Renewed Ambition

In keeping with the New Year, I’m planning this year’s efforts at marketing with renewed ambition. The end of the year has been a good one. I’ve had my best monthly sales recently, which has been very encouraging, and I have my first major one person show coming up in a few days at the Lansing Art Gallery in Lansing, MI. My sales in 2011 doubled over 2010, so that’s promising too.  I have renewed hope that profitability is a possibility this year.

With that in mind, I’ve begun making my plans for the year. I make these plans in a visual form that I like. I use a free software called XMind. You can find it on the web. It’s a mind mapping software that allows you to lay out your thinking in a way that’s easily grasped. Here’s the mind map I’ve started for this year’s marketing:

You can see immediately that there are a lot of things to consider when marketing your work. You’ll notice that photography itself, the reason I’m doing all of this, is a relatively small part of what needs to be done to make a successful business.

Email Marketing

One of the first things I want to do this year is begin doing email marketing to gallery prospects. I’m primarily interested in marketing my work through galleries at this point, though I’m always thinking about alternatives. I’d done a few email pieces recently in order to promote my upcoming show, and I enjoy doing them and think they might be an effective way to stay in touch with my existing galleries and to contact new galleries around the country. Here’s an example of one of those pieces:

I enjoy showcasing the images, doing the graphic design, such as it is, and doing the writing as well. Writing, as you might guess from reading this blog, is something I like to do.

Who am I Marketing to?

As I began thinking in detail about how to go about the process of creating these emails, I began to realize that how these things get done depends very much on who I’m talking to. If I’m talking to the galleries that presently represent me then the style that I am accustomed to using will work just fine. I like to share a little story that goes with the image, and talk about my experiences in taking it, my thoughts about it, etc. But if I’m soliciting new galleries, then the style of the pieces might have to be different, depending on what that gallery is like.

I have been wanting to move into more exclusive galleries in big city markets largely because I can only ask more for my photographs if I do so. I suspect that those galleries will not be interested in my little personal stories and commentary on the photographs. I think that they will expect  only high minded sounding art historical commentary if any.

This thinking immediately led to thinking about what kind of photography I will need to do in order to market to these galleries. I think the photography I have been doing recently will work well in galleries that take themselves seriously about selling fine art. I’ve been working in fairly somber monochrome imagery for a while. I take my work seriously myself. I want my photographs to be meaningful emotionally and sophisticated aesthetically and I think the best of them are. Here are a couple of examples of what I mean:

But I’ve also taken a number of photographs that could be viewed as a little more conventional. I don’t necessarily view them that way, but they could be seen as conventional, nice landscapes. They’re probably very salable to a public that wants beautiful and soothing images that are fairly sophisticated, but they might be dismissed as derivative or commonplace by a gallery that takes itself very seriously in this way. Here’s a couple of examples of what I mean:

They’re beautiful photographs, but I don’t necessarily feel that they meet the loftiest ambitions that I have. But there are lots of people who would find them beautiful and like to have them in their home.

What do I Want to Shoot?

So this all feeds back not only into what photographs I put in the marketing pieces, but also what kinds of photographs I choose for my portfolio and what kinds of things I go out and shoot as well. I have, for example, lots of gorgeous colorful lakeshore photographs like the one above, that I think are very marketable, but which may not be taken seriously at the most exclusive of galleries in New York or Chicago. I’ve also been noticing gorgeous sunrises and sunsets lately that I’d like to photograph. I wouldn’t take conventional looking sunset photographs, but I’d love to capture the gorgeous color and subtle forms of the clouds at these times of day. But these images could be viewed as just soft and pretty in certain quarters.

What Kind of Life do I Want?

Eek, what to do? Who am I marketing to? Who do I want to work with? What kind of life do I want to lead? I want my work to be taken seriously, and I do take it seriously myself. I don’t want to make just pretty nostrums for an unsophisticated public to consume, but I do want to sell photographs and make a living so I can continue to take photographs, serious or otherwise. I certainly don’t want to cynically try to take what I think are marketable photographs that will reach the lowest common denominator.

I want to be represented by nice galleries, with real artistic ambitions, but the truth is that I’m very comfortable working with the nice galleries I’ve found in modest sized markets that sell nice work but are not so snooty that they would turn their noses up at a handsome landscape photograph that may not have higher artistic ambitions. If I’m honest, I really don’t want to have to do business with snooty people in general, either in a gallery or in a customer. And I’m not fond of big cities either. They’re a pain to get around in and far away, so that I have to travel at considerable expense in order to find the gallery in the first place. I expect the competition for these galleries to be more intense as well.

Could I not make a career of selling in nice galleries in mid-sized markets that are not too pretentious, more accessible, and more receptive to a variety of different kinds of work? Well, maybe I could, maybe I couldn’t. I don’t know if I can be profitable at the price level that I can expect in these galleries. I don’t know if I can find enough of them with enough selling capability to justify the distances I would have to travel to find them and supply them.

Do I make money by selling accessible photographs to the largest possible public, or by selling sophisticated work at high prices in the most exclusive of galleries in big cities? Do I shoot only serious “projects” that have high artistic ambitions, or can I also shoot things that are just plain pretty?

All questions I need to answer, and you need to answer if you’re marketing your work.

Professional or Hobbyist?

I’ve spent most of the last year and a half making the beginning efforts toward becoming a professional fine art photographer. By that, I mean that I have begun trying to make my living by selling my photographs. I’ve taken the approach of marketing to art galleries and selling my work through them.

After that year and a half, I have to say that I have had a very good reception from the galleries I’ve approached. I’ve experienced very little of the soul withering rejection that artists are told to expect. I’ve had some other forms of recognition that have been nice, including publication in Lenswork Magazine, a magazine cover for the Michigan Quarterly Review, a nice one man show at a non-profit coming up this winter, and a nice two man show at a commercial gallery last winter. Sales have been alternately good, and not so good, depending on the gallery and the time of year.

