Re: I'm looking for inspiration!

Here is my take on it....Becoming a real 'artist' in the eyes of the
public and galleries is just a matter of making a sellable product.
Thats what pays the bills. I have a normal 9 to 5 type job. That
pays my bills and frees me to create art for me and only me. If I
try to make money at it, I believe that compromises my vision of the
world. If I sell something fine, but that is not my goal. But, that
is just me. By the way, I prefer smaller print sizes as well. 5x7
is my perfect image size. I love to pick one up and study it at a
short distance. Huge prints are for the top of a couch, but a small
print draws you in!

On Aug 13, 2005, at 4:06 PM, Nash Computer Technology wrote:

> Hello all
>
> This may be slightly off-topic, but hopefully people won’t mind too
> much…
>
> It’s been a couple of years since I last did any serious
> photography – I’ve been so busy with my ‘real’ job I just
> haven’t had any opportunity. My experience has mainly been in
> small (5x4” and 10x4”) platinum prints. I’d
> produced a number of prints, of various subject matters –
> portraits, churches, still life, flowers, landscapes –
> you get the picture: a mix of everything! I’d just been taking and
> printing for my own enjoyment and
> experimenting with different subjects as they came along. At that
> time I wasn’t even too sure how the quality
> of my prints compared with any others (I’d never seen a platinum
> print apart from my own!)
>
> I then went to an event where you could show your portfolio to a
> number of picture buyers and art gallery
> representatives, and the feedback I received was that my
> photographic and printing skills were fine, but that
> an art gallery or agent would require me to produce a body of work
> on ‘A Theme’.
>
> I came away encouraged, but for the next while I almost went crazy
> trying to think of a suitable subject matter.
> Then other work got in the way. However, I’m now at a stage where
> I’ll be able to pick up the photography
> again, and immediately have ‘tripped up’ on how to build a cohesive
> set of ten to fifteen prints.
>
> I know that everyone will be different, but I wondered how other
> people go about this. I feel that perhaps I’m
> not a ‘real artist’ (I don’t really have anything to ‘express’). I
> consider certain subjects, such as flowers, then
> immediately worry that they’ve been done to death, both by the
> original ‘masters’ and by modern ‘fine art’
> photographers. Then again, perhaps the abundance of these simple
> compositions is due to their popularity
> and because they sell. That being the case, maybe there’ll be a
> market for anything I produce, even if it’s not
> radically different from other photographers’ work. It’s also easy
> to fall into the trap of thinking that one
> ‘needs’ additional or alternative equipment to do a subject
> justice, or to treat it in a different way – you know;
> additional lighting, a greater selection of lenses, etc. However,
> I know that’s not true. For example, although
> I have a 10x8”, the smaller prints personally please me more,
> despite having heard people say, “you could
> have blown it up really big”, and I feel I'd like to work within
> the 10x4" format at this time - that's one positive
> decision!
>
> Thanks for listening. Maybe I haven’t expressed myself very well,
> but I feel I need to have a few suggestions
> and techniques thrown at me before I can move on and happily start
> producing work again.
>
> David
>
>
Received on Sat Aug 13 21:32:17 2005