Uncle Bob with his posh new DSLR.

I’ve just been looking at an article called ‘Can You Still Make Money From Photography?’ and this is where the title of the post comes from, Uncle Bob with his posh new DSLR is the proxy for that family member or family friend whom people consider getting to shoot their wedding for free. Wedding photography isn’t what I would like to do, but something has to pay the bills, and wedding photographers seem to be quite similar, however, I have seen some good and some awfully bad. They also seem to price themselves out of the market, if anyone even considers Uncle Bob they will soon realise it won’t work, but they shouldn’t have to consider.

Anyway, there are other things a photographer can do to sell themselves, such as film, it’s so close and so far from what photographers know. I’ve experimented with it, and I would like to fully embrace it because there are things I try to photograph which simply do not work with a still.

Finding a niche is important: what do I enjoy doing? What do I enjoy looking at? What do I enjoy writing about? What what what?! Well, I know that the way I photograph has become instinctive to me, so I think I will always have an element of the abstract. I enjoy colour, black and white isn’t for me, I’ve tried using it myself but I find relying on texture and tone alone difficult, so, colour what else? Surprisingly, though I struggle with people myself I can’t get some portraits out of my head in particular one by Mikhael Subotzky, since I first saw it it has been in the back of my mind. I enjoying writing and researching about the history and how this has affected the landscape and current culture of a place, which has what inspired me to do a project about Iceland.

Even after this; the question still remains: what do I want to do?

Image Courtesy of Magnum Photography and Mikhael Subotzky.