I have every reason to be encouraged on one level. I have some work that I’m quite proud of, but I have much more work to do. I’ve had some pretty disruptive events in my personal life over the last few years, including a divorce (still very much ongoing), and my mother suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. I’ve not gotten as much done as I might have hoped, but I think I’ve done well considering what’s been happening in my life.

Yes, but…

All of this is prelude to my saying that despite some encouraging events, I am feeling a bit discouraged, and thinking seriously about whether trying to be a full time professional is the right choice for me. So why the discouragement? Well, first of all, I get to spend very little time photographing. I am working so hard to focus on marketing my work, that I allow myself only very occasional trips to shoot, and those have been pretty brief.

I’ve made only five three or four day photo trips in the last year. I’ve gotten some nice images from those trips, but it’s hardly the rich creative life I would like. I haven’t gone anywhere spectacular. I’m watching my budget, so I only drive to locations, and I sleep in a tent whenever possible, which hardly makes the trips luxurious. There’s definitely none of the relaxed creative time that you might expect a professional to have. I don’t feel like I can just take time to go somewhere and explore with the camera. I am thinking about portfolio, and consistency with my existing work, and if I’m honest, I’m thinking at least a little about what my galleries will want to show and what people might buy.

I don’t do that too much, mind you, because I am not interested in making photographs that are just marketable. I want to make art that’s personal to me, or there’s no purpose in doing this at all. I can find better ways to make a living if I want to. I’m in this to make art that speaks to me, and hopefully to other people. I’ll sell images that I’m not wild about, if someone wants them, but I don’t feel wonderful about it.

In fact, that can be a source of some discouragement. I show galleries a variety of work, and they choose what they want. It can be discouraging when they select work that is not my favorite, that I feel is not expressing my personal vision.

Too Dark?

But then, with all the challenges and sadness in my life over the last few years, I feel like my vision has gotten rather dark. I wonder whether anyone will be attracted to the work, even if it perfectly expresses my self for the moment. Another source of some discouragement. I feel like I probably need to make a major change in what I’m shooting and how, but any photographer will tell you that that’s not an easy prospect. Changing subject matter and presentation takes time. You have to feel your way into new things, and when you’re trying to be a professional, time is something you have too little of most of the time.

The Professional Life

So, why is that? Well, you have to choose between photography and marketing and production and delivery of work. Marketing can mean traveling to a new city and calling on galleries. It can mean a lot of time spent creating and updating portfolios of images to show to galleries. You can spend a lot of time creating Blurb books, writing in a blog like this, emailing contacts and galleries, mailing things. You name it.

And then, you need to visit your existing galleries regularly to make sure that they see new work and remain enthusiastic about your work. You are battling for wall space with many other artists, and the gallery will show work that is fresh and exciting to them, not something you did six months ago and now seems a little stale to them.

You will also spend a lot of time printing, mounting, and matting and framing prints for galleries. You’ll make a lot of mistakes while you do this, so you print and re-print. You have to stay on top of printer and monitor calibration, so there’s more work to do, and more ruined prints. When you secure a new gallery, you have more work to print and mount and frame, all of which is done at your expense and with only the hope that the gallery will be able to sell effectively. I’ve learned that there are galleries who can sell, and those that can’t. You do your best to guess which is which when you investigate them, but sometimes you just have to try one and that can be expensive.

And I haven’t even begun to investigate really distant galleries in big cities, where the process is much harder. More travel, more expenses, very competitive environment, and then more shipping or delivery expenses if you are successful.

So of course you can hear my discouragement in the above, but those are the realities of the business. I need at least twice as many galleries representing me as I have now, and they’ll have to be much better than some of the galleries I presently have in order for me to have a hope of making any profit, let alone a living from my efforts. At present, when sales are good, they are just enough to offset all of the expenses of travel and printing, and framing work for galleries that can’t sell the work. When they’re bad, I lose money. I’m not sure that even with more galleries, of good quality, that I will be able to make a profit. I might, but I might not.

Return to Being a Hobbyist?

Part of what’s prompting this thinking was an opportunity for me to maybe do some work in my previous occupation. That work paid me very well. It was not bad work. It was nothing I loved, but it wasn’t bad. It was somewhat creative, could sometimes be interesting, though generally didn’t mean anything to me. But I’m wondering now whether I might not actually get to spend more time photographing if I did some of that lucrative work part time and photographed more in my free time. I might actually get to enjoy the photography more because there would be no pressure on it. I could go where I wanted and take my time, without worrying about immediate production. I might actually be more of an artist than I am as a full time professional.

It wouldn’t be easy to return to this former profession. I’d have some re-learning to do. It’s been a while since I did that work. I can’t say that I would look forward to it. I think I’d have real trouble motivating myself to do the marketing of that business that would be required, despite the fact that it might make me financially comfortable, and allow me a lot of freedom. It just seems like such a let down to consciously choose to return to work that has no meaning to me. But then don’t most people do work that is fundamentally meaningless to them? But does that make it right to do that?

Or Keep Going?

There remains the possibility that if I keep my nose to the grind stone on my photography that I will find more productive galleries, that my prices might rise to a point where things are more profitable, that an audience for my work would develop and my sales would get steadier and more substantial. Maybe I would be able to do less marketing work and more photography. Certainly the lack of photography in my life is a big problem. I’ve had enough success that it would be a real shame to walk away from this effort before I persevered for a while. I need to try those big city galleries. I can keep building the number of mid-sized markets too. But I must keep doing strong creative work, or I will wither and die, and I’ll have little to market anyway. It takes really strong work to get attention in a crowded marketplace.

So, for the moment, I intend to keep moving forward with my marketing. I see that I need to allow more time for the photography. I’m starving creatively and it’s hurting my motivation. When I was a painter, I worked every day, even if for only a few hours. With photography, I need to travel to find the kind of locations I need. I’ve shot everything I can imagine shooting within a few hours of my house. I probably need a local project, no matter how prosaic it might seem, so I can shoot at least once a week, maybe more.

