Rolling with the Rules

At the ICP we roll on 10-week sessions, and the winter session has just ended. Which means we can catch our breath for a few days before the spring session begins.

In the photo one and two courses, as usual, the wave will swell fast and then spread out over the duration of the term, because there's so much to learn, so fast, at the start. And then once you've crested the top the challenge becomes just holding your balance and continuing to take pictures. In the full-time graduate programs, however, we've been working straight since September (or earlier) so the challenge is different. At this point the conversation is shifting to focus on what comes next, how to start a career in photography.

...how to start a career in photography.

That wave is so huge it makes me shudder. When we look at it I almost have to laugh because I have no idea what to say. Even spelling it out like this -- how to start a career in photography -- seems absurd, makes it overly simple and too doable. The fact is that there's no such thing as a career in photography, at least, not as that word is generally applied to other professions, like doctors or lawyers or bankers. There's a life in photography, certainly, but there really aren't any solid pathways that lead to it. Rather, it's something you have to make up as you go, inventing it and evolving it day by day and year by year. There just aren't any universal rules that will tell you how to roll.

That's not to say, however, that there aren't any rules at all. In fact, if anything, there are too many rules. And each nook and cranny within the universe of photographic practice has it's own local variations on those rules.

Now that you've learned the technology of photography, and something about the history and theory behind your practice, and now that you've built a foundation with your own pictures -- now's the time to start learning the rules that underlie your future as a photographer.

There are resources to get you started. If you're reading this blog you've already tapped into one of today's most powerful conduits for this type of information. My blog roll to the left lists some places to start, especially Mary Virginia Swanson's and Rob Haggert's blogs -- these are two of my favorites for keeping up with the conversation around the essential building blocks of career building, but there are hundreds of other blog resources where working photographers share insights about how their careers have evolved.

Additionally, join your local chapters of the national advocacy groups ASMP and APA: go to their meetings to get your conversation started. Then check in with your local nonprofits and support them, get on their mailings lists, enter their exhibits, go to their workshops -- every city has them! (If you're in the NYC tri-state area, of course, you're lucky in that regard because we have so many entry points to the conversation -- some of my favorites are En Foco, the Camera Club of New York, and, of course, the ICP.)

As well, on the national scene, I strongly suggest dropping in on the annual PhotoPlus seminars in NYC (every October), where you can pick up advice from people working in fields as diverse as editorial journalism, commercial advertising, fine art exhibiting and stock photography.

The point of all this talk, now, is to get you started thinking and acting on what you're going to do next. There aren't any sure-fire ways to make a life in photography, or to make a living by making photographs. But there are guides and resources. One thing you'll hear over and over, though, is that the work of building the photo-life is never finished -- this thing we do changes all the time, and our position relative to its moving wave changes too. I feel incredibly fortunate to have surfed it this long, but I know that what I've done up to now doesn't mean I'll make it through the coming swells. We're all rolling with it together, maybe on different parts of the wave, but definitely in it together.

Note to all: I'd love to hear about your favorite resources for career building in photography.