Thirty or so photographers and other visual artists gathered in the back room of a local watering hole Wednesday evening. Drinks in hand, they munched on delicious appetizers and chatted about the life that each has carved out.
Most are professional photographers or work professionally in the photographic industry in some capacity. There are a few students and hobbyists who are seeking to learn more about professional life as a photographer. There are also a handful of illustrators and graphic artists.
?We?re trying to recreate the darkroom tonight,? notes Mike Olliver, co-chair of the DC Chapter of the American Photographic Artists. Historically, the darkroom has been a social place where many photographers would spend long hours together in a tiny room fine-tuning images.
Those post-production days, when tips, techniques, and wisdom were traded while developing photos, are long gone. Today, most photographers spend their post-production hours in front of a computer in relative isolation.
This lost connection via the darkroom is the reason the American Photographic Artists (APA) held ?Resolve to Connect? events in each of its ten chapter cities. At events across the country artists came together to exchange ideas, network, swap information, and strengthen the network of photographic artists in the region.
One of the first photographers I chatted with told me that he was an amateur photographer who works as a freelance IT guy during the day. He came to the event in an effort to learn more about the life of a photographer, and to hear stories from ?the front line.?? He likes to produce photography with his iPhone and frequently experiments with the outcome of those photos. He told me of a shot he took in passing of a wedding photographer taking photos of a bride and groom. He uploaded his photograph to the internet and within days, it had been lifted and placed on another website without any compensation or attribution. He has made repeated attempts to contact the website owner, but has never received a response. His photo is still on the site.
A recent American University graduate, who is forging a living as a freelance multimedia journalist, shared with me her experiences with different types of clients. Her stories, filled with moments of laughter as well as reflection and learning, ranged from the challenges of capturing corporate portrait shots to ensuring that a plate of food looks fresh and mouth-watering in a photo. She also lamented the lack of real-world training in fine arts programs at the university level, noting that students just aren?t prepared for the business side of the art business, especially when they are trying to make a living in today?s digital world. She said that while she has learned a lot ?on the job,? she still has many questions, and unfortunately, has seen some of her peers get taken advantage of because they don?t know the basic business of photography.
I also talked with a post-production specialist, who is someone that doesn?t necessarily take the shots, but rather alters, tweaks, and livens up the images for the photographer. This person can spend hours significantly altering an image for a photographer, removing posts, changing sky texture and color, or adding in people, for example. I was intrigued and delighted to learn more about this type of photographic professional. I learned that as more and more professional photographers are turning to post-production specialists for fine-tuning (or changing significantly) an image, questions are being raised as to contract terms between photographer and post-production specialist, and who exactly owns the copyright to the image. This is apparently a new and somewhat gray area that photographic professionals are working through, talking about, and coming to terms with.
Conversation throughout the evening was often light and touched on a range of topics, including living situations, kids, good places to eat, etc. But what resonated with me throughout it all is that though competition for a freelance professional photographer is fierce, and the living is not always easy, not one of the people I talked to would want to do anything different.
As one person said to me, ?I love my job. But, if I had kids, I wouldn?t be doing this.??
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