I could consider doing some still life work, or find something else that does not require travel. I love shooting the remote and wild places I’ve been working, but I have to open up a bit to allow for some other work.

Create More Joyous Work

And I probably need to shake off the sadness of the last few years and do some work that’s inviting, inspiring, enriching to people. There’s a place for the kind of stark work I’ve been doing, but it will take a pretty sophisticated audience to buy that work. It’s not going over the average person’s couch.

I have some ideas in that vein that I’ll share here once I begin on them. I do still want to shoot the lakeshores here in Michigan in the early winter. I think there will be some beautiful things to be seen as the ice develops along the shore, but they won’t be happy pictures, most likely. I’m thinking more of flowers, maybe portraiture. We’ll see.

Is Fine Art Always Sad?

I wonder sometimes if fine art almost automatically has an air of sadness to it. Maybe you can’t take art seriously if it’s pretty, or light in mood.  I certainly have no trouble finding that element of sadness. I’ll have to see if I can make joyous or beautiful work.

Anyway, I just thought I’d share some of the reality of this process with you all. I’ve been very encouraged, very excited at times during the process. I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from undertaking it. There’s a lot to be gained from it. I just don’t know if it’s the best thing for one’s creative life. You end up subjecting something you love to the pressures of commerce. It can be tough to keep the relaxation, the spontaneity, the joy in your photography. But I intend to keep trying for some time yet.

Mediocrity or Greatness?

I’ve recently been reading Stephen Covey’s new book the 8th Habit. He has an illustration in there where you have a choice of two paths in life. One moves in the direction of the known thing, the path toward mediocrity and compromise. The other path moves toward greatness. Which path do you think we would all like to choose? Which one do we choose, and what is the price of completing that path?Easy to start down it, not so easy to stay the course and reach the destination.

Making meaningful pictures

Well, I’ve been terribly remiss in writing here. Life has been a bit complicated for me over the last several months, and the blog has gotten pushed aside, but I thought I’d try to pick up the thread today with a little post.

My thought for the day is about making truly meaningful pictures. We all want to make great pictures every time we go out, but it’s an elusive goal, and one I continue to grapple with every time I travel to make pictures. My most recent trip to Lake Superior  saw me collecting a lot of images, as I always do, but I wonder on returning how many, if any, of them are the kind of images I want to be making?

When I say meaningful pictures, I mean the kind of pictures that I feel may actually move people, pictures that tell a story that reflects my nature, and may speak to other people about the big themes in life. Life, death, our purpose and meaning on earth. That kind of picture.

Well of course, those are pretty big goals for a photograph, but they are my goals, and I’m sticking to them. This past week, I shot a few pictures that may have been in that category. I’m not sure, but maybe. They’re at least that type of image. These are examples of the kind I mean:

Both the long vistas of the wider shots, and the intimate views of the shoreline, are evocative to me. They could spur thoughts of one’s place in this world, and by extension, one’s place in the world in general. Big thoughts. The kind of thoughts I want my work to evoke.

I’m a little concerned that the saturated color, although it’s what I saw that morning, may tempt people to see only the pretty, and not take in any larger message, so I tried removing the color. Judge for yourself whether the monochrome images are more evocative?

I think maybe it is. There’s definitely something lost without the color, but the image draws you in in a different way. How about the detail shots? Are they better in black and white?

Still pretty nice, I think. Interesting what choices we are faced with. The distant horizon here keeps those questions about the viewer’s place in the big world of Lake Superior in the forefront. I’d like to know what you think about the choice between monochrome and color here, or any comment on the issue of meaning in art.

 

There was another entirely different type of shot I took that weekend that I have more questions about. This beach, Whitefish Point, in the Eastern U.P., is littered with spectacular driftwood. It has an incredible surface to it, is in all sorts of fanciful shapes, and catches the different light at different times of day incredibly sensitively. I shot lots of these images, but I wonder whether they carry the gravitas of the wider water shots. Here are a couple of examples:

These are very different kinds of images. The surfaces are wonderful, the lighting is wonderful, I like the compositions. The subtle tonalities in these prints are a visual feast, but do they accomplish what I want? Do they evoke larger thoughts? I’m not sure. They’re still beautiful images. They may have a place in the marketplace, or in some people’s hearts, but I’m not sure they reach my larger goals. I can see them displayed in a book, or printed relatively small and displayed as a group, but I don’t think any one image by itself is tremendously powerful or would invite big enlargements. I’m not sure about that, but that’s my instinct at this point. I’d be interested in your comments on this too.

There was yet another family of images that I shot this weekend that I’d like your feedback on. These are a set of intimate shots of rocks on the sandy beaches of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Here are some examples:

 

 

 

Once again, there is beautiful detail, a nice tonal range, and some interesting light and composition. Maybe it’s enough, maybe not. Somehow, these leave me a little less enthusiastic than the driftwood shots at this point. Maybe it’s the organic shapes of the driftwood that call to mind the human body that make them more compelling to me. What do you think?

I have lots of shots in this vein, and I’ve done work in this vein before. It’s almost unavoidable on the Lake Superior shoreline. Taken together, exhibited as a group, or in a book or pdf book, these might make some pretty strong images.

 

Just a couple of more images, this time from a previous trip to Whitefish Point, that definitely convey the kind of meaning that I’m looking to capture. See what you think:

These have become favorite images that have stood the test of time for me. They are eerie, and evocative to me. There’s that feeling of eternity to the distant horizon. You have to wonder where this huge pile of cobbles came from, and how they were arranged like this. And I love the transparency in the foreground of the first and third shots. It implies perhaps the subconscious or unconscious world, the hidden world. I love it.

This huge pile of rocks was created entirely naturally, probably by ice as it broke up in the spring. The images were shot just prior to Memorial Day this year, when few people are venturing this far north. Looking back to the first shots in this post, they were taken in the same place, and few of these stones remain. The pool captured behind the stones is entirely gone. It’s fascinating how these beaches are transformed from year to year.

