Energy and Appetite

Tom Burke said yesterday: "Here's another thought to add: is it possible that when you stop feeling that you're learning new skills and gaining new knowledge but are instead just garnering experience, the passion for (whatever it is) just drops? Not just photography, but lots of endeavours? The 'Do I really want to do this for the rest of my life?' moment?"

A few thoughts about that. First, golf, exhibits 1, 2, and 3 (I'm going somewhere with this, so bear with me):

1. An old commercial: the professional golfer Tom Kite, then at the top of the game, and another golfer are seen getting massages. The other guy asks Kite if he's going to play in an upcoming tournament in Hawaii. They discuss it, sounding glum. Kite, in a resigned tone of voice, concedes that he's being paid an appearance fee to go and he's getting the trip for free, so he sighs and says something like, "I suppose I have to." The joke, of course, was that most weekend warriors would kill to get a free trip to Hawaii to play golf. To me, however, the advertisers' message backfired and an alternate moral was more clear: if you have to do something too much, even a thing that to most people is a special pleasure can become a chore.

2. Once I was out on a golf course with my brothers, playing 18 holes on a regulation course (as opposed to the adjacent par-three course which was more my speed). As the hands on my watch wore past three hours, I suddenly realized I'd had quite enough of golf: I was thoroughly tired of laboring against my own swing and would have quit for the day right then and there if it were easy and polite to do. Had to grind through two or three more holes after that, though.

3. After Vijay Singh won his Masters, tales were told of his epic appetite for practice. Legend had it that after his win, he went to the range and striped the tee until dark. Wikipedia says, "he is known for his meticulous preparation, often arriving hours before, and staying long after, his tournament rounds to work on his game on the driving range and putting greens."

All these things had a decisive effect on me: I never wanted to be a professional golfer. No, let me re-word that: I wanted to never be a professional golfer! Not that I ever could have been—I have slightly more talent for golf than an armadillo has for hacky-sack. But I never had the slightest desire, even in daydreams. No, thank you: I decided I was perfectly happy to blither my way around a par-three course a handful of times a year. That matched my appetite for the game. (I don't even do that any more, although I miss the camaraderie with my bros.) Sink to your level and embrace it!

It's the same way with pool, if the truth be told. I love pool, and I think it's a fascinating game and I'm better at it than most armadillos. But do I have the discipline and patience to run through my "daily" practice routine every single morning? No, sir, I do not. And I know lots of drills, but an hour spent drilling is fifteen minutes too long for me. Would I have wanted to be a pro pool player? Well, the level of skill of Jayson Shaw or Alexandros Kazakis would be great fun to possess, and it's thrilling to watch. (For me anyway.) But even if I were young I would never have the patience to put in the time it takes to get to that level. And I know it.

Be an amateur
I think I first applied this realization to photography following an after-dinner walk with my son, who was then about six, to get ice cream, back when we lived in the town where Groundhog Day was filmed, Woodstock, Illinois. I had along a Contax Aria camera and a Zeiss Contax 35mm ƒ/2.8 lens (still have the lens) and two rolls of Kodak Tri-X. The evening was beautiful and the light was particularly nice. When I got home I developed the film at the kitchen sink and the next day I proofed the two rolls and in my makeshift basement darkroom and made eight or ten nice prints on 8x10 paper using my amateur-level enlarger*. The handful of prints were a highly competent documentary of that particular walk, but beyond that, nothing particularly special.

I decided at the time that that was about the perfect level of involvement in photographing for me.

I like to photograph—it's an essential part of our medium's culture, and the culture of photography is one of my three or four main interests. But do I have the will and the desire to do it every day, all day? I've always been pretty clear that I don't. Note that there are critics who aren't photographers at all—A.D. Coleman comes to mind—so it's not essential to be a photographer to be immersed in its culture or to write about it.

