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What the hell am I doing in life?
Do you ever wonder that? It feels stupid, saying that and being 21, but induldge me for a moment. I didn't go to a "real" college. I spent a crapload of money (all in private loans) to go to a one year school to get an Associate Degree in Audio Recording/Engineering. I love it, I love it as a career, except I've realized over the past year that people will only hire you if you have big spending clients, or are willing for work for no money at all(currently I make $86 a week). I am not even sure this is legal, but that's a whole 'nother topic in itself! I have always loved photography, and since I am in desperate need to leave the studio that I work at now (which is practically broke, very unprofessional, etc) I am wondering if maybe I should take a part time job either being a photographers assistant, or doing photography itself. But then I realized, people won't want to pay photography assistants--they'll call them interns and expect them to work "for experience." Okay, tell Sallie Mae and AmEx that I'll pay them in experience. I know, I know, if you intern at the right place you gain tons of experience and it can lead to a real job. But what about all those times it doesn't? And you get taken advantage of? It all boils down to the fact that I am a creative person, I need to create in some form. Right now I am miserable, and it needs to change. Either way I am probably going to get a "real" job part time, and do something a bit more creative part time, hopefully somehow the two can be the same thing. I don't really expect very many replies, but I appreciate everyone for reading this. Mar 07 06 04:25 pm Link do what you love, work hard as hell and youll be happy. Mar 07 06 04:31 pm Link I don't know how it works in New York, but assistants are paid. They are generally freelance people that work in various studio and with many differant photographers. It is also a great way to get experience in the world of commercial photography, and many photographers started off as assistants. I ould reccomend you check out the local chapter of the ASMP for more information on assisting; they have seminars on this topic every now and then and it's a great way to network and meet commercial photographers and assistants. Good luck! -Pat- Mar 07 06 04:31 pm Link _Negatives wrote: i had this whole long reply typed and then i erased it all... i just want to say "hang in there!" Stick with your passions... sure, you may have to sacrifice some of your time and energy to pay the bills, but you've a lot of years ahead of you. I hope that you can make both the practical and the passion work together in your life.. and as soon as possible. But, there's always the chance that it could take many years before you can follow that passion on a full-time basis or some other satisfactory level of time devoted to your "passion". I know. My art and creativity have been on the back burner for many years... but, i think it feels no less wonderful to express myself today than when i was younger. i'd even venture to say that it's more satisfying now. Whatever happens... remember to express that creative side. Mar 07 06 04:50 pm Link I have felt that way in my early years...hey I still do at least once a month....I have 3 degrees from college and I do makeup and love it..... I would rather be happy doing something creative and having fun at the same time and making money than being at some job driving me crazy and making me sick...... Just hang in there it will all come in order... Mar 07 06 04:56 pm Link Now for the answer to :What the hell am I doing in life? Trying to play catch up on damn bills!!!!! Hate them fuckers.... Mar 07 06 04:59 pm Link BridgitC-Makeup Artist wrote: Yep - ever wonder what it'd be like to be debt free? It's almost like a fantasy. Mar 07 06 05:02 pm Link Ian Weintraub wrote: I have definitely been very lucky when it comes to not having to take on two (or more!) jobs to pay bills. I don't think that getting a $7/8 hr job would be a bad thing, especially if it was just 3 or 4 days a week. Then I have a few days free to work elsewhere. Now the only question is..where to apply! Mar 07 06 05:03 pm Link No. Mar 07 06 05:06 pm Link Yeah I'm going through a quarter life crisis  Mar 07 06 05:07 pm Link People get PAID to doPhotography?!?!? I thought it just COST money. Honestly, if you start out trying to make a living with photograpy, you might make it. But you might also make yourself miserable by distracting yourself with all the business end stuff. And your crativity will suffer. Get a good, non-creative job that pays the bills. Ease into the business end , as you pick up clients. If you start taking out loans right away, renting a studio, insurance, blah blah, your gonna focus on the bills. Take it easy. ease into it. seems to be working for me. Mar 07 06 05:17 pm Link . Mar 07 06 05:17 pm Link . Mar 07 06 05:17 pm Link Oops sorry. Mar 07 06 05:17 pm Link Bluemoon Photography wrote: Sounds like good advice, thank you Mar 07 06 05:24 pm Link Your welcome. Mar 07 06 05:39 pm Link A different approach. Get a dayjob to finance your passion, then never give up the dayjob. (My kids are actors.) -Don Mar 07 06 07:10 pm Link I've found that only a select few people who really have some uber-talent are able to do what they love to do and have it bring (living) money in for them at the same time. I see far too many people trying to do it without being in a position where it's viable (I certainly can't, but I'm fortunate that I enjoy the job that does pay the bills too). Regardless of which creative outlet you choose to pursue, maybe you'd find yourself less stressed about forcing it if you try separating work and play for a while. Plus, with anything artistic, when you start having to constrain it to a deadline, or put other restrictions on it...it starts losing its lustre. The last thing I can imagine an artist would ever want to do is get to the point where it feels like a chore. Mar 07 06 07:11 pm Link D. Brian Nelson wrote: *sigh* Everyone else seems to be able to condense ideas of mine into much more concise snippets. At least I get my typing practice in... Mar 07 06 07:12 pm Link All you gotta do is have the dream man, At least give it your best shot, and wether u made it or not, how can u not respect a person who went for what they wanted in life. I mean how many people are stuck behind desks doing boring jobs for good money, but yet they have