 

So how do you do it?

The inevitable question that all this raises is how one goes about creating these meaningful images. How did I arrive at these? Did I go there knowing what I would see and what kinds of shots I would take? The answer is simply no. I had no idea what I would find at this beach other than some pilings that I remembered there from a previous trip. I had never noticed the driftwood particularly. This formation of stones did not exist before.

In fact, I had no idea when I took the shots above that they would prove to be evocative at all. I just shot and shot and shot while I was there. I shot everything that seemed remotely interesting to me and I shot it from every imaginable angle. Only later did I see what I felt was meaning in these images. So maybe those are the answers. Go there. Attend to what interests you. Explore it fully. Raise the tripod, lower the tripod, turn the camera horizontal and vertical. Get closer, get farther, change lenses from wide angle to telephoto. Shoot from dawn to dusk and beyond.

When I go to these places, I absolutely exhaust myself in the process of shooting. A typical trip lasts only maybe three days. That’s about all I can do at one stretch. I’m up long before dawn. I shoot for a couple of hours at a time, until I’m physically and emotionally exhausted. You wouldn’t think that photography could be exhausting, but I find that it is. I’m up and down from my knees, I’m crouching, squatting, hunkering down, walking all over the loose sand and stones of the beach. I typically camp as near the site I want to photograph as is possible. That means sleeping in a tent, on the ground, eating weird freeze-dried food, carrying heavy packs for long distances. It’s work, real work.

I shoot morning, noon, afternoon, and evening while I’m away. It’s usually a long drive to get where I’m going, and there are lots of logistics like bringing all the necessary camping and photography gear, food, and arranging camping permits for the various locations. There’s a lot of driving between locations as well, and a long trip home after it’s all over. After three days, I can no longer wring one more photo session out of myself and it’s time to go home. On this most recent trip, I shot 1800 frames in three days. That’s not unusual for me.

 

Probably the larger question is what kind of subject matter you should choose to shoot. I think it’s probably the most significant choice you may make. I could do the same kind of work shooting in junkyards, or the inner city, or shooting people, or flowers and gardens, or still life. It’s probably best to do all of the above, but ultimately, you will need to make some choices. I suggest trying them all because you can’t really know what will happen when you start really engaging with your subject matter. Just as I had no idea what kind of images would emerge from these trips, I have no idea what might emerge should I start shooting on the streets of Detroit, or any other location.

But I do make some educated guesses, and have some general inclinations. I love the pristine beauty of the places I shoot. I love nature’s richness and complexity as opposed to man’s generally less beautiful products. I want to create challenging images, but I don’t really want to create ugliness. I want to make images that speak to people about their place in the natural world. You need to experiment for yourself and see what it is that you have to say, what it is that you like to say, and then get out there and shoot, shoot, shoot.

Enough for now. I’ve raised more questions than probably should be addressed in one place. Stay tuned, I’ll try to return to some of these here and address them in more detail.

Winter Camping at Pictured Rocks

I thought I’d share the story of my winter camping trip this winter to Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore. It was quite an adventure for me and it had a real personal impact on me. It’s a long story, so bear with me. This is just the beginning of it! If you like it, let me know, I’ll post more.

I’ll have to add pictures later. I’ve had some computer problems and it’s meant I don’t have access to all of my photos all of the time. They’re not lost, just inconvenient to access. Hope you enjoy the story.

Preparations

This winter, I decided I wanted to try winter camping. I wanted to be able to go anywhere at any time to take photographs. I wanted to be able to stay in remote locations and be there at dawn and dusk for the best photographic light. My goal was to snow shoe in to the Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore and camp there for a few nights while I shot the features along the lake.

I had been winter camping before, more than twenty years ago, and the experiences had been pure misery. I had suffered with cold each night, despite wearing every stitch of clothing I had, inside my sleeping bag. These experiences made me anxious about trying again, but I hoped that with better equipment and preparation, that it would be a more positive experience.

I bought some expedition weight long underwear, some nylon outer wear to shed the snow and keep me dry. I did a test in my back yard, sleeping out in below freezing temperatures and making breakfast in my tent without any problems. I’d actually been quite comfortable. I decided that with my extra clothing, I could handle colder conditions that I anticipated up at Pictured Rocks.

On my way

I looked for a weather window where there would be no heavy snow, and left for Pictured Rocks. I made the seven hour drive, got my permit, and headed for the trail head to Chapel Beach. When I got there, it was late afternoon, and I didn’t have much time to get down the trail and set up camp. I decided I would hike in just an hour or so, and set up camp just before dark. I didn’t want to go too far from the car on this first night. It was going to be much colder, about ten degrees, so I wanted to be sure that my equipment was sufficient before I went too far from the car.

I passed a group of women who were on their way out from a day hike in to Chapel Falls. They said that there was a good place for me to camp there, and that it was about an hour in. They’d packed a nice snow shoe trail, so the going was pretty easy, despite my fifty pounds of camping and photography equipment and the clumsy snow shoes.

I had to hurry, because the sun was setting fast, but I got to the falls just in time to set up camp and cook dinner before dark. I was feeling pretty good. The weather conditions were nice: it was partly sunny, and there was no wind. It was peaceful at the falls, with just the whisper of the falls to lull me to sleep.

I slept alright that first night. I woke up and had to adjust my sleeping bag and clothing a bit during the night to stay warm, but I was fundamentally comfortable enough. I woke up very early, prepared my breakfast and headed out to do a little photography around the falls. It was awkward dealing with the camera and tripod in the deep snow, with the snow shoes on, but everything was going okay. I wasn’t particularly interested in the kind of things I was shooting, but I wanted to practice a bit, and get some documentary shots at the very least.

