In this TGIF edition today (where I might suggest your life would be better with a Guinness) I wanted to point out a bit of a paradigm-shift in my thinking that occurred this morning as I thought about photography as art vs photography as a fine art sale. It comes from unconventional marketing guru Seth Godin (a blog worth reading no matter what you do for a living). I’ll link it – it’s an interview with Seth on the Digital Wedding Forum Wedding Photographer’s Blog. Here’s the eye-opening Q&A:
Digital Wedding Forum: How do we reconcile art and commerce? For the artist who also needs to be a businessperson, how do we keep one from overwhelming the other?
Seth Godin: I think the souvenirs of your art… the stuff you sell to make money… don’t have to be artistic. Souvenirs are things that people like to buy, and they are often a shadow of your work, not the work itself. Christo did a great job of this division. The art was wrapping a building. The souvenir is the print or the poster.
As someone who tries to reconcile both – this was permission to quit worrying about it. And something to think about.
Hey – a few links/inspiration for Friday. In commercial photography, we spend a lot of time looking at Photo District News. Their annual PDN 30 just came out for 2010. It’s their take on 30 up-and-coming photographers to watch out for. They put together a nice gallery of images from the group every year – and this year’s – like all others – is worth a look.
And I’ve beaten this drum before but Darwin Wiggett has yet another fine piece of work with nice examples (not including the ) over on Singh-Ray’s site on controlling contrast. With filters. On the front of your lens. He’s a good teacher.
As always – have a great weekend.
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