demand.

The shift in the market is pretty easy to chart as well: declining budgets (and/or increasing shareholder demands on profit gains) equals less interest in documentary assignments that by their very nature are more expensive to produce (waiting for the decisive moment for days is costly) than the vast majority of portrait shoots.

The only thing to be done is to rationally understand who and where you are, what it is you want from your career, and then to make whatever changes may be available. In saying "I am another portrait photographer," I at the very least free myself up to think about if that's the one-line sentence (from Soth's thread) that I want to define my work.

Ultimately I'm not unhappy with being a portrait photographer, I'm just sorry the market is not more diversified. I know that I haven't given myself fully over to portraiture, but I'm not going to run in the other direction and march off to war either. Instead I simply hope to continue to use the genre of portraiture to explore my personal style and passions, and continue to do my own personal work that explains what I care about on a much deeper level.

As much as its important to understand how others may see you, at the end of the day its up to your own inner critic as to whether you are leading the life you desire.

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Comments (3)

Yo John...I had just given thanks to you on a differnet post, but I realize it was a few months old, so if you did not get that...thanks again.

I do not know if it is symptomatic of photography, but constantly looking towards others, and how they see you, seems to be like the flesh eating virus of photography , eroding momentum, and grinding focus past its usable point. We (I) get so caught up keeping up with so and so, peers, friends, enemies, making Art Deflectors happy...I lose what matters most..."whether you are leading the life you desire".
I read many a post about the lack of talent here, or there...I have listened to many blow hard photographers, blasting away their guns of competition, trying to sink their enemies of photography, and tooting there own horn...But at what value?

I easily forget that my focus needs to be here, here in my own mind, my own studio, or my own view finder.
Thanks again John. I dig your blog.

John, I enjoyed your post. It got me wondering if it's easier to shoot more diverse subjects living in a small town like I do. It seems if anything I struggle with being to much of a generalist. But, it's also fun to shoot so many different things on a regular basis. Maybe not as profitable, but my overhead is probably much less than the average city dweller to balance things out.

John, I really dig this post. You hit the nail on the head. Sometimes it feels like going through the motions is the easiest thing to do. A lot of times I get hired to do the same picture I've done before, because they liked the lighting, color, whatever. Of course, no two people hold the light the same way, so the image is bound to look different.

I'm at the point where I know, at least for a magazine, that I'm going to give them something they like. So my response to the canned portrait experience is to roll the dice a little and learn something new, whether it's composition or lighting, and apply it to the next one. That way, it remains a constant challenge and a rewarding experience. I feel lucky to get every job, so wasting my time by going through the motions just isn't an option.

The key is finding how to make each situation valuable to you.

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