I’m always interested when someone asks me about “staying creative” when I’m shooting, as if it’s a conscious choice. At the same time, there’s a common notion to be found on social media that talks about “niching down,” zeroing in on one subject or style, I guess the thinking goes, to really master it. I think this is exactly the opposite of what most people should actually do.
In the course of getting my English degree - and not, interestingly, my degree in photography, which people who presumably sit in cubicles thinking big thoughts from afar expect is absolutely necessary to be able to make good photographs - I was the victim of tons of writing that began with a quote. I’m always wary of that myself, but I think in this case it’s a good idea.
Generally I am suspicious of some of the most quoted phrases in whatever we’re calling the current US culture and it’s vapid mash of mass media, social media, rumor, half-truths, conspiracy theories, email forwards and all the other ingredients going into the morass of the things we think and mindlessly repeat to each other.
There’s a conversation to be had about how common quotes are used and abused in our culture. For instance, “a few bad apples” has come to be the refrain any time anyone in a position of power and authority…well, murders anyone else who might be breaking a law, generally on camera and fairly egregiously. “You know how it is, we can’t judge everyone by a few bad apples.”
The full quote, of course, is “One bad apple spoils the barrel,” meaning exactly the opposite of how it’s used today. The phrase actually calls on us to judge everyone, because once you find a few bad apples you commonly find more, and indeed often everyone is at least tainted.
The same is true, I find, for the phrase “jack of all trades.” People who split their attention among a few different subjects, disciplines, hobbies or obsessions are tutted at with the rejoinder “you know what they say, jack of all trades, master of none.”
There’s some debate about when the second half was tacked on, but these days it’s not uncommon to have someone say “the full quote is ‘A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.’” Without diving into what part came when, I want to talk about how important it is to do the opposite of this kind of short-sighted “wisdom” on social media. Don’t niche down, spread out.
I have no idea what my favorite sort of photography actually is. On any given day, I fantasize about any number of projects, none of which have anything in common with each other except for the fact that they all involve a camera. One moment it’s studio portraits on a white or black wall, the next it’s editorial portraits out in the world, photographing people where they work and live and do their things, whatever they might be. An hour later I’ll be thinking about what I might need to photograph tools on white in someone’s workshop. Then I’m fantasizing about being 9 miles down a trail with infrared cameras.
So what part of this is “staying creative” or “thinking creative” or “keeping up creativity”? I honestly have no idea. I think in photographs. I think in photo series. When I meet someone or walk into a theatre or do anything I’m immediately thinking about it photographically…where I’d shoot portraits, what parts of where I am I’d shoot for atmosphere, what aspects of someone’s life I’d like to do an essay on, and what I’d do for it. It’s just how I think.
The first time I noticed this was right after my sister died. My parents were living in NY, I was in MA and she passed away in Minnesota, so there was a period where I was packing to move back to NY, leaving a job and a relationship, and they were working on getting her stuff packed and back to NY.
At some point most of what she owned was kind of just loaded into the living room. At this point I really hadn’t ever worked with a camera before, and this was back in the film days and cameras were not in any way ubiquitous like they are now, but even then I was thinking “I should be photographing all this. I should be shooting her stuff.” My parents have always been kind of ruthless about getting rid of stuff, and before I knew it, much of her things were gone….given to charity, special things given to friends.
When she killed herself, she set up her car - which she died in - with all her stuffed animals. Many of those made their way back to NY but were then quickly given away. That was the first time I ever thought to just photograph things that meant something to me on white…I guess I’ve always loved just showing someone a thing and then revealing whatever backstory there might be.
I’m still like that. The shoot of my father's tools was born out of that, as was my project photographing what was around him when he died. As I said to someone last week...I'm an atheist, but I do believe in objects being sacred, or holy. There's a lot of things that are sacred to me, and all I want to do is photograph them.
You may have noticed that between every paragraph of this entry is a photo. Is it distracting? Maybe, a bit. But in scrolling through them all, did it occur to you that they're all from one photographer? Now, recalling that fact, which niche should I double down on?
Don't niche down...spread out.
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