After that, though, when parents would contact me asking if I thought photography school was a sensible investment for their children, it put me in a quandary. I loved photography school: I feel toward the Corcoran School of Art all the sentimental attachment alums are supposed to feel for their beloved alma mater. It was a great privilege to attend for three years and I enjoyed it intensely. Virtually all my experiences there and all of my many memories are good ones. But no, when viewed without rose-tinted glasses, actually art school is probably a particularly poor allotment of resources if what you're trying to do is equip your progeny to deal with the task of making their way in the world. I felt disloyal to the Corcoran in advising against all it had offered me, and I especially didn't want to pour cold water on any kid's dreams, so I avoided the question when it was possible; but on the other hand I didn't want to lie to parents. A genuine dilemma.

My recommendation to anyone who asks is that one simply should have a thick, tough skin in evaluating and appraising what to do for a living. Photography is more likely to be rewarding—and more pleasurable—if one's practice of it is somewhere in the range between dabbling and a dedicated long-term avocation. We all have to come to terms with where our photography fits in our lives.

Chase the dream
And if someone really wants to do it "all in," full-time, front line, do or die, the first questions to ask, and ask comprehensively, would be about a.) their energy level, and b.) their appetite for work. Those are the two essentials that must be present if you ask me. If both those things are genuinely high, they have a chance. In which case, I tip my hat to them.

Mike

*Which did however have a top-flight lens. I still have not one but two, one for each fist when they bury me I guess!

Book of interest* this week:

A Better Life for their Children by Andrew Feiler, University of Georgia Press, published last month. Read the description at the link—fascinating. It's the story of one of the earliest philanthropic collaborations between Jews and African Americans, one that drove dramatic improvement in black education. The story's told visually. *"Book of Interest" means I haven't seen it, but would like to.

The following image is also a link: 

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Richard Skoonberg: "Mike, thank you for promoting Andrew Feiler's wonderful book, A Better Life for Their Children. The story and images describing the legacy of the Rosenwald Schools are both fascinating and deeply moving. Rosenwald was the CEO of Sears in the early twentieth century. He and Dr. Booker T. Washington created a plan to build schools in the rural South so black school children could attend school in the Jim Crow era. To build the schools, the black community put up a third of the money, the local school board put up a third of the money, and Rosenwald put in the final third. These were often one and two-room schoolhouses with one or two teachers with a K-12 curriculum. These schools helped to create a generation that provided the leaders for the Civil Rights movement. Andrew Feiler's book is the first photographic survey of these schools.

"As a side note, Andrew is a member of our local photo-crit group, so we were able to watch this book project from its inception. Currently, many of the images from the book are one display at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta."

Mike replies: Thanks for sending me the PDF sample pages from the book, Richard (downloadable here). I enjoyed that.

Geoff Wittig: "That's a perfect summary of what's necessary to find a calling in life. Energy and boundless appetite for work are prerequisites, but love of the process is also key. I love photography, everything from playing with the gear to image capture to making an excellent print. But I couldn't summon the constant energy and enthusiasm to make it a career.

"Medicine, on the other hand, continues to captivate me after almost 40 years. I was that annoyingly eager student you wanted to slap for being so perky. I loved working 100 hour weeks as a resident for the intellectual challenge and the satisfaction of mastering something difficult. I still find myself reading papers outside my specialty because they're so darned interesting. The challenge of being thoroughly competent and continually improving is just as compelling now as it was when I was a newly minted 26-year-old MD. I still love the work, every day. What I did not expect as a swaggering young doc was the emotional toll of seeing patients I've come to know so well aging, becoming frail, and dying. Which is where photography has been a Godsend for me. A chilly morning spent scouting, setting up, and capturing a perfect sunrise panorama grounds me and keeps me sane. So I can keep loving my calling."

