For Love or Money:
Sold Richmond VA 2009
I remember when I was just starting out in photography there were some reasons that I thought that a life in photography might be cool. I was 18 at the time, so girls figured high in my interest in photography, but also a thought as to why to become a photographer was money and fame. On some logical level, I knew that fame and fortune would be difficult, but it crossed my mind many times when standing over a sink of smelly chemicals in the dark.
There was a flaw in my yearnings, but then there always is when your 18. Money and fame is no reason for one to become a photographer. I will go so far as to say that if it is money and fame that you seek, the possibility to obtain it is greatly reduced. The only reason to be in photography is the love for it. Looking back, even at 18, I must of known that, because even at that early age I made photographs that I was interested in making, not because I thought that greatness would be the result. This may be boastful of me, but I think that I have made a few pretty good photographs over the years, but not once did I make those thinking that I would become famous because of them. I made them because they were reflective of how I see the world and those who looked at those photographs either found a connection with what I had to say through my photos or it showed them a new way of thinking about the world. Both of those results are much more important than any money I may have made from those images.
Some of you that know me personally know that I have a more than average interest in the history of photography and that I like to read biographies of some of the more important photographers. Reading a biography of Ansel Adams, the one truly rich and famous photographer that we can all name, really was not that rich until his sixties. He was well known, but he had to take commercial assignments throughout his working career. Many of the most important photographers that I might name were not well off when there photographic life were over. Rich or poor, the one thing that is common to all those photographers was that they were passionate about what they did. Their work was more important than the money they made from it. To this I agree.
While I never had what might be called fame and fortune in my life in photography in the common sense of the term, my life has been so much richer because of the people that I have met and the places that I have gone because of my life in photography and for me that is more than enough.
