View Archive Tricks of the Trade Vol.2 #8

(Editors note: Tricks of the Trade is an editorial column written by guests, propville.com members, sponsors and, occasionally, by the publisher. If you have interest in submitting material, or seeing an industry related topic explored, please inquire via the contact page at propville

FORWARD MOTION; an essay by Daniel Britt, for AGI, a Propville sponsor

It’s a shot in the dark after graduation and everybody knows it. There’s graduate school to lighten the blow, to postpone the rent-defying jump from sheltered academia to the savage private sector, but what advice is there for local photographers on the market fresh out of undergrad?

     Good luck, God’s speed, pinch your nose and do the deed.

That is, don’t put off starting even if it means starting without the assistantship or the freelance gig you wanted. San Francisco doesn’t need good photographers like it needs good plumbers. From what I’ve seen, the City’s teaming with clowns like us, twenty-somethings drunk with promise, the over educated and under-achieved: we drink coffee and talk, eat sushi and talk. We rap about the heavy stuff, the election, globalization. We’ve tacked up a million bachelors certificates in a million cramped kitchens and most of us haven’t shot a frame since senior thesis were due.

(You’d think there’d be a program. Some kind of progressive outreach thing, this is California for Christ’s sake. Where’s Latte Assistance? From the Mayor’s office, a kind word, daily Starbucks credit, the occasional cold, scentless, futomaki roll?)

The blank start’s not easy, you need to get fed up. Expendable part-time “Mcjobs” can be a comfortable transition, like you’re biding your time on the way to bigger things – conducting a cultural experiment. I spent months after commencement hanging out with these skinny French girls. For a while we handed people fliers out on the wharf, they got outraged with the outraged people, I watched. When they left for home and their fiancés, it hit me hard. Time was passing; wheels were spinning, for whatever reason I was still a waiter and tips, predictably, remained insubstantial. So with the summer’s activism metastasizing into pulpy regret, I decided it was time to find meaningful work, an income or both. I opened the phone book. Photo-finishing. Photographic supplies. Portraits. How do people become “professionals?” There’s a way of doing everything. There’s a way to hold a fork, wash a shirt, throw a javelin. How does a post-college tourist take on a more formal title? Who do you have to outsmart to make a living taking pictures?

Typically, photographic career advice is pretty terse, either the time-honored “become an assistant, ” or the entrepreneurial “build your own studio.” Right, great, logical, and vague, and so time insensitive my stem cells can feel it. Like five more years as a waiter/janitor/temp won’t push you into full-time data entry for dental coverage.

I love the studio bit too, yeah, I’m on my way. In two more paychecks I can replace the overpriced filters I cracked in Hurricane Andrew. By 2006, I’ll have saved enough for an umbrella, possibly a light. Baby steps, man, highs and lows.

Don’t let my rage be misleading. “Fed up” isn’t giving up. Strive for a level of rage that lends itself to productivity. Unless you know someone, an assistantship can be tricky to land, so do like Dylan says and keep applying, “keep on keepin’ on.” It’s been over a year, since I’ve even received a response back, much less a positive one. I’ve been sending out two or three a week and believe me, it’s not unwillingness to compromise on my part. The last place I applied to – and have yet to hear from – was this outdoor adventure rag distributed only in select regions of Montana. The ad ran something like, Photographic Gofer Wanted for Underling to Assistant. (Somehow I found its straightforwardness sobering.)

On the bright side, I learned something, two things, two harsh and obvious truths. First, that I’m friendless in a cutthroat industry and second, worse, that my portfolio sucks, that I was born with tin eyeballs. Highs and lows, man.

Right, progress is relative. Baby steps. So I’m digging in the phone book and it’s sick. I started under Photography-Retail, calling around. Some places had been downsizing “since the dot-com bust.” Useless. Most asked about my experience and it wasn’t enough. More uselessness. After a while the phone book started to devolve in my hands.

Made it to the ‘G’s’. Downtown, Adolph Gasser Inc. was looking for a salesman. The interview was easy for a famous spot and they put me on two months ago, selling cameras. It’s hard to admit, but before I got there I’d been using my old Minolta like a slow child, Christ, for years bastardizing countless rolls of Kodachrome. My best shots for weekly newspapers back home barely scratched the surface of what your run-of-the-mill Gasser patron is into. They’re enlarging shots from the ends of the earth, yawning bear cubs on the Aleutian Islands. Recently, one customer had rolls of an elderly Chinese woman scratching her face with a wet chop stick, the fragile line that joined the corner of her mouth to the corner of her eye.

These people have been at it for years: the customers, my fellow, jacketed salesmen, the lab technicians. The annoying histogram that pops up on digital camera LCDs, apropos of nothing – these people can read that. It’s forward motion, a grad-school of sorts, though it may not look that way on a resume. Film stock facts, lighting tips, camera facts, camera history, camera quirks – I pick up these up everyday. A lot of it I couldn’t pick up anywhere else.

The sales end of the gig has been good practice too. Most artsy-types don’t rap about that much, who cares why, something to do, vaguely, with capitalism. The point is salesmanship lies at the heart of any profession that requires you to create your own market. You might as well learn it and if get to play with the latest toys at the same time, bonus.

So that’s my advice. Baby steps. If you can’t get an assistantship, work at a store. If you can’t get online, to sites like this one, tear through the sickening phone book. Whatever you do, keep an eye out for blessings in disguise and quit wasting time. Besides, the election’s over and no one knows what globalization means anyway.”

Daniels experience was not unique, sorry to say. You need support, advice, and tools. While the phone book is good for some things, business-to-business connections are made more efficiently thought direct channels. Filmmakers, photographers, theatre, and visual merchandisers are all served at Propville

Propville.com offers direct access to trade organizations, non-profit resources, and coaches through the “Business Builders” base, in the Propville.com on-line directory. Check out theDog & Pony Shows© for live, educational presentations on production issues.
Priced for students, geared for professionals.

As you make you way in this innovative, inspiring and influential business, remember that what you give is equal or less than what you will be given. The momentum that you create is what drives the wheel of success and that is measured, lovingly, with your own yardstick.

Try these valuable resources for a career jump-start!!

BAWIFT Helping women media makers connect, create and be inspired. We offer creative and professional support to our members through monthly meetings, special events and a very active on-line community; “chicks-chat”.

APAsf “Our goal is to establish, endorse, and promote professional practices, standards, and ethics in the Photographic and Advertising community. We seek to mentor, motivate, educate, and inspire in the pursuit of excellence. Our aim is to champion and speak as one common voice for Advertising Photographers and image-makers to the Advertising industry in the United States and the World.”

Film Arts Foundation Film Arts Foundation is one of the nation's top resource centers for independent filmmakers. Film Arts has a film festival, educational components, grant assistance and publishes Release Print magazine.

FIDM The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. Classes, library, resources for display, advertising, design and styling.

APAnet: A yahoo group open to members and non-members of APA. Discussion focused on the business of photography. Open to affiliates as well. Moderator administered.

Theatre Bay Area Founded by theatre workers in 1976, TBA's mission is to unite, strengthen, and promote theatre in the region. It does this by providing communication networks and opportunities and creating resources for theatre companies, theatre workers, and theatre lovers. TBA serves as a liaison between the theatre community and government, business and others who benefit from a healthy and thriving theatre community.