Not Making it In: A lesson in dealing with Rejection

Ahem! *cough cough*  Excuse me while I take a sip of my "Hater-Ade"


*sip* ahhhhh....  Would you like some?  Oh please...by all means.


Ok let's begin!

So if you've been reading this blog (which I hope someone other than my mother does), you know that although my wife and I run a photography business and consider ourselves to be professionals that I am also formalizing my skills and training at Northern Virginia Community College.  Once completed with my associates I'll probably advance to a more legitimate college institution and complete my four year degree.  I'm doing this 1. to set myself apart from all the other "professional" photographers out there by having an actual degree in photography and 2. to practice other forms of photography, from fine art to documentary and find ways of putting those skills in the mix and coming out with our own unique style.  BUT I DIGRESS!

Once a year NOVA puts on a juried, student gallery show.  This means each photography student can enter up to four photos and somebody who is in the photo community but in no way associated with the school selects which of these will make it into the gallery and then award a few of them actual prize money.  I was considering it, but then one of my professors strongly encouraged me to enter two of my photos that I did recently. She even convinced me to print them 24x36in for the show.  I've been excited for this for weeks and yesterday the gallery was opened for the students to see who made it in.  I got to class early, ran into the gallery aaaaaannd... neither photo made it in! :-( 

So I decided to look around at who DID make it into the gallery.  Maybe I'll be inspired by the work of the other students.  I was NOT impressed.  This is nothing against the students, really, because they each submitted what they thought were their best photos and each photographer is going to be at different levels and I can't hold that against them.  The person who I AM upset with is the "secret" juror, whose I identity is still unknown to us.  A lot of the photos were not what I would consider to be "gallery ready" prints.  They either weren't great photos or some of  them were decent photos but the print quality was bad.  Having taken a darkroom film class already, I know what makes a good print and what mistakes are made (cuz I've made them all).  One of the photos that jumped out at me was one that actually had the photographers water mark in the corner.  A WATERMARK?!  In an ART GALLERY?!  Don't get me wrong I water mark our business' photographs before posting them online, but not when I submit to a gallery and what curator or gallerist actually SELECTS that?  Another photo was taken of what appears to be a sunset and some trees.  It was taken probably an hour after the time of sunset commonly referred to by photographers as the "golden hour".  You can also see the headlights from their car in the corner of the picture which were very orange and distracting.  Plus, it was horribly grainy.  Probably was very underexposed and then tried to make it brighter in lightroom or photoshop.  I later found out from another student was taken with a point an shoot camera.  I could go on and on.  There were only about four photos that I looked at for more than a few seconds and actually liked and to those photographers I say CONGRATS!  You really deserved it and I hope you win the cash prizes.

I spoke with my professor about the show and she stated that with this show, it depends on the juror and even SHE wasn't too impressed with the jurors choices.  She also told me sometimes people will win a cash prize one year and then the next year not even make it into the show at all!  She has encouraged me to enter actual art galleries around town instead.  I ended up tweeting about my disappointment to Lori Esque a fellow photographer at our studio and dear friend and supporter of our business.  She immediately tweeted back this picture:

It's a letter to famous artist Andy Warhol from the Museum of Modern Art in New York telling him thank you for his submission, but turned down his offer and told him to come pick up his art.  What a slap in the face!  He obviously over came that and I'm sure the person who turned him down kicked themselves in the butt for quite some time.  When we make it big I'll look back at this moment and laugh I'm sure!

So what have learned today blogees?  (did anyone else just have a veggie tales moment?)

1. ART IS SUBJECTIVE!!!!!

2. When you have no idea who the juror is or what their profession is (i.e. fine art, commerical, documentary photographer) it's hard to say what their taste level is and it's kind of a gamble/crapshoot on what you should enter. 

3. Being rejected doesn't mean your work is bad.  It's just the wrong audience sometimes.

4. I'll probalby take millions of photographs over my lifetime.  Some of the ones I like the most, nobody will like except me and thats ok.  I'll keep them in my private collection and move on to the next photo that will hang in the National Portrait Gallery in DC...ok maybe not but who knows! 

