Sorry to ask again, but what is that "truth of the matter"? Or, at least, what is it for you?
Two truths: first, I received an e-mail from my accountant chap this evening and realised I had to do something pretty damned quickly and, consequently, it’s a quarter to eleven at night, my brain is scrambled and I just realised I’d become so engrossed with sums that I’d forgotten to switch on the blanket to heat the goddam bed; the other truth?
Well, the other truth is borne out in the collective sentiment expressed in the interviews: you do it because you have no option, you just have to do it regardless of the chances, the penalties and financial risk to everything in your life and almost that of the others you love more than yourself.
Retirement? Yes, you do and probably have to retire from active service in a business sense, if only because you start to look out of context within an ever younger working group unless you have become an icon at the Avedon level, in which case it matters not a jot: age then looks like added gold, the sum of the glories heaped upon the star. (Like rich old guys with yachts and Italian sports car, there’s some magic at play, regardless of the cynicism of those without the goodies.) But that’s just the photographic business: the love continues, and with the change of status arrive fresh problems. Money makes a lot of photography possible; do you want to blow back what the work already brought you?
You certainly could, but then you’d still lose the validation: it’s the assignment that hits the spot just as much as being there in the Bahamas or wherever the thing takes you. There’s the joy of landing the big fish and then the absolute magic of shooting the shoot and seeing what you did printed big and hanging on an office wall. That somebody thought enough of you to spend all that money with you is really a buzz all of its own: the only sort of positive “+1” that really counts.
As I’ve quoted before, the difference between pro and am status is huge: like Terence Donovan said, the most difficult thing for the amateur is finding a reason to make a picture. I’m now that amateur and from that perspective, I can only agree: it’s the greatest photographic problem I face. Unlike the amateur, there isn’t this drive, the hope of improving, doing something good. Regardless of how this sounds, I don’t believe ex-pros suffer from any of that: ability is taken for granted, especially the ability to do the things one wants to do, which if your pro work was also what you wanted, it’s probably still what you want to do, but without clients…
If you have the patience to read interviews, there are some great ones in Frank Horvat’s site:
http://www.horvatland.com I just tried to check the Horvat site: I got a danger warning of infection: maybe now's not the best time to try it!
Ciao – and good night!
;-)
Rob C