First Morning

After a few minutes, I realized that I wasn’t feeling very well. I felt a little bit sweaty, slightly nauseous. I wondered if it might be the freeze dried dinner I’d had the night before, but it also occurred to me that I was feeling pretty anxious. There were little alarm bells going off in my gut somewhere. My mind told my gut to calm down, that everything was going just fine. There was no reason to be nervous. My gut wasn’t so sure.

I went back to camp, packed up my gear, and prepared to head down to the lake. It was about a two mile hike, but on snow shoes, I had no idea how long it would take. A light breeze had begun rustling in the trees, it was overcast now, but the weather seemed okay. I started down the trail to the lake. In about a hundred feet, the packed trail that the women had left, ended. There was nothing but two feet of fresh, light snow, untouched by any human track. As I continued down the trail, I quickly discovered how much harder it was to snow shoe in deep, fresh snow. I was working very hard. In fact, I had to stop to gasp for breath about every fifty feet or so. I would pick a target a short distance ahead, trudge up to that target, then double over and breathe heavily for fifteen or twenty seconds, waiting for my heart rate to drop to a reasonable level before continuing down the trail again.

The Hike In

I didn’t go far before those alarm bells began ringing again. This time they were considerably louder. Every part of my body was telling me not to continue down this trail. The woods looked absolutely forbidding. It was a sea of unbroken, uniform gray tree trunks stretching away to the horizon in every direction. There was no sign of any wildlife. No birds, nothing. No one had been down here this winter. It occurred to me that it was probably for a very good reason. It was crazy to exert myself this hard to get down to that beach. If and when I got there, I would be exhausted and very far from my car. I would have to survive the night there no matter what.

I didn’t really consider these thoughts too carefully, to be honest. All I knew was that I was scared out of my wits, but I had been talking about doing this for so long, had been preparing for so long, had made this long drive to get here, and I wasn’t going to turn back now. I had done fine last night, and I could see no reason why I wouldn’t do okay down at the lake tonight. I simply set aside the fear, literally telling myself that fear was only a state of mind, and that I might as well change my attitude, because I was going down to that beach no matter what.

I just kept setting my little fifty yard goals, and plowed ahead through the snow. I was careful to be sure I was following the right trail, conscious that I couldn’t afford to get lost in these woods. I could always retrace my tracks to get out, but I was exerting myself so hard that I couldn’t afford any detours.

An hour down the trail, I was getting pretty tired. I’d been doing the equivalent of a stair master workout with a fifty pound backpack for a solid hour. It was way more than I was accustomed to doing. I was sweating freely, though I was trying not to get too wet, for fear of hypothermia when I stopped. In the distance, I was surprised to see a set of snow shoe tracks. It was a single set of tracks. One person had come up the trail from the lake, then turned around and gone back down. I was glad to see evidence of other people in here, and even the single set of footprints made the walking much easier. I could now walk continuously, without stopping to catch my breath.

I kept slogging down the trail, looking for some evidence of the lake. I was looking to see an end to the trees, but there was none. After another half hour or more, I began to see some rock formations through the trees in the distance. I thought that must be the lake shore. The trail turned so that it seemed to parallel the shoreline, and kept going. Finally, about two hours from my first camp, I came to some steep drops and I could see the end of the woods ahead. I was pretty well exhausted by this time, getting clumsy with fatigue, flailing around on my snowshoes as I made my way down a couple of steep drops to the lake.

By now, the wind had picked up pretty sharply. When I reached the lake shore at the famous Chapel Rocks, the wind was ripping across the lake and into the trees. The snow was scoured into ridges where it was exposed to the wind. I shielded my face, and turned along the lake to look for the campground. I crossed a bridge over a frozen river, and came to the campground a hundred yards or so later. There were snow shoe tracks along the lake shore, but no one had gone into the camp ground. I plowed through deep snow, clambering over a large tree that had fallen across the trail as I went. I turned into the first camp site that I came to. It looked just fine to me. I’m sure that in summer it was a lovely site, backing up on the river on the far side It had a big pine tree that offered shelter from the cutting wind. I decided to look no further.

Quick Word on New Camera

Well, I’ve had the new camera for a few days now. I’m still forming my opinions. It’s definitely fun to play with. Definitely doesn’t feel like a “real” camera. I doubt I will use it’s output for anything I print or sell, but I am having fun with it, walking around shooting what I would otherwise pass by without a second thought. Too early to tell whether I feel like it will make a major contribution in any way.

I’d already taken to carrying my bigger camera more of the time and have benefited from that quite a bit. The smaller camera, I am less sure about.
More to come later.

Cracking Me Open

This Artist’s Way process is cracking me wide open. It’s only been a couple of weeks since I started dabbling with The Vein of Gold. Then I decided to form a group with my artist friends. We met less than a week ago for the first time. I’ve only read the introductory pages, and haven’t even done any exercises yet.

Still, just reading the material has shifted the way I’ve been behaving enough that I feel completely opened up to all manner of possibilities. I opened myself up to explore writing, which is something I’ve been hankering to do for months, probably years if I really think about it. Opening that door got me exploring some things in writing. It got me to a book store last weekend to pick up a book that I remembered liking a lot, years ago: Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down The Bones. I’ve been absolutely loving it. I feel like I can take almost any topic that comes to mind and write, largely exploring my own internal world, my personal history.

And just the little bit of writing I’ve allowed myself to do has opened me up to new ideas about photography. I put together a photography book, mentioned in my last post, in just a few days. I wrote lengthy captions and even a short story to go in the book. And I loved it.

I realized, while thinking about writing, that I could write on almost any subject, because I began with human experience, and that my photographs carefully excluded any evidence of humans. Why is that? Why don’t I photograph people or even manifestations of people? Might that not open an entire other world for me? I thought, for example, at one point about photographing the remnants of a dinner party, or tables in restaurants, after people have eaten. Strange idea, granted, but I suspect there’s a ton of evidence of the people who were there in those settings.