5. When it all boils down to it I do what I do for my clients.  Would it have been nice to be in the gallery...yeah...but the model in the picture LOVES the picture and that means more to me than a silly gallery show at a community college. 

6. WINNING!

Thanks for reading!

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Providing Northern VA, DC, and MD with all your portrait needs!  From family photos to Wedding photography.  From Senior photos to newborns and maternity!  We capture your special memories on film!

"Get your hands off me, you d*mned dirty iMac!": A New Semester of Art School & Facing My Prejudice.

So here I am again sitting in this class room for Photo 135 Electronic Darkroom....to you that means an Adobe Lightroom 3 class.  The first thing I noticed when I entered the class room is that I must face my prejudices against the evil Apple Empire.  The entire room is full of the famous All-in-One Mac computers.  This is like driving in Europe for the first time.  Where the heck is my right mouse button?  I can't right click...ctrl+c doesn't work.  How the heck do I even cut and paste!  Why do people buy these things!  Everyone tells me...
   
     "Oh you're a photographer?  What kind of Mac do you have?"  
     "Ummm...I don't.  I have a quad core HP PC at home."
     "What you have to have a MAC.  Photoshop runs better on a MAC."
     "Ummm...no I'm pretty sure it runs just the same..."

What is it with this thing that makes everyone go crazy?  Is it the fact that it has a small footprint?...meaning that it takes up little space on your desk.  Or the fact that since it's all-in-one there's not way you can screw up hooking it up like so many computer illiterate PC users do?  Perhaps iMac makes computer illiterate people feel more literate in that way? 

     "LOOK I HOOKED UP MY iMAC!"

     "You mean you managed to plug it in and turn it on successfully?"

This is the way I see it.  I live for customization and quality!  Let's put the advancements in the Mac operating system on the back burner for a second and take a look at JUST the hardware.  I have a PC.  I have several PC's.  I am an IT by trade (until I can make it completely off photography).  And my customers ALL the time make the joke when I come to work on their computer...

     "Can't you just take this away and trade it for a MAC?"

     "Sir lets just humor that thought for ONE second.  If you have a problem with your CDROM I can come out here, pull out your bad CDROM and immediately swap it out with a good one.  If your iMac CDROM goes bad I have to take your WHOLE computer back to my shop.  If you're monitor goes bad I can come out unplug your monitor and swap it out with a new monitor.  If your iMac monitor goes bad I have to take your WHOLE computer back to my shop.  Heck, if your WEBCAM goes bad I would have to take your WHOLE computer back to my shop.  How productive is that?!  How many man hours would be lost because of iMacs?"

    

That tends to shine some light on the subject, but then they start talking about the operating system.  Everyone makes the same two statements 1.  It's easier and 2. it's "crash proof".  Which is funny because from a photography stand point a lot of Canon users make the same claim (I shoot strictly Nikon if you didn't know).  They say "well it's easier".  No you're just used to it, just like I'm used to Nikon.  They say it has too many menus.  Yeah it does, but look at all the options I have!  Same way with windows and MacOS.  You are only allowed to do on a Mac what Mac wants to do.  You just click your one button and wait to see what Mac does.  I want...I NEED my right mouse button to open up that lovely menu of options.  (copy, past, open with, etc)  I need my administration menus that let me make changes to my system.

"But it's crash proof!"

*sigh*  that's because it doesn't RUN anything!  My customers always complain that their mac's don't crash like their windows machine does.  Yes I hate a Blue Screen of Death as much as the next guy, but look at all the software the Navy wants them to be able to run.  70% of the training they have to do our through adobe flash programs or adobe flash enable websites.  Something so simple yet will not run on a Mac.  Our encryption software...won't run on mac.  I could go on for hours but I won't because my non compute friendly readers have already stopped reading this so......

