I can understand it, if maybe you worked 20 hours a week for a company doing something like digital asset management. This way you'd have more stability, while being able to work 20+ hours as a photographer.
That is what I did for about 6 years, as my back pain became worse and I wasn't able to do as much location work in photography as in the past. I worked in the studio 3 days a week, and on related "consulting" or long term projects the remainder. Of course, consulting can be scaled up or down, and you retain much of the same work mode as freelance photography, so it can be a good fit. At the time it also gave me access to state of the art equipment - an A2 size scanner, for example.
But the main reason why I did not pushed LF further, is the way I want to learn: next to an experienced LF master, not in a school or through internet neither by myself in this case. A kind of "renaissance way to learn" if I can say.
Fred,
We have chatted quite a bit about LF in the past. This is no way meanty as a criticism - just a thought starter.
I think what you mean, and may need, is the ability to work with an artist, or poet, in a sort of post-graduate class. I am thinking in terms of the tyes of "workshops" that are common in the US in the summer, at Santa Fe, Maine, and Anderson Ranch. And I am thinking of the chance to do an intensive workshop with someone like Alec Soth, a true poet and master and very accomplished photographer - member of Magnum, etc. - who has been on a meterioc rise throughthe profession.
Or Robert Polidori, or Sylvia Plachy, or Robert Adams - you get my drift. Creative masters who think deeply about the medium. You sort of "pick your poison" - the folks who might fit your style/need at the time - and each summer you try to draw out enough ideas and critique and inspioration to keep you going for another year. ICP in New York also has some great workshops - Master Critique with Mark Ellen Mark, The Extraordinary Portrait with Amy Arbus, etc.
But, what I think you don't need, is someone to teach you LF per se. That is the distinction, perhaps, between taking a course in electronic engineering, and a course in soldering. Soldering, while useful, is just a technical skill that doesn't engage the whole being, as a good teacher will.
For someone like Alec Soth, for example, I would recommend that you astart reading his old blog from beginning to end. It is/was a true post graduate education in the art of photography. The same with his new blog to a lesser extent - Little Brown Mushroom:
http://littlebrownmushroom.wordpress.com/Then take a workshop with him, get feedback after another 2 months of working on your own, etc.
In the US there is a group called SPE - Society for Photographic Education - that brings together a number of academic (university) professors each year for a conference,. It is nicve to be able to see he personal work they are doing and to get in touch with others struggling to do creative work - trying to find models for long term projects, etc. I am no sure if anything like that is available there.
http://www.spenational.org/conference/conf...akers_2009.htmlhttp://www.spenational.org/conference/conf...rence_Flyer.pdf