It has been a long and adaptive road to find myself into a position to have the luxury of being a full time photographer. Much like the process for most professional photographers, it has taken a lot of luck to get 'those breaks' and a bit of a leap of faith in your own work including the projects that drive you. One thing that appears to spur us all on is chasing those perfect (well ones we are happy with) shots and the constant learning process with inevitable additional questions / thoughts it throws up.
I regularly get asked how i have achieved a certain photograph, the reasoning in my choices of composition, artistic process etc.....and much as I enjoy discussing this attribute of my work, the further I delve into the artistic pool across the board, the opinions garnered both online and offline regarding not just certain pieces of work, but creative art as a whole, it has become very clear how subjective and polarizing creativity really is. Taking all of this into account it is evident that we can realistically only work as artists for ourselves! This may sound a bit self absorbed, and on the surface i agree that it does, but if we compromise our artistic integrity to fit within a certain sub-set, to sell works or to get published, then you are very likely to be moving away from what set you on the path to where you are today as a creative, what may make you unique as an artist.
Obviously all of this depends on your own personal goals and where you see or want to position your body of work! If your prime directive is to sell lots of images, whether through the many stock outlets, as prints or even as 'Tourist Tat', compromise can be made and this achieved. To a lesser extent it is even possible to play the magazine game as most seem to want the glossy, stunningly perfect Photoshopped landscapes to adorn their pages, or the perennial (every issue) glut of amateurs that want their pictures to be examined by the 'experts' and shown how the image could be more perfect.....to my mind if you have taken a picture that you are happy and proud of, no matter what the subject or the technical perfectness, and someone else values that vision enough to buy and enjoy that piece of work, well surely that is what it fundamentally has to be about?
What do you think?
I strongly feel that subjectivity is important to the creative arts across the board, it keeps idea's, creative thinking alive & fresh, pushes artists to strive to be differently inventive, reinventing and adding to artistic movements in a modern or current way,....that is vital.....we don't want everyone to enjoy the same works, this would lead to a blandscape where our home and gallery walls would adorn the 'On Trend' pieces....
......and i like opinion too much for that!!
Scott