A different Mike: "'And if someone really wants to do it "all in," full-time, front line, do or die, the first questions to ask, and ask comprehensively, would be about a.) their energy level, and b.) their appetite for work. Those are the two essentials that must be present if you ask me. If both those things are genuinely high, they have a chance.' You are correct sir. I've been fortunate to have made my living solely by making useful photographs for other people since 1979. The dedication and amount of energy it takes to be even moderately successful for someone without either a trust fund or a hook of some sort is beyond the ability of most people to comprehend. Over the past seven days I worked seventy-six hours covering twelve very important events for my main client. Each event was about two hours long. Then I had another two hours in which I would have to download, organize, rename, edit down from 3–5,000 images (people make funny faces when they speak, and people also blink, and when photographing an event with a few hundred people, having more of a selection is always easier than submitting photos of funny looking people with their eyes closed) a cull of about 120–180, adjust the raw files in ACR, convert to JPEG, and then upload to a web gallery. That gallery would then be linked to a story on their web site. And then do it again that evening, which would get me home at 9:30–10 p.m. after arriving at 8:30 a.m. that morning. The next day, do it again.

"Very few people can grasp the amount of physical work entailed in schlepping the gear, looking for angles, crouching down, hustling from one end of the field to another to get in position, and the level of concentration required to do this both during the event itself and afterward in the post-processing. Amidst all of this, three of the days were well over 90 degrees and very humid. To paraphrase Yogi Berra—photography is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical. You really have to be willing to put in the work that it takes to become proficient and develop a voice, to continuously stay up with the technical challenges and changes, and to always push yourself to do the very best work that you can on each and every assignment. If you don’t, then you’ll eventually find yourself doing something else down the line."

Kenneth Tanaka: "I do not completely subscribe to the vocational prep. I am one of those (old) people who still believes that the primary objective of getting an education is to learn how to learn. Still, one would be foolish to ignore practical economics. Consider that the annual tuition and fees at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) this year top $50,000. (And good luck getting accepted at all!) Now consider how many art jobs are likely to pay anywhere near that amount for an entry position (or even after three years). Now consider that an entry-level programmer at, say, Google will likely easily earn $120,000 or more. Yes, attending a school such as SAIC may enable you to make connections that will propel you after graduation. But not that much. Your best shot is probably to land a faculty job with benefits that offers you summers to pursue being that 'artist' you wanted to be. And some top art school grads do exactly that.

"But I gotta say that Mike's suggestion 'Be an amateur' is perfect advice especially where photography is concerned. Attending art school to learn a trade such as print-making or textile design, might pay-off (in 15–20 years). But it's a lotto-class long shot for photography. 'Photography is more likely to be rewarding—and more pleasurable—if one's practice of it is somewhere in the range between dabbling and a dedicated long-term avocation. We all have to come to terms with where our photography fits in our lives.' Truer words were never writ."

Comments

[SteveW]

I think that the elites in sports and other vocations such as photography and the arts or what not are wired differently. They are more like Vijay Singh. Kobe Bryant had no problem being in the gym 6-8 hours per day. Michael Phelps swam nearly the same amount of hours. I'd rather light myself on fire, and most people I'd argue are not wired this way. I've read stories of the talent of minor league baseball players who have the talent to play in the big leagues, but not the mental wiring of putting in the insane amount of hours of work to make it happen.

Just my two cents. There is some level of obsessive behavior required to put so much into one thing, and to stick with that over the course of many years, and sometimes even a lifetime.

[Kenneth Wajda]

Your post reminds me of the story I may have mentioned here before, of Andy Summers, the guitar player for the band The Police, taking up photography while on tour and making photographs throughout the day before the nightly concert. When asked why does he make photographs when he’s already so creative as a musician, he said being a rockstar is kind of like being an automaton, you play the same 16 songs every night and he said he needed to do something else to express his creativity. https://andysummers.com/photography/

An automaton? No you’re a rockstar, the greatest job in the world! I feel bad for the members of REO Speedwagon who really can do no other work except for playing Can’t Fight This Feeling night after night.

The ones I really feel the most for are the musicians who had only one hit (or any artist who had one hit) and they just wanna continue to make more work and nobody wants anything from them except for that one. It must feel like a curse, I bet many of the one hit wonders in music would give up their hit if they could just have a career and make multiple records.

