ISSUE 159
EDITOR'S LETTER |
| © Tim CLINCH |
A photographer friend of mine mentioned the other day that 60% of his work was admin. 'The photography is the easy bit', he said. He's a high-end professional — but when I thought about it, proportionately, it's pretty much the same for any photographer. In the days of shooting film, the work continued in the darkroom, and was considered an extension of the photographic process. Today, post-production replaces this and, even if it means sitting in front of a computer, can be creative and satisfying.
However, it doesn't end there. What comes next is the tricky bit and has nothing whatever to do with photography. It's called, rather uncomfortably, 'self promotion'. Some of us are terribly good at it and some terribly bad. In between, the rest of us do battle with Facebook and Twitter, websites and blogs.
I've been helping a friend to make a website and blog recently. She was, for many years, a film photographer who printed in her own darkroom. She has boxes of prints stacked up on shelves — delicious and satisfying to look through. But, finally recognising the need to be more visable, she decided to publish online. She's spent hours scanning in her work and she's started shooting digitally. But, somehow, you can tell her heart isn't in it — she longs to return to the quiet of the darkroom to do simply what's she's good at.
At this point I should mention that she doesn't earn her living as a photographer, and that does make a difference. But, she would still like recognition for her work — deservedly so.
We live in time of instant communication and, largely, we accept this as a good thing. It's no good being nostalgic about the past — it's gone — and we can take what's good from the present, if we approach it in the right way. It's important to recognise where we, personally, fit in — and then decide how we use the new media.
Photography has always been about communication — we just need to find the right way to go about it, for us.
We'd like to know what you think — write in to our new In Contact feature, we'd love to hear from you.
Elizabeth Roberts, Editor
elizabethr@thegmsgroup.com
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