no lives and forgot what it is like to live. I wanted to be a model and was told i should do it for a long time, recently i said it;s time to get my act together and start doing what i want to do, and so far i love modeling. We are all only young once, i wana make the best of it while i am. Mar 07 06 07:14 pm Link Just work at whatever come along. Ifyou find somethimg you really like, do it longer. Or you can be like a lot of us; I'm sixty odd years old and don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Mar 07 06 07:19 pm Link _Negatives wrote: Just remember, you've got a fatal disease that is surely going to kill you eventually. You're in the flower of your youth, right now, in a way that you cannot possibly appreciate right now - you'll only appreciate it when your youth has faded. Don't waste a second of that energy and love of life doing anything that doesn't fulfill you, live every day with no regrets, kick asses, and count your own wounds in the dark, but never give up. Mar 07 06 07:20 pm Link Lens N Light wrote: Rock on! You 60-odds who don't know what you want to do when you grow up are a total inspiration to us mid-40-odds who don't either. Mar 07 06 07:24 pm Link Marcus J. Ranum wrote: Inspiration at it's best Mar 07 06 07:29 pm Link Nihilus wrote: By the way, that's sometimes dangerous. "Back in the day" my thing was programming computers. I started doing that in the 70's and by the early 90's I was damned good. Made a lot of money doing it. But after 20 years it suddenly stopped being what I love and became what I did for a living. Making your hobby into your job sometimes will ruin your hobby for you. I think the real trick is to make sure you have a creative outlet that satisfies you and a job that feeds you. If they're the same, great - but be prepared for the case where one steps on the other. One of my buddies is a fantastic brewer and beer judge - he's turned down a lot of offers to go work at micro-breweries because he knows that if he did it 12 hours/day for 3 years he'd hate it. I thought that was very mature of him. Mar 07 06 07:31 pm Link This is a long one, but hopefully helpful, so grab a cup of coffee, and smoke 'em if you got 'em... I call it the creative balancing act. The reality of the market for a beginning artist is starvation (if you choose to only follow your artistic endeavors for cash-flow). There are exceptions to the rule, but being a professional artist is nearly as competitive as being a pop star (it's a fair comparison, as there are only a handful of "elite" artists/photogs, a good number of Working photographers who are making a decent living, but are not famous, and a ton of wannabes who will never really make the professional cut). Just like actors... The most realistic of these obviously are the working photographers. The trick to being a working photographer/artist with a solid, long lasting career is BALANCE. So, in the beginning you balance what you HAVE to do (make money) with what you WANT to do (create). Likely you will start out doing 90% of the time doing what you HAVE to do (day job), to spend 10% of your time doing what you want. But the balance quickly starts to shift. Soon you are spending 80% have-to / 20% want, 70% have-to / 30% want, etc. One of the tricks is to optimize the HAVE-TO time to make as much income as you can to support the WANT time. The more you are making on the HAVE-TO time, the quicker the will see the scale slide in your favor (assuming that your talent level can keep up to your ambition and time). But it unfortunately doesn't end here. Once you have committed to becoming ONLY a commercial artists/photog, the scale pretty much starts over: you spend 90% of your time shooting things that you would rather not to spend 10% of your time shooting your passion, then 80%/20%, and it gets better over time. At some point you are shooting enough to keep your creative side happy; but have no illusions - Once you have fully committed to being a full-time commercial artist, you will have to spend time shooting assignments that you are only doing "to pay the bills". I've been respectfully successful, and have had a long, good career. But even when I was shooting for Life Magazine, I was also shooting check-passing, pie bake-off and speech photos for much smaller publications. Even the "pop stars" of our industry (LaChapelle, Leibovitz, Seliger, etc etc) have to take work that pays the bills on a regular basis. Another consideration is lifestyle choice. I could never live off of what I was making as a photojournalist when I lived in the midwest. I live in NYC now, and have become accustom to a much more expensive lifestyle. So I shoot Fashion and documentary work (my loves) part of the time, and shoot corporate reports / catalogs (money money money) the rest of the time. It's not nearly as fun as the fashion, or as enriching as the documentary, but I'm not ready to give up my nice apartment, toys, restaurants, dating, or Manhattan lifestyle. Point being that it all factors in. This is ESPECIALLY true if you want to do fashion. Anyone who has really worked in fashion photography will tell you not to pursue it if you are looking to make a good living. The notoriety is nice, but the pay is awful. (example: most fashion publications pay (much) less than $500 for a cover or spread, I'll make 5 times as much in the same amount of time doing corporate report work - many fashion and lifestyle publications pay you NOTHING for publication (your byline is your payment)). The best thing you can do to help yourself is to remember that as a solo photographer (or model for that matter) you are running a small business. You have to treat it like a small business. This means creating a solid business plan with goals, milestones, contingencies, etc. Acting and operating as a business is the last thing we desire to do as artists; but it is the necessary evil that allows us to create without compromise when we have the time and finances to do so. So there's my rant on compromise. Hope this is helpful in some way. Cheers! /bob Mar 08 06 02:53 pm Link I do some assisting here in LA. Not as much as I would like but it helps. Im practically broke also... when I was first assisting I did it for free or at a lower rate to gain the experience and get my foot in the door. Now I assist at a rate of $200 a day... yes there are assistants that make like $600 a day. Bottom line... use the experience and adapt it to your own work... good luck Mar 08 06 02:59 pm Link |
