... What is your take on seeing your work in print?
Ah! What a great question!
Mixed feelings, really. Of course there is a certain amount of ego stroking and pride... just how much depends on each individual's need for external validation, and that need appears to decline with age (and wisdom?) and the amount of already published work. I had my first work published in the 80s and was, come to think of it, paid for it more than today, even without adjusting for inflation. The work was for DIY and Home & Garden-type magazines, not fine art though. As of recently, I've seen my work published and rewarded in Popular Photography, a full page inside the U.K.'s Digital Photographer Magazine, and a cover of the same magazine. I've seen it published in a book too, Photographer's Forum Annual "The Best of 2009".
Why mixed feelings then? Well, the cover was paid decently. The inside-published ones came later and were crowd-sourced, i.e., not paid for. Nothing for the book either.
It seems though that at least some of us humans are hard-wired to correlate value with price, and thus assume what comes (and goes) free has little value. I think Rob was talking about it at some point, i.e., the importance of knowing that not only someone likes your work enough to publish it, but is also ready to pay for it.
At some point you realize that our vanity and need for recognition is becoming a prey for publishers and magazines. We pay
them to participate in their contests, we buy their books that nobody else would shell out $50-60 for, just to show our friends and family we are in it (together with almost a thousand other "carefully selected" entries). At some point, you got to become jaded with the whole process. Couple that with the overall decline in the perceived value of photography, due to digital, and you will understand why I have mixed feeling about being published.
P.S. On the other hand, isn't it really nice when a true pro, like Glenn Morimoto, compliments your photograph?