But what about photographing actual people? Very foreign for me, but intriguing. I’m thinking of candid photography or street photography where the people don’t know they’re being photographed; trying to capture the little human quirks and interactions that are revealed by our behaviors. I’ve thought about photographing people’s hands on tables, even their feet while at ease. I know, strange again, but I think possibly revealing.

All this opening up is due to the Artist’s Way’s simple encouragement to do the things that keep coming up for you. Do what you are drawn to do. I’ve gone no further than that and it’s made all this difference.

I’ve also been getting out, photographing casually around my home, and in a park nearby. I’ve just been enjoying myself, capturing and processing images in my mind and my subconscious. That process has been enough for me to start feeling that all the images I’ve been collecting in the past couple of months are adding up to something. I didn’t feel that any of the images were terribly strong by themselves, but I liked what they were suggesting as a group. I thought of collage or grids of images, but with the Artist’s Way stuff and the writing, I started to see the potential to use the images in a book rather than as monumental and expensive prints, which is what I have been doing.

I even started start that book last night, or at least the concept for it, and it works for me. I just mocked up a few pages, and would have more to do to resolve it, but I can see that the idea of a small format book with small, square images works very nicely. None of the images seemed to want to be big, so I thought, why not use them small? Let them add up to something in series, rather than be big statements individually. It removes so much pressure from each photo session and from each photograph. With this idea, I can just shoot what I see that engages me. Many of the photographs I’ve captured recently work wonderfully this way.

The images I’m working with are winter scenes; a lot of trees and branches and shadows in the snow. I should post some here, but I really haven’t developed them yet. I will do it soon. Anyway, I laid out this small 7 x 7” book and made the images only 3 x 3” square. I laid down a nice pale warm gray background, and most of the images have a lot of white and brown in them. They look wonderful like that.

Then, because I’ve been writing, or thinking about writing, so much, I thought about adding text pages. Small bodies of text, just like the pictures, probably on opposite pages, because I don’t want the text competing with the pictures. I didn’t really know what I would say about the pictures when I laid out the book concept last night. I didn’t have much of a story to go with the pictures. They’d mostly been gathered fairly casually. But today, I see that there are all kinds of things that I might write that could go with the pictures. They don’t have to do with taking the pictures. It could be about the seasons, which are a big deal here in Michigan. It could have to do with some of what I’ve been learning about myself during this period. The pictures would not be directly connected with the text, only peripherally, but they would lend something nonetheless.

I like this idea a lot. It opens the doors yet another notch for me. All of a sudden, I can put together the writing with the photography. This morning, I was worried that the writing would distract from the photography and prevent me making progress in any direction. Now I see that the one can support the other. All of this because I began looking at The Vein of Gold, during a period of staleness and discouragement brought on by too much marketing and too little photography.

It’s interesting to me that I am still learning huge lessons from the Artist’s Way, when I’ve been working with the book for years and years. I’ve done all the exercises, written thousands of pages of Morning Pages, done my Artist Dates, etc. And still, I circle around at another level, and benefit enormously from the book again.

I am cracking wide open, and it’s energizing everything I am doing. It’s wonderful.

New Book of My Photographs Released!

I’ve just published a new book of my photographs through Blurb.com.  I’m very excited about it! I think it turned out beautifully. You can see the pictures and read the text (first fifteen pages only) by clicking on the link below. Be sure to click the little full screen button at the lower right of the preview window, to get the full effect!

http://www.blurb.com/assets/embed.swf?book_id=2025153

The Eloquent Landscape by Curtis Hans Miller | Make Your Own Book

The book includes my Pictured Rocks and Blue Garden Photographs, taken last summer and fall, along with a few others for good measure. I’ve written extensive captions that comment on the photographs and tell about how they were captured and edited. I think you’ll find the captions interesting and informative, whether you’re a photographer or not.

I’ve even included a little story about my camping experience there, entitled Alone in the Woods.

As a special introductory offer, good through Sunday, March 13th only, the books can be ordered at my cost. No markup. Just order and enjoy. I really just want you to enjoy the pictures and text and let me know what you think.

I look forward to your feedback!

Final Word on a New Camera

I wanted to mention here that I finally went ahead and ordered the bloody camera. I bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC GF1. It’s just slightly out of date, but the spec is the same as their newer model, and I liked the body better.

I spent no end of more time thinking about this every possible way before finally making the purchase. I sold a lens that I wasn’t using so that I could afford it. I poured over endless reviews and thought about all of the shortcomings of the various cameras.

Dpreview.com is far and away the best source for reviews. The main thing about these cameras is that they are terrible compromises on every level. No one camera has it all. The resolution isn’t great, the lenses are not great, they’re too big to fit in a pocket, really. You need the big zoom to do most things, but they are handiest with the smaller pancake lenses. Their low light performance is frankly terrible. Noise, noise, noise!

On top of that, I expect that as soon as I buy this, someone will release a better camera right away. Bigger sensor, smaller form factor, better lenses and image quality. Of course as I say that, I realize that it will cost a small fortune, so maybe I’ve done the best I can. The Sony cameras in this class use a bigger and better sensor, but they’re clearly aimed at the compact camera user, not the enthusiast. The bodies are too tiny, and the lenses hang off the front of them like canons. Terrible proportions, and no “real camera” feel.

All of that, and I still bought one. I still believe that this camera will open up other photographic possibilities for me. I am going to swear to take it absolutely everywhere. I want to try some street photography and people photography with it. It will be smaller and less obtrusive than my primary camera. It will be quiet. No big shutter sound from the mirror slapping up and down. And I will use it to fool around, with no pressure on the results, something that I think will be good for my photography, which was getting too focused on big results and big prints. I’ve already begun a little Blurb book of images that will print only three inches square. This little camera will make images like that with ease.

I’ll let you know when I get it and what I think once it’s in my hand!

Practice and Composting

 

I have just returned from a morning’s walk and photography session. Yesterday’s rain turned into snow and the branches everywhere are covered in clinging snow. It was not a very appealing morning to go for a walk; cold and a little bit windy, which means the branches would be moving and might blur in any pictures. But I got myself out the door and down to the park and was immediately grabbed by the branches coated in snow. It was gorgeous.

