wtf! atleast I can’t say I didn’t learn anything from the man!

And yeah, it sucks that I had to start 7 years ago with him shooting 4×5 film and polariod only now in the negligence and low budgets of mags and advertisers to stick us Photographers with the short end of the stick….Manipulating images sometimes doesn’t cut it!

put some effort into what you sell.

man… I absolutely hate chewing tobacco kisses from lot lizards!

I stated off shooting for me and I will continue to shoot for me. I shoot because I love the creation process in designing a photograph. My style is not that of following trends like so many others it’s simply my style.

I got so fed up with clients saying they want something edgy but latter find out that they really wanted something safe that I had to show what edgy really is and made a series of portraits taken while the subject is mid orgasm. Now clients don’t ask for edgy ’cause they already know they’re gonna get it.

1. Terren Gomez – Utah / Co / Cali, Snowboarding
2. Heather McGrath – Boston, MA, Portraits
3. Matt Clark – East Coast, Surf
4. Mat Couture – Canada, Snowboard

Google them.

A’freakin’men.

Gospel is spoken.

dR

Even Webster’s is ambiguous on the definition. The one that fits best is: “a special often creative or artistic aptitude.”

I would argue that, “talent is what YOU do and do not compromise” is not talent, but stubbornness or persistence, or something along those lines, but not really talent. I think talent is about as easy to define as art.

Each person will have their own definition. I think that any of the creative fields are filled with a lot of b.s. and a lot of pretension. That’s my personal opinion, and I have plenty of friends and family that look at my work, or the collection of “art” books I have and think I’ve got a few loose screws. They just don’t get it. Just as I don’t get a lot of the supposedly great, visionary art that I see.

I think a talent for photography, and a talent for being a great photographer are two different though connected and, hopefully, equally important aspects in the business of photography. After all, I’m in the business of photography. It’s not only something I love and feel passionate about, it’s also how I make a living.

Being a good or great photographer may require great photography (though it may not), but it certainly requires being a good or great photographer (yes, I know it’s redundant and circular in it’s logic.)

Copying others is a business tactic that is used successfully by businesses around the world. It’s also used by successful photographers, designers, and other artists around the world as well. Does achieving success in your field, by copying the work of others mean that you are more or less talented? I think you need to determine what you want to judge the person (or yourself) on. I would say it’s possible to be talented in making photos, but not be a talented photographer. And vice versa. But, then again, what’s talent?

The other interesting topic, at least for me, is the question of editorial vs. advertising. I’ve never had any shoots for any of the big magazines out there, but I have had plenty of editorial shoots, and none have ever led to advertising shoots. On the other hand I’ve had commercial shoots that have led to calls from magazines. I personally struggle a lot with organizing my work, and separating and structuring things so that my personal, editorial, and commercial work can coexist without having to create multiple persona’s.

The bottom seems to have dropped out of this industry so everyone needs to quickly take a step up a notch.

Photography was like that. Most of us were content with busking and knew we were never going to get to be rock stars. Indeed many never even had that ambition, and there’s a whole debate there – about the loose correlation of commercial success and creative success, and which matters personally. Neither implies the other necessarily or at all. Some of the best photographers have always been amateurs. Pro doesn’t mean good, it merely means ‘does it for a living’.

What drove a lot of people into becoming pro’s was that, beyond a certain point, the cmmittment and cost and time was untenable as an amateur. This probably hasn’t changed, but what’s vanishing is the whole ecology that allowed investment and experience and progression.

Those low-end and mid-market clients nowadays avoid commissioning pro’s wherever ‘good enough’ can be got some other cheaper way. The base of the pyramid has been eaten away by stock, by part-timers who have day jobs, by rich kids playing at pro on parents’ money, by agencies and wires who only offer work for hire, by tiers of middlemen who aggregate and distribute and extract profit. What remains is so over-contended that prices and terms are untenable for almost anyone who isn’t still living at home with their mum.

All of which has handed a lot of photography to amateurs and pro-ams, thanks to the distributive efficiencies of the web.

The pro high end is still there, but it’s like 10,000 photographers trying to clamber onto the same small slippery rock. The pro babies can never make it across the beach, let alone swim and feed and grow wise and strong.

So I think pro photography is – except for a small minority of established stars, specialists and niche players – approaching an end game. Maybe the death of the commercial ecology that nurtured pro’s is why APE is now seeing largely unmemorable work? There simply isn’t the security or the surplus income at lower levels to foster personal work, playfulness and risk-taking anymore.

This is a well written, researched and thought out blog. It has become popular for its real world insight into editorial. It is my first stop on my daily trawl through the internet.

The danger, as I see it, is if it becomes too popular, than the value starts to diminish because of the “experts” prattling on in order to get business or raise their stature.

I love this forum and its insights.

“This week I photographed a guy who used to be the editor of a major daily newspaper. He still reads four papers a day even though he retired 10 years ago. We were talking and both agreed that the idea of printing information on a piece of paper and then delivering it to someone by hand was a pretty primitive way to communicate. Newspapers and magazines are struggling and a smart person might find another way to make a living than making pictures that go in them”
I now see a trend for people to realize their abilities and talents outside the traditional realms of commercial photography such as advertising and editorial. Talented photographers such as Simon Roberts of “Motherland’ fame are finding new ways to do very good work without having to get commissioned. Some of them are making very good livings as well!
Photo Directors of magazines will become far less relevant in identifying and nurturing talent.

what I suggest is: In the Great Plan, (and their is a Great Plan), the Holy One had divvied up the pie, and he created just enough SuperTalented Fashion Photographers, and just enough corporate photographers, and just enough newspaper photographers, to cover the needs. not everyone can turn out to be a Steven Meisel, or a Chuck Close, or a Philip LorcaMacorchiaGorcia. If they did, then Steven Meisel would just be another run of the mill fashion guy in a velvet hat.

have you ever pondered the fact that maybe it’s predetermined, from the start, that the highest you’ll ever be on the Food Chain is “a food shooter in san francisco, with a nice family”? what is wrong with that? absolutely nothing. not everyone is going to shoot a job in london and ride the Concorde back home at night.

i do love AVS’s Chuck Close comment. love it.

but my point is: for everyone matt mahurin of the world, there’s got to be another hundred “average photographers”, who’s job in life it is , to get up out of bed and shoot a catalogue, or shoot boring (but adequately paying) ad jobs.

somehow, i just want to say that out loud, publicly, so everyone can exhale. (or maybe me).