I know that many readers of this blog and my books are aspiring professionals, so every now and then I like to present a few business-related tips that you might like to try for the rest of this year and into 2024. I haven’t written that many business-oriented posts lately, mainly because these tend not to be popular but I’m going to try to push a few of these out on the occasional Sunday. Please let me know if you find these of interest—or not.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.—Michelangelo
One of the problems that are associated with the business side of photography is that , as a professional, we don’t always get to choose the kind of assignments that come our way. Bread-and-butter studio or location shoot may pay the rent but may not always be as exciting as we would prefer.
One of my studio’s biggest single moneymakers was a shoot for a national department store that involved making photographs of every (and I mean every) display in one of their flagship stores. While technically challenging and financially profitable, the assignment was, nevertheless, aesthetically, unsatisfying.
One of the best ways to get the kind of assignments you really want is to give them to yourself. Here is a self-assignment that had very different outcomes but regardless of what happened after the assignment was completed, the project “tasted great.” And to answer my headline question: Why can’t it be both?
How I Made this Shot: When I lived in Baltimore, one of my favorite personal projects involved volunteering as a photographer at a streetcar museum to create photographs that would be used for publicity purposes and by me as portfolio material. The project was shot in black & white using a Mamiya C-33 twin lens reflex camera with an 80mm f/2.8 Mamiya-Sekor lens using 120 Tri-X film that I processed (and later printed) in the kitchen of my home at that time. Exposure for the above image was unrecorded and I only made one frame of this particular shot, which I guess is part of the whole medium format experience.The result of this project was that I had some pictures entered and accepted into a juried art exhibiiton, but little else. Nevertheless, I made some fun photographs and got to meet some great people along the way.
Along with photographer Barry Staver, I’m co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s available from Amazon for $21.50 prices with used copies starting at giveaway prices—around five bucks, as I write this, which may be cheaper than your morning Starbucks coffee.