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angela_n_hunt) wrote2010-06-16 10:26 am
Kyle Cassidy's FAQ
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kylecassidy says everything and I mean, EVERYTHING, I would and have ever said to anyone asking me what to do if they're a photographer or want to be a photographer. And he says it better. Go Kyle!Originally posted by
kylecassidy at FAQ
Yes, lots.
Photography is a mixture of Artistic Ability and Technical Skill -- the magic of the mix isn't written in stone. The world is filled with technically proficient but artistically uninspired photographers, there seem to be a smaller number of artistically gifted but technically unsavvy artists, but they're out there as well. But the most successful people have a mixture of both -- they have an artistic vision, and they posses the technical skills to know how to make that a reality. The technical skills are the easy part, you can learn them from a book -- f-stops and shutter speeds and light modifiers, etc. The difficult thing to come up with is an idea.
0) Possibly the most important thing of all: Find creative people and make them part of your world. They don't have to be photographers. They can be writers, or musicians, or actors or puppet makers. Have a peer group of people who are doing things. They'll be your inspiration, your facilitators, your idea makers, your artistic partners. Do this for the rest of your life. Artists rarely survive in a vacuum.
1) Get a camera. It doesn't matter what kind. Eventually you'll most likely end up with a Digital SLR but in the meantime a point and shoot, your cell phone, a 1946 Brownie Box Camera, all these will work to start out.
2) Study photography -- this doesn't mean go to school for photography, but it means pay attention to photographs tear photos that you like out of magazines and keep them in a scrap book, get photography books from the library, from the bookstore, at yard sales. Learn what types of photography you like. Landscapes? People? Bands? Artificially lit? This will start to provide you with your visual vocabulary -- which will be important in figuring out what you want to photograph. Given a camera many new photographers are left baffled as to what they ought to be taking photos of. Subscribe to photography magazines, fashion magazines, travel magazines.
3) Take photos. What is it you're interested in? Enlist friends. Take trips, set up elaborate hoaxes, copy great works of art, copy not so great works of art.
4) Make a portfolio of your 12 best photos. these can be 4x6 1 hour prints. Every month try and replace at least one of these with a better photo. Do this for the rest of your life.
5) Evaluate your equipment. When you know specifically why what you have can't do what you want, it's time to think about upgrading. Do this for the rest of your life.
6) Find someone who will pay you to take photographs. It's always easier to learn on someone elses dime. It doesn't matter what the job is -- assistant to another photographer, part time local newspaper, photographing houses for a Realtor, etc.
7) Go to school. You can learn a lot more quickly this way. Things like advanced lighting techniques, gallery framing, etc. can be more quickly figured out in an environment like this.
8) Show your work. It doesn't have to be in a traditional gallery, it can be in your parents garage, or in your stairwell. Some friends and I used to have an open-air art gallery we called "Show up and Show" where we'd meet along a length of chain link fence, hang out photos up and stand around and talk to passers by.
9) Take lots of photos, throw out the bad ones, only ever show people your best. Do this for the rest of your life.
10) Stay busy. The opposite of busy is bored. Don't visit that place. Do this for the rest of your life.
Hope this helps.
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O_O
Bwahahah! Is this actually true for photographers? It is not so for most writers, or even for most of the artists I know. I am fascinated to see if it is different for photographers.
I am, of course, properly a wordsmith, rather than a visual anything. But the two pieces of my artistic ability are my eye for color and my eye for composition. So I'm trying to get my technical skill with a camera up to where my hand can do justice to my eye. Eh, I'm making progress. Most of what I get now is good for my purposes (posting on my LJ) and some are even artistically good.
Ideas? The world is full of them. I rarely manage to shoot all the ones in view before my camera batteries and/or my body run down for the day.
Re: O_O
The problem is that there is a very real tendency to unconsciously appropriate someone else's vision. You see something and go, "Ooo shiny!" and end up creating a photograph that looks *just like it*. There's nothing wrong with that, but if you're not putting your own spin on it, you're just regurgitating someone else's art. It's why so many photographs and trends happen, because photographers are a bunch of visual magpies.
In my case, I do it on purpose. I look for things that ring my bell and then I see how far I can run with it. It's also a, how many photographs can you take of a nude body? At a certain point, you have to be speaking in a visual language that has specific meaning to you, even if no one else gets it.
Now yes, I personally never run out of ideas. But sometimes you sit there with a camera and go, "Really? Another picture of another flower/landscape/naked girl/child/dog/cat?" It can feel flat and lifeless and not worth it. For me, it's finding whatever the emotional truth of that moment is, even on the days when I don't like or feel like shooting. And those days happen even when I've planned for a shoot months in advance. But like writing, once you get going, you get something.
I am tired and rambling. I have no clue if I'm coherent here. I hope I am. But I know what he's talking about. About the vast gray empty that sometimes hits, the same way I've sat and stared at a blank computer screen and gone, "Fuck, now what?"
If I'm not too afraid, if I'm rested enough, fed enough, centered enough, I can look inside and start from there.
Sometimes.
When it works, it's bliss. When it doesn't, it's a slog.
Wouldn't give it up for anything.
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4) Make a portfolio of your 12 best photos. these can be 4x6 1 hour prints. Every month try and replace at least one of these with a better photo. Do this for the rest of your life.
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I now have Moo business cards with my ten best images on them. That way, not only can I show people my work, but they can keep them and contact me later. I've had people collect each image in my card stack, just so they could have a full collection. It's rather awesome.
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They are probably my single most favorite piece of marketing material.