Comments on Fluffytek Art Blog: Profit from Passion?

Thanks Bob! That was a great response on your blog...

2008-10-23T17:09:00.000+01:00

Thanks Bob! That was a great response on your blog too. Love the maternity shot! Now all I have to do is get a Wordpress account :-)

I must admit that the truth often hurts to hear bu...

2008-10-23T16:37:00.000+01:00

I must admit that the truth often hurts to hear but everything you said was true...and hurt!

It actually motivated me to get off my a$$ and start my own blog. Your article is quoted and linked along with my response.

I LOVE your writing and the photography. Thank you for your art and your truth.

Bob

www.studiomarcotte.com

With the way that the economy is, models aren't ma...

2008-10-21T04:47:00.000+01:00

With the way that the economy is, models aren't making what they used to. We are being flaked on left and right.. people who say they want to hire us later decide well.. they just don't have the money. Models who have been doing this for years are lowering their rates to less than what they made when they first started out.

That being said.. I make enough to get by, and I would rather do something I love than make a ton of money doing something that keeps me miserable. I would not trade my profession for the world.

Great post...and good points. Yep..there is very ...

2008-10-20T14:02:00.000+01:00

Great post...and good points. Yep..there is very little $$ in this littel genre' we dabble in. So why do it?...simple..because we can. I have said a gazillion times..that its about creating for self and thats it (Shadowscapestudio is dead on!!). But..in saying that...one can make a few $$ here and there selling our work. Just about my entire collection of Photographic Art was bought with $$ that I earned selling my photos.

I just spent a small fortune printing and shipping 27 prints to my show in Zurich at the Museum of Porn in Art (in addition to about 50 more that will be displayed on a monitor..all for sale).

Worse time in my life to try to sell art with the economy as it is..but you know what?...life is NOT a dress rehearsal....its the real show!!!

Enjoy what we do with our photographic art....the enjoyment is the real payoff.

bt

I'm never hard on those shooting fashion/portrait/...

2008-10-20T11:35:00.000+01:00

I'm never hard on those shooting fashion/portrait/landscape/advertising work, Mr G. The more, the better. I think they are fabulous art-forms. Besides, whatever brings in the pennies, you know?

I do feel that concentrating entirely on nudes is a bad career move in the current market, however. Adaptation, flexibility and self-marketing are essential.

My point was that if nude photography is your main discipline, then this can count against you in the "commercial viability" stakes. I see so much prejudice out there from the media who look down on those who photograph nudes (or write about them.) Nudes often count against you if you are trying to make photography your living, because you are "labelled." Sad, but true.
(Mr Swanson is the exception to the rule. I'm glad. there should always be exceptions, especially if they prove me wrong.)

Lin, this is nothing new. A quick squint at art hi...

2008-10-20T11:06:00.000+01:00

Lin, this is nothing new. A quick squint at art history will show you that for pretty much the whole of recorded time, 'art for art' sake has been the dream of the permanently poor, stuck in a garret, dreamer. The great artists of history have always had to take commissions most of the time in order to eat, whiled trying out some developmental work on the side. Most of the surviving great art, until perhaps only the past century, has come from commissions. In terms of "great" and "surviving" art, perhaps the exception to that would be the impressionist painters, but then, heck they were mostly starving in their own lifetimes.

Furthermore, the advent of cheap, high quality printing, since the 1950s has made possible that the reproduction of works of art no longer bears any relationship to the amount of effort put into creating them. Thus the public's access to art has shot up, while the cost of being able to put something pretty on your wall has plummeted. It's the same for any form of 'craft' that can be mass produced. Ease of access devalues the item accessed in the public perception, whether that be art, or sanitation or energy. And when access to paying your mortgage becomes a problem, being inspired by an image will always fall off the radar - it's Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" again.

So I'd never be hard on anyone taking portrait or fashion commissions - these can be just as artistic as any other subject, if done well. If anything, having predefined 'goal posts' to work within can hone and focus the mind. Personally, I prefer working this way. I sometimes do posters for a friend who runs a small theatre company. We have a deal whereby she sets the parameters of what is to be communicated and I then do what I like within those limits. Working to some boundaries means I get the job done and produce something, whereas if I didn't have those constraints, I'd be going round in circles for ages trying to find a focus.

