Does a photo lie or its caption?

[Rob C]

Donovan was a hack.

At least he made money and enjoyed his modern photography.

If that constitures hack, the so be it: I wish I had been hack enough!

Was it Jerry Garcia said: "we didn't sell out because we didn't know how to"? Think about it: you believe in the artistic sanctity of poverty?

Rob

[elliot_n]

If you only do it for the money, you're going run it to problems when you try to do it for yourself.

Do you like Donovan's work? Looking through his online archive, I find it very flat. There's much more energy in the work of Bailey or Duffy.

http://www.terencedonovan.co.uk

It's not the amateur who has the problem - it's the jaded professional.

[Rob C]

The moment I loose the ability to be wondered by what I see daily, I will have to make this decision.

It’s not the first full time pro who sits in his chair with a killed passion after or even during his career

Indeed, and perhaps Donovan's suicide was directly connected to that instead of the medication that has been forwarded as cause of his act.

It could be the result of many reasons, but I wonder if he was already feeling the effects of the changes in the zeitgeist, too. Duffy vanished from stills well before that, and Bailey seemed to have been constructed from teflon with the added bonus of being a veritable cult figure with the general public whereas the other two were more heroes within the business than in a larger world. Bailey carried on being his own product, and he still exists large in the public consciousness. Eventual hugs from the gallery/art complex did little to ruin his popularity. After a while, his name may have become even more valuable to a client than his actual photographs.

It's often said by pundits that a working photographer's fame - if he has any - generally lasts for a maximum of fifteen years, give or take one or two. I suspect it's a general truth, because anyone's success is dependent on the people providing the work wanting to keep doing that. As those people change, retire etc. there's absolutely no guarantee new people don't want to introduce their own circle of people, thus displacing the old anointeds.

Also, constant exposure to commercial pressures, often (I have this from personal experience) resulting in the selection of inadequate models, misdirected priorities and so on can bring about a sense of pointlessness in carrying on. Often, if the fuck off money is there, that's what folks do. I did much that myself after some really bad experiences and deplorable handling of both self as photographer/designer and projects. It hurts very deeply to see opportunities being wilfully destroyed because some asshole thinks you might be the route into some idiot female's pants.

Rob

[Rob C]

If you only do it for the money, you're going run it to problems when you try to do it for yourself.

Do you like Donovan's work? Looking through his online archive, I find it very flat. There's much more energy in the work of Bailey or Duffy.

http://www.terencedonovan.co.uk

It's not the amateur who has the problem - it's the jaded professional.

1. That depends: some become snappers because they fail at something else; some, like moi, because they couldn't imagine doing anything else. I had a helluva struggle getting into pro employment in Scotland. Nobody knew any pros other than wedding guys, and I'd rather have carried on in engineering than mess around in there. In the end, I got the break in my fourth year as apprentice engineer and never looked at anything else, even in the several tough times that inevitably came along to test my resolve and my wife's faith.

2. I do like Donovan's work, but it's decidedly diifferent to that of the other members of the black trinity. I feel he's much more a studio photographer than the other two. Duffy may have struck a balance point between the two, but for me, Bailey was a master location shooter. I also think Donovan photographed men better than the rest could. No, I won't go there because I don't know.

But then you have to be aware that in the UK we were pretty blind to the European people shooting fashion, and as far as the US was concerned, few in Britain spoke about anyone but Avedon when the reality was that New York was full of stars. If you bought Vogue within Britain, your main exposure was to the Brits.

3. Not sure that's the case. Even within LuLa, one of the most progressive and encompassing sites we have, the trouble seems to be that people are foundering. Were that not the case, they wouldn't be asking so many questions, looking for affirmation from others and constantly obsessing about gear. Only when you really don't have a visual point of view in which you, yourself, believe, do you feel any compulsion to consult other people on matters aesthetic. So what can you do other than stop? You revert to GAS, of course, and that's an unlimited source of engagement until cameras end.

For the jaded professional, it's a tough call; for the jaded amateur, it's just a matter of finding another hobby. Nobody will care a damn if you quit, and you can just blow your pennies on other things.

Then for the ex-pro far from jaded, the problem becomes one of substitution: the option of quitting photography is not available; photography presumably made you seek that as occupation, so you are not usually going to switch off because you no longer do it to make money today. With the commission gone, you have to come up with the substitute, yet a substitute that doesn't make you feel you have fallen off the wagon.

That one is tough to resolve.