I walked along the trail along the river, shooting the patterns of the branches. I shot bushes, and pine trees. I thought I might shoot the river, but it didn’t appeal to me. The water is us, and it’s over its banks, flooding into the woods. I made my way to an area where I know there is a grove of pine trees. It’s a favorite place of mine; hushed and a little darker. It was worth the trip.

I don’t know if the photographs will be worthwhile, but, as usual, I am glad I went out. When I got back, I was looking forward to reading a bit more of Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. I read a couple of short chapters and they sent my mind spinning right away. The first chapter was on Writing Practice, and the second, Composting. I realized almost immediately that I have been both practicing and composting my work of late, and I wanted to write about it immediately.

Natalie encourages you to practice your writing, every day, if possible. I see there as being an absolute parallel between writing and making visual art. I had fallen off the wagon of regular work with my camera, but I’ve been picking it up again recently, and beginning to build up a bunch of photographs. I’ve been practicing. I’ve been practicing without expectation of finding any wonderful photographs, for the most part; just getting out and engaging my visual mind and letting myself play a bit. It’s been very enjoyable. I’ve been a little uncomfortable, sometimes, that I’m not working on a body of work; something that I can package and sell right away, but I’ve kept at it.

This morning was a good example of that. I had no real expectations. I just wanted some visual engagement, and to get out of the house. I got those things, and some images that I think have some potential. I can sense that all of the images of the last weeks are adding up to something. There’s a commonality there, mostly because of the time of year and the places I’ve been shooting. None of the individual photographs are compelling to me, at least not at this point, but they’re adding up to something. I’ve begun thinking of putting them together into a book, because I think they’re saying something. This morning added a few more potential images to that book.

So I have been practicing of late, and it’s been good. But then I read the chapter called Composting, and things really clicked for me. She was writing that we can not usually deal with material effectively when it is new to us. It’s not deep enough yet. She mentioned writing about a place, and I immediately thought how I was unable to photograph Arkansas successfully. It just wasn’t in me. I didn’t own any of it yet. I couldn’t do it. I can’t even imagine how long, if ever, it might take for me to own enough of Arkansas to be able to photograph it.

She spoke of making repeated efforts with a subject. Her metaphor was turning a compost heap. Not very dainty, perhaps, but apt. You work the soil, turning it in order that it will compost more effectively, and then you return to it later. Only much later will the soil be fully composted and a rich source for art. Maybe that’s why I keep going back to putting my mom in the assisted living place. I’m getting farther away from it and I have composted it long enough.

But what really struck me, is that the entire artistic process feels like this to me. I’ve only recently learned to trust more that I can let there be periods that feel aimless or fallow to me. I’m in one of those right now. I can just sense that all this photo practice of late is taking me somewhere. I don’t know where yet, but I have a pretty good idea that I’m responding to something genuine for me, so I allow myself to keep photographing branches and trees.

This metaphor for the creative process is wonderful in that it removes all the striving and anxiety from the process. You don’t have to be working intensely toward a known outcome all the time. In fact, you may never be doing that. What you’re doing instead, is practicing, and composting as you do it. Can you see how much less anxiety producing this model is? It’s okay if you don’t know where you’re going. You’re practicing. As a photographer, I’m building up an image bank all the while. I don’t know if the images are of any real value, but I have the sense that I’m pursuing something, even if I am not clear what it is.

One day, I may hit on a way of handling these photographs that makes all the images work. Maybe I haven’t found the right value structure for them. I’m making them too contrasty, or too flat. Maybe they aren’t wonderful individually, but maybe they add up to a wonderful telling of the story of the season. Maybe they make a wonderful book. Maybe that book can mix writing with photographs. Maybe the photographs need to be made into a collage of some sort or worked with together in some way. Maybe they need to be layered, or composited in some way. I just haven’t figured that out yet, but in the meantime, I’m creating material, groping toward an understanding of what is attracting me to these images.

If I am not clearly working on a body of work that I can exhibit and sell, I am composting, turning the soil, allowing oxygen in to the decomposing waste so that the fertile soil can be created. I love the metaphor, and it fits with what I have been figuring out for myself as I mature as an artist.

Not Just Thinking About Writing

I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately. Not much of it appears here, perhaps unfortunately, but I’ve been writing a lot and it’s been becoming a more and more powerful force in my life. I’ve written long stories about my photography trips, which have been adventures for me. There’s been something going on for me with these trips. I’ve been exploring something in myself by going to remote locations alone and seeing what comes up for me when I do.

I’ve written a lot about what’s been happening to my parents; my mother has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for a several years now, and that’s put a lot of stress on me and my father, and has had a huge impact on me. I’ve had to see things happen to both of them that I would never have imagined, and I’ve had to do things that I would never have dreamed of doing; seering, heart-braking things that I have not fully absorbed.

I’ve also written a lot about my artistic journey, which has been intensified over the last year and has been yielding big changes in my self and in my life. All of these things feel big to me and I think I’ve been groping to get a handle on them for myself. I want desperately to capture what is happening to me. They seem like things that many other people are, or will, be dealing with. I feel like I am learning things that I want to report back to the others who will be going where I have gone.

I want to share what I’ve been learning, with the hope that others will not suffer the long and winding path that I’ve taken. I have the feeling, I guess, that I am at a point in my life where I am learning the answers to some things that I wish people had been able to tell me about twenty or thirty years ago.

Anyway, I’ve been doing all this writing, and I’ve largely been keeping it to myself. I’ve been very unsure whether the writing will be of value or of interest to other people. And I’ve wondered whether I should be spending time writing when I am trying to make a career as a photographer. I have no idea what I might do with this writing, other than knowing I have been desperately wanting to do it and, increasingly, wanting to share it.

