How to be Incredibly Average and Never Breakout as a Photographer
I see so many ‘struggling’’ to do this, so I created a roadmap of sorts.
I work with photographers in groups and one-to-one. I will only meet with those who are really interested in doing the work, so we have a discussion on what is expected from both sides before the engagement. Not everyone who applies makes the cut… I have pretty strict requirements and I don’t want your money if you cannot meet them.
This weekend I had a conversation with a young photographer who wants to be successful in the worst way. Actually… I mean that exactly as stated… the WORST way. Her answers and comments were all about how she knew no matter how hard she worked, it couldn’t be done, how everyone on Instagram (440+)thinks she isn’t ready, and how much she owes for her car and her apartment, and how this and that and something else will simply not let her go.
OK. I get that. I really do.
So?
“What are you going to do to change those situations,” I asked.
She didn’t expect that.
I waited a beat and said, “you have given me a litany of excuses and a few good reasons why you are being held back. I understand, I do. But what are you going to do in the next 5 minutes to attempt to overcome any one of them?
There are many things you could do, but I want you to ask yourself what you are going to do in the next five minutes, in the next hour, and over the course of this week to turn your situation around.”
She had noted real challenges and they will not be fixed in an hour, or a day, or a week, or even a year… but everything you do should be toward alleviating one or more of these challenges.
It’s an ongoing war against where we want to be and where we are.
If you are constantly on the edge with your monthly bills, find ways to fix that and move on.
We could go through a whole list of shit we buy that we really cannot afford; cars, cameras, motorcycles, delivered meals, clothes, anything bought on a credit card, or monthly payments… and on and on.
We didn’t get here fast, we won’t get out of here fast.
Bad decisions were made, bad advice was taken, and bad directions followed. So what? Today is the day when all of that can be left to ‘yesterday’s screw-ups’. And we can look forward to ‘tomorrow’s redemption’.
“…Regrets I’ve had a few
But then again too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption…”
— Frankie… still love ya, dude.
Here’s an idea so crazy it may actually work. We tell ourselves this:
Today we move forward and make things happen “Our Way”… we live an exceptional life. We believe in our work and our own ability to make things happen. We force the changes needed in our selves to make things happen.
Make. Things. Happen.
Is it really that damned easy?
Fuck no it isn’t, are you crazy? Did you think this was one of those bullshit articles that will now blather on about how you should meditate more, tell yourself you are wonderful 10 times a day, or buy this cool course on good money habits — you can put it on your credit card at 28% interest?
It’s damned hard, but it is easier than slipping farther and farther into the abyss where climbing out can be impossible.
But not everyone wants to make stuff happen. Not for others, and not for themselves. I get that too.
And, unfortunately, not everyone is savable… and there IS a line of total disaster from which coming back is more luck than skill… and if they had any luck, they wouldn’t have been that far down, right?
“Do not try to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued, and be very careful about rescuing someone who does.”
— Jordan Peterson
So I want to be careful and select — and helpful. So if you do not want to ever break out, start a new life of abundance, and live a terrific creative life, here are ten ways to make sure you stay in the doldrums of mediocrity — safe, warm, and never challenged to do more of anything.
HOW TO BE SUBSTANTIALLY UNREMARKABLE AS A PHOTOGRAPHER:
1. Visit Photography Forums and listen to everyone there, taking their word as gospel, their critique as legitimate. Do no research on those telling you what to do. When they say “you suck” take that as the god's honest truth.
2. When someone who has a great photographic reputation (deserved or otherwise) states something, simply accept it… and adopt that strategy as your own. Never question or filter. Never alter that advice for your personal situation.
3. Go to Photography School and incur a huge debt that will hang like a 20-pound bag of dead SD cards around your shoulders. Know that somehow, someday, you will have to deal with this plastic albatross that is keeping you from doing something, anything toward fixing your life. Yep… you can get a job at a local QuickiePrinter as their ‘layout’ guy… you gots a degree!
4. Never travel outside your small sphere of influence. Both physically and metaphorically.
5. Only shoot one thing… Glamour (nothing has a higher return on investment than girls doing hand-bras, bruh), or Architecture or Still Life. Concentrate with laserlike control and be single-minded in your approach to photography. I mean, that’s what the ‘experts’ told you… or at least that is what you thought you heard.
6. Never quit your day job and simply be satisfied with shooting occasionally on the weekends (if, of course, the models actually show up… how many of you smiled at that one? You know, you know.). Day jobs are so much more reliable. Except, of course when they aren’t and you find a cute little pink slip taped onto your cool Slimline stapler after lunch one afternoon.
7. Don’t keep a journal — either online or in a book. None of the really successful people do. Heh.
8. Buy lots of stuff. Go deep into debt on cameras, lenses, houses, cars, big screen TVs… oh hell, there are so many things for which you can be paying lots of money while watching the value of it steadily decrease. Many of our friends and neighbors have turned this stupid financial game into a lifestyle, so why not you?
9. Spin wheels. Find excuses. Dig deep for failure. Create strawman arguments against success. It’s a litany, but all are guaranteed to help keep you mediocre.
10. By all means necessary, do nothing to make your work, your vision, your thoughts, and your images stand out. Take great care to keep all of them to yourself. Probably not any good anyway (see number one above.)
These are anti-success rules for a new genre of books I am writing: Self Unhelp Books. There are many books that want to help you to succeed even though when I look around I see very few actually using their insight. So my approach is ‘give them what they want’… and Unhelpful is the path to riches that I so crave.
Got my eye on a new 140" Big Screen, baby.
If you think I may have my tongue firmly planted in cheek, you may be right.
We can read them and chuckle, but then we remember the people we have met and currently know who are actively working on one or more of the listed strategies above. And far too many creative and talented people have adopted some or most of the above as a strategy.
And that’s not a strategy for success.
That’s a strategy for never failing.
And if you never fail, you never move.
Sadly.
I am a photographer, designer, and photo editor. You can find me at my self-named website or at Project 52 Pro System (enrollment begins January 6, 2023) where I teach commercial photography online. This is our tenth year of teaching, and it is the most unique online class you will find anywhere.
Check out my newsletter and community at Substack. We are new, but growing.
You can find my books on Amazon, and I have taught two classes at CREATIVELIVE.