Lin, what you say is true for models as well. We ...

2008-10-20T03:57:00.000+01:00

Lin, what you say is true for models as well. We are a dime a dozen, and I always wonder why I do this when I am lucky to break even. I don't like paid shoots. I like to be an equal in the creative process, and that is why I do this. Because I like to create.

It is also true that, with the economy as it is, I have had to cut back on shoots that take me out of town. But when I do go, it is to do more than shoot pictures. It's to be with wonderful, like-minded friends I have met because I am a fine arts nude model.

As long as I enjoy this and can afford it, I will do it, with no expectation of fame and fortune.

Just call me a dilettante. I do the photos I do b...

2008-10-19T20:20:00.000+01:00

Just call me a dilettante. I do the photos I do because I must, not because I expect them to produce an income. I often joke that I'm working to make my grandchildren rich when I've been dead for 50 years and a mythological art history grad student will do her thesis on my work and make me famous and my photos valuable.

It doesn't really matter. I could as easily stop shooting what I shoot as I could stop breathing...and with luck those two events will coincide.

What you say is true for the whole photographic co...

2008-10-19T19:31:00.000+01:00

What you say is true for the whole photographic community in part. With the advent of digital everyone has that person who in charge of getting the images they need, call him Joe the photographer. But the quality is not there either in the print (to use a archaic term) or in the subject’s quality. Now anyone can go out and get a decently expose image but only the artist have the eye and practice to look beyond the mundane. What Dave says is true the artist will find a market for their work, it’s a niche market but it's there. It’s marketing that triumph and gets you where you need to be. To become a successful artist (successful anything really) you need to market to your strengths and by trial and error tailor yourself to that market and by all means possible be as flexible to succeed. As Randy Pausch say’s the brick wall’s are not there to keep us out but to prove to us how much we want in.

Sorry Stephen. Maybe I should have saved this one ...

2008-10-19T15:37:00.000+01:00

Sorry Stephen. Maybe I should have saved this one for Tuesday, huh? See Dave's comment for a more balanced perspective. As with all my posts, it goes without saying that I could be wrong. In fact, I often am.

Dave, I was hoping you would say that. Yes, I was playing Devil's Advocate, hence the part-parody, and you are the obvious exception to the rule. In fact, you are one of only two exceptions to the rule that I know of, from a very large sample size. I suspect this is because your marketing approach is unique, tailored, and more flexible than most.

Regarding the money aspect, again you're quite right, it goes without saying that art is more important than profit (this is the topic of later post, I thought I'd post the gloomy stuff then cheer you up next week!) However, please remember that I am part Ferengi.

Oh, great, just what I needed to wake up to this S...

2008-10-19T15:17:00.000+01:00

Oh, great, just what I needed to wake up to this Sunday morning.

As usual, you've written to the point and well. I consider it a great irony that porn merchants can be pulling down billions while I can't sell an artistic nude more than once in a blue moon.

Oh, well, we soldier on.

Sounds like a parody skit.I disagree with just abo...

2008-10-19T14:31:00.000+01:00

Sounds like a parody skit.

I disagree with just about everything you have said here.

If you are an artist, it is not about money in the first place, it's about creating art.
The trouble come in with artists when they want to market themselves. They don't have a clue how to go about that, and they don't want to. They just want to create.

I am one of those who only sells prints through galleries.
This year I will have paid for a new camera, two lenses, taken several expensive photo trips and shelled out tons of money for model fees, and I will end the year with a nice profit.
But 90% of the work is not in the photography, it is in marketing the photography. Selling myself and my work to galleries.

I do not know how the economy will effect this coming year sales. I assume it will be down some, so I may have to look at other avenues for my work to supplement the decline.

Lin, your stance here sounds like people talking about this election. You have chosen a side and are using statements to defend your choice and statements to knock down the opposition.

If an artist wants to make real money, they shove all their art tools in a box, put it in the garage and go out and apply for jobs.