More and more I find myself in the company of people who do photography for money; more and more I’m asked for my card. I’m a little sick of having to apologize for the pictures in the gallery – nearly all of the shots are from May and June 2005, many of which came from various lens tests (I think I got the 80-200/2.8, 105/2DC, and 300/4 in the prior month). Well, that’s nothing compared to my accumulation of hardware – and more importantly – photographs since purchasing a GF1 in February.

To wit, I’m going through about 10,000 images (I have been very sporadic in shooting over the past few years. Over 6,000 of those shots are from this past spring, and those are better and more varied than the first 4.000) selecting retouching candidates for portfolios of varying purposes. [Edit - finished the first cut!] While some of the shots that I put here years ago are in that set, I really believe that as a result of time away from photography, a revival of some of my technical skills from my teenage years (by working nearly exclusively in manual lenses), and new technology (the price point of the 5DII brought me somewhat to the Canon side and back to Barnack, but it is the GH1 that has given me more flexibility in shooting style and an excitement I haven’t felt since my first days with a roll of film, a Contax IIA, and the Sunny 16 rule). Quite simply, I get more hits than misses, because like back in the day, I care and have to take care of exposure and focus.

The shots that will make it into a portfolio will be heavily checked, and to whatever degree I feel it necessary, retouched (just like when I used a loupe and spotting inks, I go pixel by pixel when I’m serious), but most of these candidates are fine as is. It is from this larger pool that I will be populating the site by theme; I probably will have a best of best which will reflect what my imagery looks like, for better or worse, when I apply all my efforts in the critical skills – compostion, exposure, and post processing. I expect a bit of a reorganization to the photographs that are here (and I can add significantly to the UV/IR section thanks to the GH1) but nothing too drastic.

So, clearly, I may start taking jobs, and I’ve been asked to tutor a bit. Furthermore, I’ve turned down offers to show in the past, not out of fear of the public eye – I don’t give much of a damn about my general reception – but simply because photography is intensely personal to me, too easy an activity to be proud of, and I really don’t get any particular satisfaction over sharing it, just the process – occasionally the final image pleases. That last reluctance will have to change – only in the practical ramification – because that will open up some options that interest me. More interestingly, in the coming weeks, I’m working out a pedagogical method for teaching from scratch and have a very bright and willing test subject (whose outlying intelligence ironically may make him a poor test subject). Perhaps there is a basis for a book here.

I shudder at the prospect of being considered a “pro photographer” – professional and amateur are pecuniary matters, and most pros I’ve met are not photographers. Photographers are the ones for whom the image reigns supreme, that know one can only aspire to artistry after a mastery of artisanry. Photographers are never happy with the skills they have, for skills – like lenses – are brushes. Rather than seeking than the lens that draws that scene as best reflects an overall vision guided by an aesthetic sense, many photographers are enamoured by the “sharpest” or “fastest” lens. That last class is typically populated by amateurs; the professional’s equivalent sin is worrying about such matters only when their images are getting rejected by photo or art editors for softness.

Parallel to those two sins of gear, are sins of skill. Many buy equipment or enjoy hacking their own equivalents (which I love and believe is great part of old school photography often lacking today, but not) in place of skill development, and often to the exclusion of actually photographing. Others only develop new skills and looks – typically a poor emulation of others – to keep pace with the market. The basis of creating art – as distinct and elevated from a mere recording of events – is choice: the poet’s license, the editorial history which finds itself changed to fiction by the forces of whim and fancy, the willful act of imparting opinion on reality.

It may be that authorship is dead and intent irrelevant in the final product. That has nothing to do with the process of creation. That is a matter of the artist’s choice, at first, the choice to create, then all the other wonderful mundanities that posses during the process – a color here, a line there, whether it needs something or if sardines are too much, and life. Lack of skill is a lack of choice. It is a valid choice to constrain oneself in creation. However, you can’t choose to work in black and white if that’s all you can do. You can’t shoot IR if you don’t take the time to understand and continue to study your medium. The Luddite literally sees less than the Photographer – a problem when drawing with light. For those mired in gnosticism, understand it thus: the intuitive only plays on the table that the understanding sets. Worse are those who think in terms of a (false) an exclusive dichotomy – that a wealth of technical skill and understanding is proportionally related to a lack of aesthetics – are in every sense of the word, half-wits.

“Pros” satisfied with sales are lazy and may never even think of the half-wit’s objection, but function similarly: smug in his “professional” technique (though not understanding it) and sales, he comes to the store to buy a Sto-Fen to soften his wedding shots (turns out he owns a Lumiquest box that he never used). Don’t get me started on the K1000 type (now Nikon D40-D70, sigh) tabula rasa girls who avoid influences and formal training. I guess they made their own cameras and independently invented the English language too, being the pure instantiation of the Platonic ideal of the uninfluenced and free actor. It took me a while to get the “artists borrow, masters steal,” but I only had that particular immaturity very briefly, still too long.

So, I’ll never be a “pro.” It’s not a matter of money. It’s a matter of an adjective becoming an noun in a very telling fashion.

“Artist” is a bit much to hope for and a fair bit of pretentiousness given the ease of photography.

I don’t chafe at photographer though. Maybe I’ll get to be one of those someday.