[Albert Smith]

From that never been surpassed documentary on golf, Caddyshack: Chevy Chase as Ty Webb talking with Ted Knight as Judge Smails...

Judge Smails: Ty, what did you shoot today?

Ty Webb: Oh, Judge, I don't keep score.

Judge Smails: Then how do you measure yourself with other golfers?

Ty Webb: By height.

[Mark Jennings]

Art school, turning pro, etc, properly aren’t rational decisions. They’re for people who find unbearable the thought of not pursuing them.

[John Robison]

Who was it (you probably know, but I cannot recall) that said about his journey into photography;
‘At first I did it to please myself.
Then I did it to please others.
Finally, I did it for money.’

[Kenneth Wajda]

Another good quote: the indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch always called himself an "amateur" filmmaker because he said he wanted to always do it for the love of the story he wanted to tell, not for the way the industry wanted him to make films. Being an amateur allowed him to pursue it with love for the craft first.

[Rob L]

Wow. The 'Do I really want to do this for the rest of my life?' moment? was a very real thing for me. I love photography, so I thought that photojournalism was something I wanted - and loved the start of it. Was shooting for the local alternative weeklies in high school, then went to Mizzou, was working on the Maneater there, and while at home shooting the Memphis in May BBQ Festival, standing with a bunch other far older photogs doing the same thing I was doing(namely, trying to take a picture of Tipper Gore leaning over a smoker without just taking a pictures of the Vice President's Wife's butt), I realized that this was their job. I was just a dilettante.

Sobering. But helpful.

I still love photography, but I don't take money for it. It's my escape. It's mine. You don't like what I shoot? who cares! I still want to get better, I still want to improve, but yes, sometimes I take a break. I'm almost at peace with that, 25 years on.

[Malcolm Leader]

While I've sold a few prints (at near cost) making a living in the photographic realm is like being a major sports superstar. I make a good living as an engineer (I am a superstar in my very narrow niche market). Photography (since 1969) has been a passion, but it could never ever become a career. I'm not good enough. I play a good game of pool too, but I'm nowhere good enough.

[Brian]

Mike, its not quite the same topic but the following book had a big effect on me.

Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Art making.
David Bayles & Ted Orland.
eISBN : 978-0-961-45472-2

I read it when ever "whats the point? i'll never be Mozart" gets too loud in my head.

Thank you for all you do.

Brian

[Kye Wood]

I have a wealthy friend who often offers me advice on how to grow my money.

He spends a lot of his life working on increasing his wealth. But it doesn't bring him joy. It seems to only reinforce his sense of scarcity.

I've bluntly expressed to him that I'm just not willing to sacrifice the other parts of my life for wealth on his scale.

And I've never gone without, as a result. I guess I'm a life amateur

[Allan Ostling]

I remember your landmark test of enlarging lenses in Darkroom Techniques. I don't recall that the Apo-Rodenstock-N 50mm f/2.8 was on that list. Did this lens came out after that early 1980s test?

[I think you might be thinking of Ctein? He's the one who did the big enlarger lens wrapup. I didn't start writing for magazines until 1987. --Mike]

[Gary Nylander]

When I first got interested in photography I ended up chasing the dream even if I was not sure what that dream was as a teenager on Vancouver Island in the 1970s. I thought wouldn't it be cool to be a professional photographer. I wasn't even sure what kind of photographer that I wanted to be I just wanted to be a working photographer. A crossroads of circumstances of sorts happened which lead to me working as a newspaper photographer for over 4 decades in Canada. After I graduated from high school I needed work, my dad worked at an autobody shop a few doors down from a newly opened weekly newspaper (The Goldstream Gazette) the paper was growing in prosperity (this was in 1976) My Dad suggested that I go and see the owners of the paper and I did that.

This is how I started my newspaper photography career. From the Gazette I went on to work at a small daily newspaper near Toronto, Ontario. I came back to British Columbia, in the early 1980s and had a long working stint of 34 years with the Kelowna Daily Courier in British Columbia it was a smaller Canadian newspaper but provided a good living. I took early retirement when the Courier decided they no longer needed a staff photographer like many newspapers around the world which were no longer the prosperous mighty beasts that they were in their younger days.

