Photography is brilliant! It’s an accessible art form adopted by millions of fabulous people. However, there are some things it should have grown out of by now. Here are my bottom six that we should abandon in 2023.
Humor
What They Think We Do as Photographers
Chances are, everyone in your circle knows you are a photographer. How many of those people have an understanding of what you actually do on a day-to-day basis? This brief, but funny video by Niels Kemp highlights some of the misconceptions he encounters from the people closest to him.
Shooting Street on a Toy Camera: A Subtle Reminder Pixel Power Isn’t Everything
Street photography is one of those wonderful genres that encourages us to break convention and what we know to be “right” in the big bad, world of the still image. It’s one of the few genres, I feel at least, that can encompass all manner of emotions, from humor and lightheartedness to tone, shape, ambiguity, surrealism, and hard-hitting realism at any time.
Instagram: Give It Up Right Now and Achieve Enlightenment
Addiction. Hedonism. Chasing the dopamine hit. Just another taste. Just one more like. Ok, maybe 10, then I’m done. I swear it’s all I need! Here’s what I’m doing. Here’s what I’ve done. Here’s who’s doing this and hey, look, I’m present. Lifting the lid on the banality of everyday life. Journalists of the quotidian. Instagram is not what it used to be. We can all agree to that. And no truer is that than from the perspective of the humble photographer. Surely, it’s time to grow up, isn’t it?
A Week in the Life of a Professional Photographer: What Does It Really Take?
What does it really take to get by in an industry where any Tom, Dick, and Harry has it in them to harvest likes on images like basking sharks devouring krill? Who’s doing it better? Well, everyone, right? What’s happening, day to day, week to week in the life of an active professional photographer? Well, I’m laying it all on the line. Telling it like it is. Here’s a desperately honest account of what happens in an average week for me, an honestly average photographer.