But revisiting The Artist’s Way again has been making me look at the writing differently. One of the things that The Artist’s Way emphasizes is opening up your world in order to feed your creative life. I tend toward anhedonia, which means a lack of pleasure. I focus on what needs to be done, not what I want to be doing. I am very responsible, and hard-working, and productive, but I can run myself into the ground. That had been happening to me recently, and that’s why I picked up The Artist’s Way. Within a matter of weeks, it has opened me up enormously, and I’m feeling much better.

One of the things that I’ve decided to allow myself to do is to write. I’ve spent an enormous amount of time thinking about whether I should write or not; testing the idea in my mind to see where it might lead, asking myself whether it could contribute to my making a living. I tend to test everything that way. I’m a self-employed, creative person, have been all my life; and that means I think a lot about how I’m going to make a living. But the Artist’s Way has been making me think that I need to allow more room in my life to just try things. If I want to write, then write for crying out loud. Stop thinking about it; just do it.

I’ve always thought of myself as a visual artist. It’s what my parents did in one form or another. It’s what I wound up doing when I went to college, even though it had never occurred to me that I might do it before I got there. I’ve made my living in one creative pursuit or another, though never by painting or photography; usually something visual, often including craftsmanship of some kind.

But I had never even considered writing. And it’s a little strange that I had not. A couple of weeks ago I was helping my father move to a condo from his home of 11 years. He was packing up all of his worldy possessions and those of my mother, who has been in an assisted living facility now for about six months. I had gone over to help him finish packing and make the move. I was putting things in boxes and I came across a box with no label on it. I opened it to find my the manuscript of a book that my mother had written.

It had been typed on a typewriter, which suggests how long ago it had been done. I knew my mother had written at least one novel; maybe two, I wasn’t sure. To my shame, I had never read it. Anyway, here it was in a box, bringing back to me the mother who has been disappearing over the last couple of years. It made an impression on me. I could sense my mother’s presence in the crude impressions of the typewriter keys on the paper.

It reminded me that writing ran in my family just as did the visual arts. And then I thought of my brother. He’s a lawyer, now a law professor, and I know he’s published an enormous number of articles, five or six books, and is always working on the next one. So, the writing was passed on to my brother as well. He writes in a different arena; he would never consider writing any kind of personal memoir, but he’s putting his thoughts down on paper; laying out how he sees the world in a legal and ethical framework. So maybe writing is as natural a part of me as the visual arts.

All of this is a very long way of my saying that I’m going to allow myself to write more, and I’m going to share more of my writing as well. Just allowing myself that thought has really energized me. I’ve written a lot lately, and I’ve been pretty excited about all my creative activities since then. It’s released a lot of energy that I guess I was keeping bottled up by judging and evaluating mywriting rather than just doing it.

I was putting togethr a Blurb book of my photographs this week, to be used for marketing purposes primarily, and I took some time to write captions for the photographs. I had a ball doing it. Just a few sentences of description of my thinking, the genesis of the photographs, some of what I saw in them. I was having so much fun that I decided to insert a couple of text pages and tell a little story from my photo expedition.

It ran maybe a page and a half and it, too, was a pure pleasure to write. I’m not entirely sure whether it fits in the book of photographs, but it was fun to do and it opened the doors to thinking about what else I might write in the book.

Later, I added another couple of pages to the book and wrote the story of how I had come to put my mother in the assisted living facility she’s living in now. It was something that happened just a couple of weeks before my photo trip, and it was very much on my mind when I was there. I think it shows in the photographs I made on that trip and that’s why I thought I might include the story in the book.

After writing it, I see that it doesn’t really belong there with the photographs, but I know it belongs somewhere. It was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. It was very difficult to think and write about. I didn’t like bringing it back to my mind so clearly, but that’s what the story is all about. I think the story and all the other stories that are part of that long and difficult experience belong somewhere.

There are probably millions of people in this country dealing with this horrific disease. Some of them would like to know what they are likely to face as they go through it. It’s a very difficult thing; very difficult, but I’ve realized as I think and write about it, that it’s not been entirely awful. Many good things have happened along with the bad. It has opened the door for a very loving relationship with my mother. I’ve had experiences with her that I doubt I would ever have had if this had not happened to her. I’ve been able to express my love for her in a way that I probably would not have, had she not gotten sick. I hold my mother’s hand when we walk outside. I help her order food when we go to a restaurant. I cut up her food for her when she needs help. I help put on her shoes and socks when we go outside. It’s very much like caring for a young child. It is as heart-warming and generous an experience as it is sometimes heart-breaking.

Those are things that people coming into this may not anticipate. It’s something that I think people might want to know. All of the books on the subject focus on the problems you and your loved ones are going to have; and you’re certainly going to have troubles. You will have to grieve the losses, as will the patient, but wonderful opportunities will arise as well, and that you might not guess.

I remember simply arranging to get my mother out of the assisted living facility for a few hours and taking her to the beach. It was something she probably had not done in years. It was a veritable expedition for her, but it was such a joy for her too. She spends almost all her time lying in her little bed there, sleeping or staring at the ceiling. Her world is circumscribed to the locked hallway on which she lives. Simply having the thought to get her out on a nice sunny day and take her to the beach was a huge event for her. I got sandwiches to eat and brought lounge chairs so she could sit on the sand with my father. I felt absolutely wonderful for it, and so did she. What a day!

Afterwards, I took her back to the assisted living home and tucked her into bed, pulling the covers up over her and kissing her on the forehead. I told her that I loved her and that she should have sweet dreams. She smiled up at me like a child; such a look of thankfulness, I can’t tell you. She fell asleep almost immediately. It’s exhausting for her to be out for more than an hour or two. I left the room quietly, with my heart overflowing with both thankfulness and grief.

Ah well, that’s enough of this for one night. I hope to be sharing more of this sort of thing with you. It may be a little bit random sometimes, because so many different things seem to be going on for me right now, but I hope you enjoy and profit from what you read here.