Looking back on my working career for the most part I always loved what I did. I would say that I had a fairly good appetite and energy level for my day-to-day work I even won a few awards along the way. One thing I did do pretty well from the get-go was to create my own specific body of photographic work on my days off and holidays. I got absorbed by shooting mostly landscape photos with my large format cameras. Whenever I came back to work I was ready for whatever action came my way as I had fulfilled my ultimate creative desires as an "amateur" photographer on my time off.

[Gavin Paterson]

50 years ago I fancied a career as an artist, specifically a watercolour painter, and was studying on weekends with the Australian Watercolour Institute. As time went on, I realised that my mentors and teachers, (all vastly more talented than I was) were all working second and third jobs to keep their financial noses above water and their long-suffering partners were also working to supplement the family income. I calculated that I would have to sell a minimum of a painting a week, at a rate of $1,000 each, to equal my then-current salary. This was unrealistic, to say the least!
I decided then to pursue a commercial career, which has taken me all over the world, and resulted in a happy, well-fed family, and the luxury to paint as I want, when I want. I’m convinced I made the right decision, because without, as you say, the energy and appetite, artistic penury would not have been a happy place.

[Speed]

“Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” — Mark Twain

There is a middle ground. Within work there are activities we enjoy and some we don't. It is the balance between these that makes a job joy or drudgery.

I loved travelling. I hated doing expense reports. On balance it was a great job.

[Crabby Umbo]

Golf story number 3. falls under the category, for me, of "there's something else going on". Some people admire those in our society that show an incredible amount of drive and focus in what they do, I do not! I think it's ADHD, or some other borderline insanity, if it's even borderline, might just be real undiagnosed insanity!

I admire those that can be competent in their work, and there for their family and friends, and well read, and well experienced in the modern world; that's the true genius!

You're not a genius if you devote vast quantities of time and effort to a certain discipline, to the exclusion of being there for your family, even having friends, or experiencing other things; you're "something else".

[David Brown]

Could not agree with this more - about both golf and photography! I took up golf for the "social" and "networking" possibilities, and quickly discovered that 1) I was not and never was going to be very good at it, and 2) it was not worth it even if I had gotten good. Plus, it was a big waste of money! As a photographer, I am proud to wear the title of "amatuer". And, I do feel I get my money's worth. (PS: I still own 2 Beseler MXTs)

[Keith]

Regarding golf, sometime in my 20's I decided to try a par 3 course just to see what all the fuss was about. I shot a 63 my first time out. I was fine with that as I did a bit better on the 2nd hole, so already my game was improving. Can't exactly recall whether I completed the course or just called it mid way through.
Regarding love and dedication to what you do, back in the 90's I started following Nascar, because that's what my friends and coworkers did. And if you wanted to participate in the conversation, you had to speak Nascar. There was a driver by the name of Dave Marcus that had been racing for decades, but being a small independent one car team, always ran in about the bottom 25% towards the later part of his career. Everyone complained about why he didn't just retire, but I saw it differently. Here was a guy going out every weekend enjoying and making a living doing something a lot of people would give a left arm to do once. Why should he retire. Over the course of a 35 year career he ran nearly 900 races and won 5. I think he was focused more on the journey than the destination. It wasn't simply that he wanted to race, he had too. It's who he was. Not every photographer who has that level of dedication reaches the top and stays there, but every photographer that reaches the top and stays there, has that level of dedication.

[Clay Olmstead]

A Christian minister once told me that ministry was "for those who can't do anything else." Not in the sense that they aren't capable for earning a living in any other way, but for them, doing anything else seems like a waste of time.

I feel the same way about art: it's for those who simply cannot do anything else. If they also posses, as you pointed out, high energy and a tremendous capacity for work, they're off to a good start. Those few who have all of that, plus the ability to articulate a unique vision, are the ones we all talk about.