For the next 16 weeks I need to get past my prejudice of this machine, sit down and learn the basics of using a Mac so I can get through this class.  As long as I can figure out how to open the Lightroom program I should be ok.  Ok time to go home...

How do I shut this thing off...there's no start button....do I just turn it off?  oh whatever!

You want me to FAKE my portfolio? - A lesson from my Photo 227 class.

So, if you've read my previous blog posts, you know that I switched my college major this past semester and am now using my GI Bill to pursue an official education in photography.  One of my classes is a black and white film photography class which I do actually enjoy and will showcase my work from that class in the a future blog, but the class I want to speak to you about today is a required class for my degree called Photographic Careers.  It's basically a 16 week job fair of speakers from different careers from photo editor to forensics photographer.  The final project for this class is to put together a portfolio of 20 or less images showcasing our own work.  This portfolio will be submitted to the professor for a grade and to one of the speakers from the semester for a more refined review of your actual work. 

Last night's class was an opportunity for some students to share their portfolios with the class and get some feedback.  The guy who sits next to me and typically keeps me sane throughout the semester suggested I put mine up and the professor who earlier showed interest in my work agreed.  I was NOT ready for the response that I received from the class as well as the professor.

As the slide show progressed the class remained silent, but when it was over it seemed like the majority of the women in my class liked my work, but it seemed like most of the men absolutely HATED it.  The professor who was a documentary photographer back in the 70's hated any picture that showed any sign of photoshop regardless of whether or not it was done well.  She also said that my subjects weren't thin or attractive enough and that if I was going to have a successful portfolio I should think about hiring models to take shots to show my future clients that I can make them look attractive.  Really?!  You want me to FAKE my portfolio.  Every bride I have shot has been beautiful!  Are they size 2, 6'2" models?  No, but they are REAL people!  And these shots are THEIR memories.  My wife and I don't just set up perfect pictures on a set somewhere and then photoshop in the details.  We capture memories.  Our clients memories and the experience involved with having your photos done.

One of my favorite photos we've shot was one where their reception was held at a semi-professional baseball game with fireworks at the end.  When the game ended I set up my tripod and got a few shots of the bride and groom kissing with a beautiful firework burst behind them.  When I showed this picture to the bride right off the LCD on the back of my camera (which I don't normally do) she cried and hugged me and I cried because it was such a meaningful memory for them that I captured for them.  When this picture came across my slide show in class, one student piped up and said, they're too blurry you should have taken this photo in front of black background and just photoshopped the fireworks in, it would be easier and much sharper.  REALLY?!  Now not ONLY am I supposed to fake my portfolio, now you want me to fake my clients ACTUAL wedding shots?  I'm stunned, I can't believe I'm hearing this!  I didn't just create this scene... it ACTUALLY happened without my coaching it along or setting it up and I captured it as best as anyone could and the picture was beautiful and brought tears to the bride's eyes.  What more could I ask for?

 

At this point I was done hearing from the wannabe editorial and fine art photographers.  I stopped my critique and went back to my seat and tried to pull some kind of constructiveness from what I had heard.  And what came to mind was something I read in Tim Gunn's new book Gunn's Golden Rules.  He said "Chacun à gôut; that is, it's a matter of taste."  If you haven't picked up this book it's a wonderful inspiration for the budding creative person whether in photography, fashion, or whatever art you are involved in.  Even if you aren't there's plenty of good life lessons in it. 

All in all I know that I am not a photography expert nor do I pretend to be.  I have a lot to learn.  Brandy and I are both still trying to find our definitive style and find what appeals most to our clients.  Do they like a lot of photoshop or little photoshop?  Do they like traditional posed shots or the candid shots?  Color or black and white?  So many things that come from experience with a wide variety of clients.  But I won't take my professors advice and shoot weddings for less or for free if the couple is more attractive because of the commercial possibilities of the photos.  I can not believe the disrespect for me, my wife, our business, or our clients that I received from this class, but I am grateful everyday for our clients and our fans.  We love you!