sam_rainer

<p>Thank you everyone for your contributions to this thread its great to hear from others what part photography has played in their life and the sometimes varied roads it has taken them down as well as the words of encouragement.<br> Ellis, I thank you for your advice I am not sure exactly how you worked out that a career in the arts isn't for me from what I posted. I guess career might be the wrong word as I want to be an Artist rather than a commercial photographer. For example I think your work is excellent but it is also antithesis of the kind of work I want to do myself but I find that when you have the training and the skills in photography that is the kind of work people expect you to do because it is where the well paid work is. I am making a living at the moment doing my Art (which is largely photography based but also includes film, performance, painting and text) I have funding for a book and film project from the Arts Council here in the UK and I sell work though a gallery in London as well as being a visiting lecturer at two art schools but undoubtedly I could make better money as a professional photographer if I were prepared to really put in the work (and I know its hard work) but I don't, it is not where my heart is. I am lucky my partner is sensible and makes good money as an engineer or else I might not have the luxury to go down this path. I guess my point is that as I said before photography is a very broad church and that there is room for everyone from the iphone photographer posting on instagram to professional working for publication to the wet plate collodion artists! Perhaps if you always wanted to be the pro you are then there was no conflict between what you wanted and what other people thought was best for you because most people esteem a high status well paid job. Well I have been there working on feature films and it wasn't right for me but people really don't understand when you walk away from that to do something small and old fashioned and poorly paid. I don't imagine I will ever be a famous artist making mega bucks but I would rather be doing what I am than doing work that is meaningless to me personally.</p>

<p>Thank you Gary, it really is good to hear from people further down the road than me that being true to yourself is the way to go. Its heartening to hear when many of the people around me think I am crazy for not following the money.</p>

<p>Thank you for your response, yes I entirely agree with your view that the struggle is what drives us and about the truly personal nature of good photography. For me I love film I love its limitations and its surprises that is what inspires me but that is just me, I admire digital photography and still use it at times, however this is not meant to be a film vs digital thing there is room for both I hope and I will continue to shoot film for as long as it is available.</p>

<p>Hello all,<br> I am new to the forum, although not new to photography which has been in and out of my life for 20 years now. I studied Fine Art Photography at Art School for 4 years in the UK and that is what my degree is in. This was in the late 90's it was all film photography there 35mm, Medium and large format, wet printing and so on. Digital was only just coming in and not available in my School except for a little prehistoric photoshop class we did in the final year.<br> After graduating I moved pretty quickly into Cinematography, shooting short films and documentries on 16mm as well as a bit of assisting on features. I did enjoy shooting and lighting on the smaller films and it was creative work but a couple of years in and film was being edged out it was too expensive and people just were not prepared to pay for it. I did do my best to get into shooting on digital but these were generally low budget shorts and this was in the days before video on DSLRs. I apart from a couple of more experimental shoots I hated it. I was also begining to dislike working as an assistant and I didn't like the outlook for my career in the film industry. I did still shoot after that but only on 16mm film projects mainly for artists rather than filmmakers and very occasionally I still do, but it wasn't a lot of work.<br> In the mean time I worked as an artists assistant and I went back to do my masters in Fine Art in London. The course was multidisciplinary. It had no film photography facilities so I made the switch to digital and my work mainly comprised of digital photography, printmaking and video art. I did learn a lot about contempory fine art but while I made work I wasn't really feeling my own "art" like I had back during my undergraduate course. I felt like maybe I had been mistaken in thinking I was an artist.<br> After my course ended I did very little for a while but toyed with a lot of ideas going back into the film industry in one capacity or another, teaching, art therapist but nothing stuck. I was at this stage put under a lot of pressure from my family to use my photography to make money. I did seriously consider it and even did a few portrait jobs which still make me cringe with embarrassment even though my clients were happy. I looked into wedding photography priced kit, worked out what additional skills and experiance I would need, how I could run such a business what it would fully entail. I was at this time under huge pressure from family to go down this route they all thought it would be easy money for me. I on the other hand had huge reservations primarly that I didn't actually want to be a wedding photographer, I don't like weddings, I don't have the people or business skills never mind the learning curve needed to create such a specialised professional product.<br> I was at a crossroads and really thought long and hard about what to do next. I looked at a lot of photography and my own portfolio over the years and tried to work out what I had really loved the most, what I was most authentic when I was doing (corny I know). Ultimately this resulted in my selling my fancy dslr and buying myself a darkroom, and old fashioned wet darkroom and I now almost exclusively shoot film, mainly B&W on my old 35mm and medium format cameras and process and print my own work. I am not knocking digital but it just didn't engage me the way film does, its a very personal thing no doubt its due to my early experiance and training but for me the whole process of film photography from loading the camera to printing is what forms the basis of my practice. Its what makes me feel connected to my creativity and out of it grows ideas, a thirst for research and growth which has me making the first meaningful work I have done for over ten years. Photography is very important to me and film is my medium but I don't think I ever wanted to be a "professional" photographer. I wanted to be an artist who used photography and of course there is a lot of mutual ground between these two worlds but for me I feel that going down a professional, commercial route would have, and did stand in the way of me developing the personal work that was what I really craved, the pristine image is not my personal ideal.<br> So I feel like I have come back to something in a profound way, I do think it can be difficult to find your place in photography these days, there were days when I would look at the work of 14 year olds with a canon 5d and weep but photography is also a broad church and if you are true to yourself and your process you can find a place for yourself.</p> <p>I would love to hear about other photographers struggles and journey's with photography so if you got this far, thank you for reading and please post!</p>